s her guarded reply. "It is true, I
have talked with some in that part of the country."

"You were witness of the anxiety of our attempt to keep war and the
talk of it far in the background,--our desire to preserve the
present state of peace."

"Assuredly. But, Sirs, you will forgive me,--I do not believe
peace will last. I thought so, until this very day. In my belief,
now, there will be war. It can not be averted."

"We are glad to hear the belief of all, on all sides," was the
courteous rejoinder. "We ourselves hope the compromise to be more
nearly final. Perhaps you as well as others hold to the so-called
doctrine of the 'higher law'? Perhaps you found your politics in
Rousseau's _Nouvelle Heloise_, rather than in the more sober words
of our own Constitution?" His eyes were quizzical, yet not unkind.

"Certain doctrines seem to endure," was her stout answer, kindling.
"I am but a woman, yet I take it that anything that I can say will
have no value unless it shall be sincere. To me, this calm is
something which can not endure."

"There at least do not lack others who are of that belief. But
why?"

"They told me in the West that the South has over three million
slaves. They told me that the labor of more than seven million
persons, black and white, is controlled by less than a third of a
million men; and of all that third of a million, less than eight
thousand practically represent the owners of these blacks, who do
not vote. Gentlemen, I have been interested in the cause of
democracy in Europe--I do not deny it--yet it seems to me an
oligarchy and not a democracy which exists in the American South.
The conflict between an oligarchy and a natural democracy is ages
old. It does not die. It seems to me that there is the end of all
compromise--in the renewed struggle of men, all over the world, to
set up an actual government of their own,--not an oligarchy, not a
monarchy, not of property and wealth, but of actual democracy. It
must come, here, some day."

"It is unusual, my dear lady, to find one of your sex disposed to
philosophy so deep and clear as your own. You please us. Will you
go on?"

"Sir, your courtesy gives me additional courage,". was her answer.
"You have asked me for my beliefs--and I do not deny that I have
some of my own, some I have sought to put in practice. To me,
another phase of this question lies in something which the South
itself seems not to have remembered. The