things in the analysis from which you shrink.
Isn't it true?"

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

In his excitement he rose and strode about the room, his face
frowning, his slender figure erect, martial even in its civilian
dress. 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 clear
although 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! 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 tru