The Purchase Price; Or, The Cause of Compromise

by Emerson Hough

  CHAPTER XXIV

  IN THE NAME OF ALTRUISM

  In her apartments at the hotel the following morning Josephine St.Auban looked over the journals of the day. There were many columnsof description of the only social event of the previous day thoughtworth extended mention. The visitors from Hungary were lauded tothe skies. There did not lack many references to the similaritybetween the present struggles of the Hungarian people and those ofour own earlier days. A vast amount of rampant Americanism wascrowded into all these matters.

  She looked over the journals of the day.]

  Joined to this, there was considerable mention of the reappearancein Washington society of the beautiful Countess, Josephine St.Auban, now discovered to have been originally a member of thisHungarian commission, and recently journeying in the western statesof the republic. This beautiful countess was now invested with aromantic history. She was a friend and protegee of the old GeneralZewlinski, a foreign noblewoman half American by birth, of rank,wealth and distinction, who had taken a leading part in the causeof Hungary in her struggle with the oppressing monarchies. Withoutany reference to earlier stories not unknown to them, and bolder asto Austria than those who then dwelt in the White House, thenewspapers now openly and unanswerably welcomed this distinguishedstranger to the heart of Washington. Unknowingly, when they gaveher this publicity, they threw around her also protection, secrecy.As she read, the Countess St. Auban smiled. She knew that nowthere would be no second vehmgerichte. The government now wouldnot dare!

  What interested her more was the story at that time made current,of an unsuccessful attempt which had been made by a southern slaveowner to reclaim his property in a northern state. The factsrecounted that a planter of Maryland, with two relatives, hadfollowed an escaped slave to the settlement of Christianville,Pennsylvania, where a little colony of fugitives had made commoncause together. In this case, as was prescribed under the law, theslave owner had called to his aid a United States marshal, who inturn had summoned a large posse of his own. These had visited thehome of the fugitive and called upon him to surrender himself tohis owner. This the fugitive had refused to do, and he was backedin this refusal by a considerable party of men of his own race,some of them free men, and some fugitive slaves, who had assembledat his house.

  "I'll have my property," asserted the slave owner, according to thereport, "or I'll eat my breakfast in hell." One of the Marylandershad then fired upon the slave, and the fire was returned in generalby the negroes. The old planter, a man of courage, was struck tothe ground, killed by the blacks, his two relatives disabled, andseveral other men on both sides were wounded. The fugitive himselfwas not taken, and the arresting party was obliged to retire.Naturally, great exultation prevailed among the triumphant blacks;and this, so said numerous despatches, was fostered and encouragedby comment of all the northern abolitionist press.

  Josephine St. Auban pondered over this barbarous recountal of anevent which would seem to have been impossible in a civilizedcommunity. "It comes," said she, musing, "it comes! _Ca ira_!There will be war! Ah, I must hasten."

  She turned to other papers, of private nature, in her desk. In ahalf hour more, she had gone over the last remittance reports ofthe agents of her estates in Europe. She smiled, nodded, as shetapped a pencil over the very handsome totals. In ten minutesmore, she was ready and awaiting the call of Carlisle and Kammererin her reception-room. In her mind was a plan already formulated.

  At heart frank and impulsive, and now full of a definite zeal, shedid not long keep them waiting to learn her mind.

  "Are you still for the cause of freedom, and can you keep a secret,or aid in one?" she broke in suddenly, turning toward Carlisle.Looking at him at first for a time, inscrutably, as though half inamusement or in recollection, she now regarded him carefully for aninstant, apparently weighing his make-up, estimating his sincerity,mentally investigating his character, looking at the flame of hishair, the fanatic fire of his deep set eye.

  "I have sometimes done so," he smiled. "Is there anything in whichI can be of service?"

  "Time is short," was her answer. "Let us get at once to the point.I am planning to go into the work long carried on by thatweak-minded Colonization Society; but on certain lines of my own."

  "Explain, Countess!"

  "It is my belief that we should deport the blacks from thiscountry. Very well, I am willing to devote certain moneys andcertain energies to that purpose. Granted I found it advisable andcould obtain proper support, I might perhaps not return to Hungaryfor a time."

  "Kammerer!" broke in Carlisle suddenly, "Listen! Do you hear?It's what we've said! It is precisely what you yourself havealways said."

  "That iss it!--that iss it!" exclaimed the young German. "Thecolonization--remoof them from this country to another, where theyshall be by themselves. That only iss wise, yess. Elsewise mustgreat war come--else must this Union be lost! Ah, Madam; ah,Madam! How great your heart, your mind. I kiss your hand."

  "Listen!" she interrupted. "There are about three and one-thirdmillions of them now. Say they are worth, old and young, large andlittle, one thousand dollars a head--monstrous thing, to put aprice upon a human head, but suppose it. It would amount to but afew billions of dollars. What would a war cost between these twosections? Perhaps a million dollars a day! How much cheaper couldthese slaves be purchased and deported from these shores! Theirowners regard them as property. The laws protect that belief. TheConstitution establishes the laws. There is no peaceful way to endthe turmoil, save by the purchase of these people. That is asolution. It will prevent a war. Let them be sent away to a placewhere they belong, rather than here."

  "My dear Countess," said Carlisle, "you are, as usual, brilliant.Your imagination vaults--your daring is splendid. But as usual youare visionary and impractical. Buy them? To do this would requirethe credit of a nation! It would be subversive of all peace andall industry. You do not realize the sums required. You do notrealize how vast are the complications."

  She stepped closer to him in her eagerness.

  "All it needs is money, and management. A start, and the countrywill follow. Mr. Fillmore himself was about to recommend it, inhis last message. Let me furnish the money, and do you attend tothe complications."

  Carlisle rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "It's beautiful; it may bewise, but it's impossible. It would take a king's credit."

  "At least we might begin with such funds as are already at hand,"smiled the Countess St. Auban. "It might be difficult? I supposethe building of the pyramids was difficult. Yet they were begun.Yet they are finished. Yet they stand, complete, to-day."

  "It is hardly for me to advise in a case so grave as that," saidCarlisle. "I should not undertake it. Have you reallyconsidered?"

  "I have often followed over the same old course of reasoning, Southagainst North," she said, smiling at him. "Come now, arevolutionist and two abolitionists should do much. You still canfight, though they have taken away your sword."

  "Some say that the courts will settle these mooted points,"Carlisle went on; "others, that Congress must do so. Yet othersare unwilling that even the courts should take it up, and insistthat the Constitution is clear and explicit already. TheseSoutherners say that Congress should make an end to it, byspecifically declaring that men have a right to take into any newcountry what they lawfully own--that is to say, these slaves;because that territory was bought in common by North and South.The South is just as honest and sincere as the North is, and to befair about it, I don't believe it's right to claim that the Southwants the Union destroyed. A few hotheads talk of that in SouthCarolina, in Mississippi, but that is precisely what the soberjudgment of the South doesn't desire. Let us match thosesecessionists against the abolitionists," he grinned. "The firstthink they have law back of them. The latter know they have none!"

  "No," she said, "only the higher law, that of human democracy.No,--we've nothing concrete--except Lily!"

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nbsp; "Yes, but let me argue you out of this, Countess. Really, I cansee no just reason why the proud and prosperous North should wishto destroy the proud and prosperous South. If the South remains inthe Union it must be considered a part of the Union. New Englanddid not believe in taxation without representation. Ought it toenforce that doctrine on the South?"

  "You argue it very well, Sir, as well as any one can. The onlytrouble is that you are not convinced, and you do not convince.You are trying to protect me, that's all. I have no answer--exceptLily! There are some things in the analysis from which you shrink.Isn't it true?"

  "Yes, altogether true. We always come back to the bitter andbrutal part of slavery. But what are we going to do for remedy?Anarchy doesn't suggest remedy. For my own part, sometimes I thinkthat Millard Fillmore's idea was right--that the government shouldbuy these slaves and deport them. That would be, as you say, farcheaper than a war. It was the North that originally sold most ofthe slaves. If they, the South, as half the country, are willingto pay back their half of the purchase price, ought not the Northto be satisfied with that? That's putting principles to thehardest test--that of the pocket."

  In his excitement he rose and strode about the room, his facefrowning, his slender figure erect, martial even in its civiliandress. Presently he turned; "But it is noble of you, magnificent,to think of doing what a government hesitates to do! And a woman!"

  "Could it be done?" she demanded. "It would require much money.But what a noble solution it would be!"

  "Precisely. I rejoice to see that your mind is so singularly clearalthough your heart is so kind."

  "You speak in the voice of New England."

  "Yes, yes, I'm a New Englander. She's glorious in her principles,New England, but she carries her principles in her pocket! Iadmire your proposed solution, but that solution I fear you willnever see. It is the fatal test, that of the pocket." But theidea had hold of him, and would not let him go. He walked up anddown, excited, still arguing against it.

  "The South, frankly, has always been juggled out of its rights, allalong the line--through pocket politics--and I'm not sure how muchmore it can endure of the same sort of juggling. Why, John QuincyAdams himself, Northerner that he was, admitted that Missouri hadthe right to come in as a slave state, just as much as had Arkansasand Louisiana. Pocket-politics allowed Congress to trade all ofthe Louisiana Purchase south of thirty-six degrees, thirty minutes,excepting Arkansas, in exchange for the Floridas--and how muchchance, how much lot and part had the Missourians in a country sofar away as Florida? The South led us to war with Mexico in orderto extend our territory, but what did the South get? The Northgets all the great commercial and industrial rights. Just to befrank and fair about it, although I am a New Englander and don'tbelieve in slavery, the truth is, the South has paid its share inblood and risk and money, but it didn't get its share when it cameto the divide; and it never has."

  "Precisely, my dear Captain. I delight to see you so broad-mindedand fair. This plan of mine, to have any success, must be carriedout 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 libertythan it is to put the price of one slave in the hat passed forliberty. New England, all the North, will talk, will hold massmeetings, will pass resolutions commending resistance to thelaw--like this Christianville incident of which there's news thismorning. You'll see the blacks commended for that. But you won'tsee much money raised to keep other blacks from being followed bytheir owners."

  "Then leave it for those who see duty in more concrete form. Leavethe cost to me. My only answer is--Lily."

  And again and again her only answer to them both was--Lily. Shetold them her story, produced the girl herself and made her confirmit, offered her as concrete example to be presented in a platformcampaign which might not end in talk alone--pleaded, argued, andwon.

  "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 thousanddollars.