Orange Grove (Wall)/Chapter 31
"Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side."
"Shall tongues be mute, when deeds are wrought,
Which well might shame extremest hell?
Shall freemen lock the indignant thought?
Shall Pity's bosom cease to swell?
Shall Honor bleed?—Shall Truth succumb?
Shall pen, and press, and soul be dumb?"
Before Walter commenced his professional career as a lawyer, he started on a journey that had been a subject of his thoughts for many years, intending to visit the tomb of Washington, the Capitol of his country, and other places of interest at the South. He was a very enthusiastic politician for one of such precise ideas of morality, much more so than Ernest who took very little interest in political affairs generally. They often discussed the leading topics of the day, upon which the latter kept himself well informed, but he did not care so much to enter into the arena of debate as Walter. He liked argument, liked to probe the depth of every measure to see if it rested on a sure foundation, and was unsparing in his criticisms if it did not. Party spirit then ran high, and a new element was just beginning to tinge the waters of civil commotion, which was soon to sink all other issues in its transcendent inportance. Already Mammon began to tremble, and priestly arrogance to hide itself behind the bulwarks of tradition and sophistry.
Although Walter had studied his political creed under the most conservative teachings, his religious convictions had not parted with that Cardinal point which is the unquestioned heritage of the Protestant faith, the right of private judgment. It would have given him no pleasure, and it would have been no inducement to travel anywhere under a restriction of any opinion he might hold on any subject that came under his observation.
On reaching Washington, meeting an old acquaintance who was going directly to Mount Vernon, he accompanied him. He visited the tomb of the great Patriot and Defender of his country, and rambled over the grounds so often pressed by his weary feet. Descending a slope that led to the spring in a sequestered, but most enchanting and romantic spot, he sat down to rest and feast his soul upon a beauty of natural scenery that, aside from the interest it inspired by its association with the illustrious dead, was well calculated to lead the thoughts from the narrow range of the present over the boundless fields of the past, and the ungathered harvests yet to be garnered in the golden sheaves of the future. He dwelt upon the long list of British aggressions that had fired the indignant souls of Adams and Otis, until the flames of war kindled the whole Atlantic seaboard, when, by the united voices of those sitting at the helm, the rising ship of state was entrusted through its varying fortunes to the skill and wisdom of a young man whose successful career had laid the foundation of a nation stretching its arms over the oppressed of all lands that they should find here an asylum and a home, unmolested in the enjoyment of freedom of conscience, and he grew impatient of himself and longed to be another Washington. Full of these reflections he left this favorite Mecca of the Americans, undisturbed in his delightful reverie until he reached his hotel in Washington. There he overheard two gentlemen discussing a slave auction that was to take place the next day, one of whom was lately from the North and apparently a novice in such matters, to whom the other was giving instructions how to proceed to secure a good bargain in the pound of human flesh. His revolting details of personal examinations, and the heartlessness with which he described the shrewdness necessary to elude the deceptions of the slave-trader on the one hand, and the pretended sensibilities of his victims on the other, clashed greatly with Walter's ideas of the sacredness of humanity.
The next day he attended the sale, which was not calculated to allay his excited feelings. He saw there beauty, that the aristocratic circles of his native city might envy; children whose saddened countenances indicated the weight of years rather than the buoyancy of childhood; aged men and women, whose bowed heads betokened the utter despair of their hearts. Around them was a motley crew, mostly vulgar and brutal; yet occasionally, one of gentlemanly bearing stood a little apart like himself, as if ashamed and disgusted at this nefarious exhibition of depraved passions and filthy lucre. Foremost among the latter class was the prospective Northern slaveholder, shrinking a little from the unwelcome task before him,—unwelcome, because the Northern prejudices against the system instilled into him among the granite hills of his native state were not quite conquered, yet bearing on his brow the well defined outlines of a dogged perseverance when the Yankee's love of money should overpower the nobler instincts of the soul. He bid off at an exorbitant price a beautiful Quadroon, not the best investment of money, which was of little moment just now, as he had fixed upon her, at any price, for a present to his young bride; but retribution soon followed them both, for the Quadroon became the fire-brand of domestic discord. The sale went on very much like our sales of cattle and swine, with the exception of a more barbarous set of tradesmen.
When Walter returned to his hotel he made some remarks upon the revolting spectacle he had witnessed, and drew some disparaging comparisons of this inhuman traffic with the theory of our democratic institutions and religious professions, which stirred the chivalric blood of the hot-headed Southron.
"You'd better look out, young man, how you come here to meddle with our institutions. They are our right, and we will have none of your Northern interference," said a well-dressed sprig of the Southern aristocracy.
"I did not come here to meddle with your institutions. I came to visit the tomb of Washington, the founder of this Republic, and I ought to have the right of free speech any where within its precincts, upon any subject, or it would not be deserving the name of a Republic," quietly, but firmly responded Walter, eyeing his opponent.
"I challenge you," said the latter, doubling his fists, and assuming a defiant attitude, "in the name and honor of our darling institution that you have insulted."
"I fight no duels," calmly replied Walter, "the cause that descends to such low means for its defence shows the most convincing proof of its own weakness."
A tumultuous roar of voices now succeeded. The slave traders who had resorted thither after the auction, inflamed with whiskey, made use of the most obscene language that ever greeted his ears, independent of the epithets applied to himself.
"Set him on a rail and give him a right smart treat of our hospitality," drawled out a thick set, low-browed, savage looking, tobacco chewing representative of the "sacred" soil of Virginia, who, no doubt, would faithfully execute any deed of that nature imposed upon him.
"He prates about Washington as if that was any thing to us. He was an old fool that he didn't get his old woman from your cussed North, instead of humoring their spleen. That's where he missed it, and made us a heap o' trouble, that he didn't make them understand in the beginning what's what. Made 'em know that they'd got to obey the laws, and stop this old confounded prattle about human rights and the nigger, but we shall have 'em yet tighter 'n a vice, then we'll see 'em squirm. Our plans are all fixed."
This defiant speech of one of the cotton lords was followed by a roar of exultant laughter, and a knowing shake of the head of one of the lower class as he called out to a craven looking huckster standing in the door,
"You worked the card slick James when you got your niggar wench from the North, and there wan't no outcry about it nuther that ever I heered on, shows how much they care for the nigger arter all. That was right hard on you when she run away, bein' the only one you ever owned, you might a' raised a right smart stock from her, and she never was wuth nothin' to ye arterwards."
Walter was on the point of asking a question or two here, but the landlord managed to draw him one side and besought him to leave as soon as he could or they would both get into trouble. He had been witness of too many such altercations to be unmindful of their results. Walter had no desire to stop longer among such society and he hastened away disgusted and disheartened by what ho had seen and heard in the heart of the nation. It so happened that before he left the precincts of slave-dom, he was the witness of another auction. This was a more private sale, being the bankrupt stock of an individual lately deceased. He was an unusually indulgent master, and the grief and lamentation of the slaves as they were put up was heart-rending. Here was a favorite slave woman, nearly white, who was born and reared in the family, and had never known a single hardship. Her mistress was a very Inefficient woman, free from the jealousy commonly excited among Southern ladies by the presence of slaves superior to themselves in personal attractions or mental capacities. The consequence was, this woman exercised far more sway than she did herself, and was naturally proud spirited and sensitive. The defiant look she cast when ordered to take the stand roused the passions of a Southern slave-dealer who had often seen her and tried to obtain her of her master, and he determined now to have her in his power to conquer. He subjected her to every species of insult in his questions and examinations, while she trembled from head to foot through fear of falling into his hands. The price ran high, being a desirable article, so to speak of a human being, and he had to pay an enormous sum. When he laid hold of her to take her away the resistance she made ruptured a blood vessel and she bled to death on the spot. The wrath of the slave trader knew no bounds when thus foiled of his prey, and he swore and kicked her, while the bystanders exulted in his loss, some of whom were sadly disappointed at not being able to obtain her for themselves. The little notice taken of this event, merely as if she had been a dog or a horse, was an outrage to civilization Walter would not have believed could exist in his own country if he had not been an eye witness of the fact. His enthusiasm received such a check that he had no desire to continue his journey farther, even if allowed the free expression of his opinion. True, he knew slavery existed in the land, but it never came home to his conscience in this light before. Like thousands of others he accepted the current phrase that this was the freest country on the face of the globe, the truth of which, tested by Massachusetts institutions, there seemed no reason to question. He returned to his Northern home, but it no longer wafted o'er his brow the free, pure air that inspired his childhood's boyish dreams. A deadly taint rested on all the superstructure to which he had formerly turned with reverence as the embodiment of human wisdom, extending its privileges for the benefit and protection of every child of the human family; and he saw Law, which was associated in his mind with the first principle of divine order, perverted to the vilest of purposes, while no one questioned the rightfulness of the foul work to which it was prostituted. He went into a searching examination of all the various channels of jurisprudence to which his native tongue gave access, and sought in vain for a vestige of the shadow of right to barter as merchandise a human being under any pretext whatever. Even Blackstone, the child and advocate of a monarchy, gave to Liberty the broadest interpretation that could be safely done in accordance with the reserved rights of the individual, and in no case were the latter to be given up except for the benefit of society, in which he would share as one of its members. Again and again did he reperuse those pages to trace there the principle that governs all history, and under the guidance of a new light, which the Law school of Cambridge could never yield, he gradually unfolded the divine plan by which, through storm and revolution, the passions of the multitude and the unflinching fidelity of the few combine, from the irresistible necessities of the hour, each acting in its own characteristic channel, one through fire and blood the other through the preaching of truth alone, to baptize anew the idea incarnated at creation's birth, when man was created in the image of God, that as such he should enjoy all the prerogatives, immunities and heirships to which he is entitled as an immortal being, irrespective of clime, color or condition. His resolution was formed. He would exert his own influence to rouse the slumbering conscience of the North to a sense of its participation in the common guilt by maintaining silence when such enormities were perpetrated in the heart of the nation. Especially was it incumbent on the church, whose mission it was to preach the gospel to every creature, to remember the oppressed as bound with them and to warn the oppressor of the day of judgment, when if he did not heed the divine command to break every yoke, he would be visited with fire and sword, with pestilence and famine, to take up this question and present its claims to the religious world.