The Purchase Price; Or, The Cause of CompromiseHough, Emerson
History
The Purchase Price; Or, The Cause of Compromise
Hough, Emerson
United States -- History -- 1815-1861 -- Fiction
"Yes, yes, I'm a New Englander. She's glorious in her principles,
New England, but she carries her principles in her pocket! I
admire your proposed solution, but that solution I fear you will
never see. It is the fatal test, that of the pocket." But the
idea had hold of him, and would not let him go. He walked up and
down, excited, still arguing against it.
"The South, frankly, has always been juggled out of its rights, all
along the line--through pocket politics--and I'm not sure how much
more it can endure of the same sort of juggling. Why, John Quincy
Adams himself, Northerner that he was, admitted that Missouri had
the right to come in as a slave state, just as much as had Arkansas
and Louisiana. Pocket-politics allowed Congress to trade all of
the Louisiana Purchase south of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes,
excepting Arkansas, in exchange for the Floridas--and how much
chance, how much lot and part had the Missourians in a country so
far away as Florida? The South led us to war with Mexico in order
to extend our territory, but what did the South get? The North
gets all the great commercial and industrial rights. Just to be
frank and fair about it, although I am a New Englander and don't
believe in slavery, the truth is, the South has paid its share in
blood and risk and money, but it didn't get its share when it came
to the divide; and it never has."
"Precisely, my dear Captain. I delight to see you so broad-minded
and fair. This plan of mine, to have any success, must be carried
out on lines broad-minded and fair."
"But how adjust pocket interests on both sides? You'll see.
You'll be left alone. It is easier to make a speech for liberty
than it is to put the price of one slave in the hat passed for
liberty. New England, all the North, will talk, will hold mass
meetings, will pass resolutions commending resistance to the
law--like this Christianville incident of which there's news this
morning. You'll see the blacks commended for that. But you won't
see much money raised to keep other blacks from being followed by
their owners."
"Then leave it for those who see duty in more concrete form. Leave
the cost to me. My only answer is--Lily."
And again and again her only answer to them both was--Lily. She
told them her story, produced the girl herself and made her confirm
it, offered her as concrete example to be presented in a platform
campaign which might not end in talk alone--pleaded, argued, and
won.
"Madam, I, too, kiss your hands," said Carlisle at last; and did so.
An hour after that, she had laid out a campaign for her two agents,
and had arranged for the expenditure of an initial hundred thousand
dollars.
CHAPTER XXV
THE ARTFUL GENTLEMAN PROM KENTUCKY
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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