e native of that State does an act or holds an opinion, it is
his nature to confess it and avow the motives thereof, without quibbling
or hesitation. It is a persuaded, self-poised community, strikingly like
its negative pole on the Slavery Question, Massachusetts. All those
Charlestonians whom I talked with I found open-hearted in their
secession, and patient of my open-heartedness as an advocate of the
Union, although often astonished, I suspect, that any creature capable
of drawing a conclusion from two premises should think so differently
from themselves.

"But have you looked at the platform of the Republicans?" I proceeded.
"It is not adverse to slavery in the States; it only objects to its
entrance into the Territories; it is not an Abolition platform."

"We don't trust in the platform; we believe that it is an incomplete
expression of the party creed,--that it suppresses more than it utters.
The spirit which keeps the Republicans together is enmity to slavery,
and that spirit will never be satisfied until the system is extinct."

"Finally,--yes; gradually and quietly and safely,--that is possible. I
suppose that the secret and generally unconscious _animus_ of the party
is one which will abolitionize it after a long while."

"When will it begin to act in an abolition sense, do you think?"

"I can't say: perhaps a hundred years from now; perhaps two hundred."

There was a general laugh from the half-dozen persons who formed the
group.

"What time do _you_ fix?" I inquired.

"Two years. But for this secession of ours, there would have been bills
before Congress within two years, looking to the abolition of slavery in
the navy-yards, the District of Columbia, etc. That would be only the
point of the wedge, which would soon assume the dimensions of an attack
on slavery in the States. Look how aggressive the party has been in the
question of the Territories."

"The questions are different. When Congress makes local laws for Utah,
it does not follow that it will do likewise for South Carolina. You
might as well infer, that, because a vessel sails from Liverpool to New
York in ten days, therefore it will sail overland to St. Louis in five
more."

Incredulous laughter answered me again. The South has labored under two
delusions: first, that the Republicans are Abolitionists; second, that
the North can be frightened. Back of these, rendering them fatally
effective, lies that other delusion, the imagined right