e of you.
Gloomily, indeed, did Colonel Carvel return home. He loved the Union and
the flag for which his grandfather Richard had fought so bravely. That
flag was his inheritance. So the Judge, laying his hand upon the knee of
his friend, reminded him gravely. But the Colonel shook his head. The
very calmness of their argument had been portentous.
"No, Whipple," said he. "You are a straightforward man. You can't
disguise it. You of the North are bent upon taking away from us the
rights we had when our fathers framed the Constitution. However the
nigger got to this country, sir, in your Bristol and Newport traders, as
well as in our Virginia and Maryland ships, he is here, and he was here
when the Constitution was written. He is happier in slavery than are your
factory hands in New England; and he is no more fit to exercise the
solemn rights of citizenship, I say, than the halfbreeds in the South
American states."
The Judge attempted to interrupt, but Mr. Carvel stopped him.
"Suppose you deprive me of my few slaves, you do not ruin me. Yet you do
me as great a wrong as you do my friend Samuels, of Louisiana, who
depends on the labor of five hundred. Shall I stand by selfishly and see
him ruined, and thousands of others like him?"
Profoundly depressed, Colonel Carvel did not attend the adjourned
Convention at Baltimore, which split once more on Mason and Dixon's line.
The Democrats of the young Northwest stood for Douglas and Johnson, and
the solid South, in another hall, nominated Breckenridge and Lane. This,
of course, became the Colonel's ticket.
What a Babel of voices was raised that summer! Each with its cure for
existing ills. Between the extremes of the Black Republican Negro
Worshippers and the Southern Rights party of Breckenridge, your
conservative had the choice of two candidates,--of Judge Douglas or
Senator Bell. A most respectable but practically extinct body of
gentlemen in ruffled shirts, the Old Line Whigs, had likewise met in
Baltimore. A new name being necessary, they called themselves
Constitutional Unionists Senator Bell was their candidate, and they
proposed to give the Nation soothing-syrup. So said Judge Whipple, with a
grunt of contempt, to Mr. Cluyme, who was then a prominent Constitutional
Unionist. Other and most estimable gentlemen were also Constitutional
Unionists, notably Mr. Calvin Brinsmade. Far be it from any one to cast
disrespect upon the reputable members of this party, wh
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