"Hurrah for plucky little South Carolina!" he shouted, striking up a war-dance and flourishing the paper over his head. "Listen to this, fellows: 'The Union is dissolved. Passed at 1:15 P.M., December 20, 1860, an ordinance to dissolve the Union existing between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled "The Constitution of the United States of America."' There it is in black and white. She's out, and of course all the other Cotton States will go with her. The Stars and Stripes have been pulled down in the city of Charleston, and the State flag is flying over all the public buildings. Let's follow their example, and haul that flag down from the tower. Come on, Marcy."
These two boys, Rodney and Marcy Gray, were very popular among their fellows, and had been looked up to as leaders ever since they arrived at the dignity of memberships in the first class and company. They were cousins, and both were Southern born. Marcy was a "Tarheel," because he came from North Carolina, and Rodney was called a "Pelican," Louisiana being his native State.
Rodney's father was a rich sugar-planter who did not want to have anything to do with Northern men, some of whom would have taken his slaves from him if they had possessed the power, and thus deprived him of the means of working his fine plantation; and it was natural that his only son should follow in his lead. Rodney believed in State Rights, and preached his doctrines as often as he could find any one willing to listen to him. His Cousin Marcy had no father (he was lost at sea when the boy and his older brother, Jack, were quite young), and he believed as his mother did—that slavery was wrong, that the Union was right, and that those who wanted to destroy it were fanatics who did not know what they were about. But Marcy was not a passive Unionist. On the day South Carolina began threatening secession, he declared that she ought to be whipped into submission; and he had never ceased to proclaim his principles in spite of the lowering looks he saw and the threats he heard on every side. The boys declared that they would send him to Coventry; that is, withdraw from all fellowship with him; but when they came to try it, they found to their surprise and disgust, that they would have to go back on more than half the school, for some of the best boys in it promptly sided with Marcy. The latter had many friends, and the Union sentiment was strong in the academy; but on the morning that Rodney Gray read the extract from the Charleston Mercury, showing that South Carolina had made no idle threat when she threatened to secede if she could not have her own way, then the real test came. Many of the boys were astonished and shocked, for they had never believed that things would come to such a pass. The mail having just been distributed, they all had papers, but they did not stop to read them after listening to those ominous headlines. They shoved them into their pockets and went slowly out of the building, while Rodney and his fellows, who were almost beside themselves with exultation and excitement, made a rush for the stairs that led to the tower. On the way Rodney stopped to exchange a few words with his cousin.
"You didn't think it would come, did you?" he exclaimed, walking up to Marcy and snatching away the paper on which the latter's eyes were fastened. "But you see it has, don't you? It seems that those furious threats about secession were not all talk, don't it? But seriously, Marcy, I know you stand where every other Southern boy stands, and that you are with us heart and soul. All I ask of you is to say so. Why don't you speak? Which side are you on, any way?"
But Marcy did not utter a word. Although he looked straight at his cousin he did not appear to know that Rodney was talking to him, for his mind was busy with other matters.
"Tell him you're neutral," suggested Dick Graham, whose home was in
Missouri, and whom we may meet again under different circumstances.
"That's what I am going to be, for I don't think my State will follow in
South Carolina's lead."
"But I am not neutral." replied Marcy, arousing himself at last. "I am for the Union all over, and I'm sorry we haven't a Jackson in Washington at this moment to say that it must and shall be preserved. I hope Buchanan will send ships enough into Charleston harbor to blow that miserable State out of water."
"Let him try it, and see how quickly the other Cotton States will arm to help her," exclaimed Bob Cole, who was one of Rodney's friends and followers. "Coerce a sovereign State? The President can't do it. The Constitution does not give him the power."
Bob Cole did not know it, and neither did any of the other boys who were standing around listening to his fiery words, but that was the very argument the frightened chief magistrate was going to put forth in his next message to Congress.
"The President will only make a bad matter worse if he tries any fool thing like that," continued Bob, who, like most of the boys of that section of the country, had heard these matters discussed so often that he had them at his tongue's end. "I tell you that the events of yesterday are an entering wedge. We are tired of the company of those Yankees up North, and now we are going to get rid of them and have a government of our own; see if we don't. Why should we not? The people up there do not belong to the same race we do. They are regicides and Roundheads—plodding, stingy folks, in whose eyes a dollar looks as big as a cart-wheel. The race who settled Virginia and scattered all over these Southern States, were cavaliers and money spenders, and their descendants are the same. We've wanted to get rid of them ever since 1830, and now we are going to do it. Patrick Henry warned us against forming a partnership with them in the first place."