"Oh, go ahead! I bake no bread in any of their ovens!"
Very soon I had a letter from Gen. Lowrie, saying:
"I myself will give the St. Cloud Visiter a support second to that of no paper in the territory, if it will support Buchanan's administration. Otherwise I can do nothing."
I had not finished reading, when the thought came: "Now I have you." Yet still I knew it looked like, ah, very like a man catching a whale with a fish hook secured to his own person, when there were a hundred chances to one that the whale had caught him. I replied that the St. Cloud Visiter would support Mr. Buchanan's administration, since it could not live without Gen. Lowrie's assistance, and such was his ultimatum.
On the second day after that contract was made, brother Harry came, all trembling with rage, and said:
"Lowrie is telling all over town that he has bought you, and that the Visiter is to support Buchanan!"
"It is true," was the astounding answer, when he said bad words, rushed from the room and slammed the door. Then followed ten days, the only ones since he became my brother when he would not call me "Sis." Elizabeth said:
"I would have seen Lowrie and his money in the bottom of the sea, first!
What would mother say?"
The next issue of the Visiter made no allusion to its change of base, and there was plenty of time to discuss the question. Those who knew my record refused to believe I had sold out, and took bets on it. However, the next number contained an editorial which relieved the minds of friends, but which created the gravest apprehension. It stated that the Visiter would, in future, support Buchanan's administration, and went on to state the objects of that administration as being the entire subversion of Freedom and the planting of Slavery in every State and Territory, so that Toombs could realize his boast, and call the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill. It reminded its readers that John Randolph had said in the United States Senate when speaking to Northern men:
"We have driven you to the wall, and will drive you there again, and next time we will keep you there and nail you to the counter like base money."