"'Down with the Supreme Court of the United States!'
"You have not only insulted us as unchristian and heathen, you have proclaimed that four million ignorant negroes but yesterday taken from the savagery of cannibal Africa are our equals and entitled to share in the solemn rights of American citizenship. Your declaration is an open summons that they rise in insurrection with the knife in one hand and the torch in the other.
"Your mob has declared the South outlawed, branded with ignominy, consigned to execration and ultimate destruction. Your mob has decreed the death of Slavery and sends the new President to execute their decree.
"All right—kill Slavery and then what? Kill Slavery and what will you do with its corpse? Who shall deliver us from the body of this death? We are not leaving this Hall to fight for the Institution of African Slavery. The grim specter of a degraded and mongrel citizenship which lies back of your mob's programme of confiscation is the force that is driving the Southern people out of the Union to find peace and safety. Whatever may be the sins of Slavery in the South they are as nothing when compared to the degradation of your life which must follow their violent emancipation. The Southern white man is slowly lifting the African out of barbarism into the light of Christian civilization. In our own good time we will emancipate him and start him on a new life beyond the boundaries of our Republic. Whatever may be the differences of opinion in the South on the institution of slavery—there is no difference and there has never been on one point—it was true yesterday—it is true to-day—it will be true to-morrow—Slavery is the only modus viviendi by which two such races as the Negro and the Aryan can live side by side in a free democracy with equality the law of its life—"
Again a burst of tumultuous applause swept the gallery.
"The issue is clear cut and terrible in its simplicity—the South stands on the faith of our fathers who created this Republic. The South stands for Constitutional freedom under the forms of established law. The North has lifted the red flag of revolution and proclaims the irresponsible despotism of an enthroned mob!
"For a generation your school mistresses have been training your boys to hate us and arming them to fight us. Make no mistake about this movement to-day. We who go are but the servants of those who sent us. They now recall their ambassadors, and we obey their sovereign will. Make no mistake about it. They are not a brave and rash people, deluded by bad men, who are attempting in an illegal way to wreck the Union. They seek peace and safety outside driven by the Rebellion against Law and Order within.
"Are we more or less than men? Can we love our enemies and bless them that curse and revile us? Are we devoid of the sensibilities, the sentiments, the passions, the reason, and the instincts of mankind? Have we no pride, no honor, no sense of shame, no reverence for our ancestors, no care for posterity, no love for home, or family or friends? Must we quail before the onion breath of an enthroned mob, confess our baseness, discredit the fame of our sires, degrade our children, abandon our homes, flee from our country and dishonor ourselves—all for the sake of a Union whose Constitution you have publicly burned and whose Supreme Court you have spit upon?
"Shall we consent to live under an administration controlled by those who not only deny us justice and equality and brand us as infamous, but boldly proclaim their purpose to rob us of our property and destroy our civilization?
"The freemen of Alabama have proclaimed to the world they will not. In their sovereign power they have recalled me. As their servant I go!"
With a wave of his hand in an imperious gesture of defiance to the silent Senators of the North, amid a scene of unparalleled passion, the speaker turned to his seat, gathered his books and papers and strode with quick firm step down the aisle.
Jennie had leaped to her feet and stood clapping her hands in a frenzy of excitement, unconscious of the existence of the strangely quiet young man by her side.
He rose and stood smiling into her flushed face as she gasped:
"A wonderful speech—wasn't it?"
"They say the South has never lacked audacity, Miss Barton. I'm wondering if they are really going to make good such words with deeds."
He spoke with a cold detachment that chilled and angered the impulsive girl. A hot answer was on her lips when she remembered suddenly that he was a foreigner.
"Of course, Signor, you can not understand our feelings!"
"On the other hand, I assure you, I do—I'm just wondering in a cold intellectual way whether the oratorical temperament—the temperament of passion, of righteous wrath of the explosive type which we have just witnessed, will win in the trial by fire which war will bring—"
"You doubt our courage?" she interrupted, with a slight curve of the proud little lips.
"Far from it—I assure you! I'm only wondering if it has the sullen, dogged, staying qualities these stolid Northern men down there have exhibited while they listened—"
The girl threw him a quick surprised look and he stopped. His voice had unconsciously taken the tones of a soliloquy.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Barton," he said, with sudden swing to the polite tones of society. "I'm annoying you with my foreign speculations—"
A sudden murmur swept the galleries and all eyes were turned on the tall slender figure of Jefferson Davis as he slowly entered the Senate Chamber.
"Who is it?" Socola asked.
"Senator Davis—you don't know him?"
"I have never seen him before. He has been quite ill I hear."
"Yes. He's been in bed for the past week suffering agonies from neuralgia. He lost the sight of one of his eyes from chronic pain caused by exposure in the service of his country in the northwest."
"Really—I didn't know that."
"He was compelled to remain in a darkened room for months the past year to save the sight of his remaining eye."
"That accounts for my not having seen him before."
Socola followed the straight military figure with painful interest as he slowly moved toward his seat greeting with evident weakness his colleagues as he passed. He was astonished beyond measure at the personality of the famous leader of the "Southern Conspirators" of whom he had heard so much. He was the last man in all the crowd he would have singled out for such a rôle. The face was too refined, too spiritual, too purely intellectual for the man of revolution. His high forehead, straight nose, thin compressed lips and pointed chin belonged to the poet and dreamer rather than the man of action. The hollow cheek bones and deeply furrowed mouth told of suffering so acute the sympathy of every observer was instantly won.
In spite of evident suffering his carriage was erect, dignified, and graceful. The one trait which fastened the attention from the first and held it was the remarkable intensity of expression which clothed his thin muscular face.
"You like him?" Jennie ventured at last.
"I can't say, Miss Barton," was the slowly measured answer. "He is a remarkably interesting man. I'm surprised and puzzled—"
"Surprised and puzzled at what?"
"Well, you see I know his history. The diplomatist makes it his business to know the facts in the lives of the leaders of a nation to whose Government he is accredited. Mr. Davis spent four years at West Point. He gave seven years of his life to the service of the army in the West. He carried your flag to victory in Mexico and hobbled home on crutches. He was one of your greatest Secretaries of War. He sent George B. McClellan and Robert