“What did he say?”
“He told them the Lord was providing a government.”
“Don’t you think this so-called government, where Congress may only humbly ask the several colonies, each to do its part, a pretty poor sort of government to lay at the Lord’s door? Why, once these colonies get clear of England, they’ll fight among themselves. But, even if they didn’t, the country would have a 267 patchwork of little petty governments and nothing in common to make them strong.”
“Do you remember what Gadsden said at New York at the meeting held in protest against the Stamp Act?”
“No; what was it?”
“He said: ‘There ought to be no New England man, no New Yorker known on the continent; but all of us, Americans.’ I well remember father speaking of that. There was a queer codger who joined the Rangers. The men, because of his long legs, named him ‘Lopin’ Luther,’ and he once said: ‘We’re fightin’ fer free Englishmen as well as Americans, only the darn fools don’t know it.’”
“You mean, or rather he meant, the principle involved. But, from what I have learned, the more of what the people term freedom they have, the more they want.”
“And why not? Whoever called you the ‘Cavalier,’ evidently knew why he did so.”
The man’s face became grave. He said: “I am not worthy of the name. I have great respect for those who were known as Cavaliers. Some of your best blood in the Old Dominion descended from them. I believe it isn’t so much what people have as the way they use it. I’ve seen those who were getting along finely until something more was added to them, then make a failure of it. Take your hero, Morgan; what did he have but his own courage and brains and powerful body? He’s made the most of what he had. 268 Had he been born a duke he might not have done so well.”
“Could he have done what he has in your country, where your dukes are born with the privilege of lording it over the Morgans?”