Lee had promised Edmund Ruffin his answer early in the week. Ruffin had
just ridden up the hill and dismounted.
Mrs. Marshall, the Colonel's sister, on a visit from Baltimore, fled at
his approach.
"Excuse me, Mary," she cried to Mrs. Lee. "I just can't stand these
ranting fire-eating politicians. They make me ill. I'll go to my room."
She hurried up the stairway and left the frail mistress of the house to
meet her formidable guest.
Ruffin was the product of the fierce Abolition Crusade. Hot-tempered,
impulsive, intemperate in his emotions and their expression, he was the
perfect counterpart of the men who were working night and day in the
North to create a condition of mob feeling out of which a civil conflict
might grow. _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ had set him on fire with new hatreds.
His vocabulary of profanity had been enlarged by the addition of every
name in the novel. He had been compelled to invent new expressions to
fit these characters. He damned them individually and collectively. He
cursed each trait of each character, good and bad. He cursed the good
points with equal unction and equal emphasis. In fact the good traits in
Mrs. Stowe's people seemed to carry him to greater heights of wrath and
profanity than the bad ones. He dissected each part of each character's
anatomy, damned each part, put the parts together and damned the
collection. And then he damned the whole story, characters, plot and
scenes to the lowest pit and cursed the devil for not building a lower
one to which he might consign it. And in a final burst of passion he
always ended by damning himself for his utter inability to express
_anything_ which he really felt.
With all his ugly language, which he reserved for conversation with men,
he was the soul of consideration for a woman. Mrs. Lee had no fear of
any rude expression from his lips. She didn't like him because she felt
in his personality the touch of mob insanity which the Slavery question
had kindled. She dreaded this appeal to blind instinct and belief. With
a woman's intuition she felt the tragic possibility of such leadership
North and South.
She saw his leonine head and shaggy hair silhouetted against the red
glow of the west with a shiver at its symbolism, but met him with the
cordial greeting which every Southern woman gave instinctively to the
friend of her husband.
"Come in, Mr. Ruffin," she welcomed.
He bowed over her hand and spoke in the soft drawl of the Southern
planter.
"Thank you, Madame. I'm greatly honored in having you greet me at the
door."
"Colonel Lee is expecting you."
The planter drew himself up with a touch of pride and importance.
"Yes'm. I sent him word I would be here at three. I was detained in
Washington. But I succeeded in convincing the editor of _The Daily
Globe_ that my mission was one of grave importance. I not only desire to
wish Colonel Lee God-speed on his journey to West Point and congratulate
him on the honor conferred on Virginia by his appointment to the command
of our Cadets--but--"
He paused, smiled and glanced toward the portico, as if he were holding
back an important secret.
Mrs. Lee hastened to put him at his ease.
"You can trust my discretion in any little surprise you may have for the
Colonel."
Ruffin bowed.
"I'm sure I can, Madame. I'm sure I can."
He dropped his voice.
"You know perhaps that I sent him a few days ago a scurrilous attack on
the South by a Yankee woman--a new novel?"
"He received it."
"Has he read it?"
"Carefully. He has read it twice."
"Good!"
The planter breathed deeply, squared his shoulders and paced the floor
with a single quick turn. He stopped before Mrs. Lee and spoke in sharp
emphasis.
"I'm going to spring a little surprise on the public, Madame! A
sensation that will startle the country, and God knows we need a little
shaking just now--"
He paused and whispered.
"I'm so sure of what the Colonel will say that I've brought a reporter
from the Washington _Daily Globe_ with me--"
Mrs. Lee lifted her hand in dismay.
"He is here?"
"He is seated on the lawn just outside, Madame," Ruffin hastened to
reassure her. "I thought at the last moment I'd better have him wait
until I received Colonel Lee's consent to the interview."
"I'm glad you did."
"Oh, it will be all right, I assure you!"
"He might not wish to see a reporter--"
"So I told the young man."
"I'm afraid--"
"I'll pave the way, Madame. I'll pave the way. Colonel Lee and I are
life-long friends. Will you kindly announce me?"
"The Colonel has just ridden up to the stables to give some orders about
his horses. He'll be here in a moment."
Lee stepped briskly into the room and extended his hand.
"It's you, Ruffin. My apologies. I was called out to see a neighbor. I
should have been here to receive you."
"No apologies, Colonel, Mrs. Lee has been most gracious."
The mistress of the house smiled.
"Make yourself at home, Mr. Ruffin. I shall hope to see you at dinner."
Ruffin stood respectfully until Mrs. Lee had disappeared.
"Pray be seated," Lee invited.
Ruffin seated himself on the couch and watched his host keenly.
Lee took a cigar from the mantel and offered it.
"A cigar, Ruffin?"
"Thanks."
"Now make yourself entirely at home, my good friend."
The planter lighted the cigar, blew a long cloud of smoke and settled in
his seat.
"I'm glad to learn from Mrs. Lee that you have read the book I sent
you--the Abolitionist firebrand."
"Yes."
Lee quietly walked to the mantel and got the volume.
"I have it here."
He turned the leaves thoughtfully.
Ruffin laughed.
"And, what do you think of it?"
The Colonel was silent a moment.
"Well, for those who like that kind of book--it's the kind of book they
will like."
"Exactly!" Ruffin cried, slapping his knee with a blow that bruised it.
"And you're the man in all the South to tell the fool who likes that
sort of book just how big a fool he is!"
Lee opened the volume again and turned the pages slowly.
"Ruffin, I don't read many novels--"
He paused as if in deep study.
"But this one I have read twice."
"I'm glad you did, sir," the planter snapped.
"And I must confess it stunned me."
"Stunned you?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"When I finished reading it, I felt like the overgrown boy who stubbed
his toe. It hurt too bad to laugh. And I'm too big to cry."
"You amaze me, sir."
"That's the way I feel, my friend."
He paused, walked to the window, and gazed out at the first lights that
began to flicker in the windows of the Capitol across the river.
"That book," he went on evenly, "is an appeal to the heart of the world
against Slavery. It is purely an appeal to sentiment, to the emotions,
to passion, if you will--the passions of the mob and the men who lead
mobs. And it's terrible. As terrible as an army with banners. I heard
the throb of drums through its pages. It will work the South into a
frenzy. It will make millions of Abolitionists in the North who could
not be reached by the coarser methods of abuse. It will prepare the soil
for a revolution. If the right man appears at the right moment with a
lighted torch--"
"That's just why, sir, as the foremost citizen of Virginia, you must
answer this slander. I have brought a reporter from the _Globe_ with me
for that purpose. Shall I call him,"
"A reporter from a daily paper with a circulation of fifteen thousand?"
"Your word, Colonel Lee, will be heard at this moment to the ends of the
earth, sir!"
"In a newspaper interview?"
"Yes, sir."
"Nonsense."
"It's your character that will count."
"Such an answer would be a straw pitched against a hurricane. I am told
that this book has already reached a circulation of half a million
copies and it has only begun. That means already three million readers.
To answer this book my pen should be better trained than my sword--"
"It is, sir, if you'll only use it."
"The South has only trained swords. And not so many of them as we think.
We have no writers. We have no literature. We have no champions in the
forum of the world's thought. We are being arraigned at the judgment bar
of mankind and we are dumb. It's appalling."
"That's why you must speak for us. Speak in our defense. Speak with a
tongue of flame--"
"I am not trained for speech, Ruffin. And the pen is mightier than the
sword. I've never realized it before. The South will soon have the
civilized world arraigned against her. The North with a thousand pens is
stirring the faiths, the prejudices and the sentiments of the millions.
This appeal is made in the face of History, Reason and Law. But its
force will be as the gravitation of the earth, beyond the power of
resistance, unless we can check it in time."
"When it comes to resistance," Ruffin snapped, "that's another question.
The Yankees are a race of damned cowards and poltroons, sir. They won't
fight."
Lee shook his head gravely.
"I've been in the service more than a quarter of a century, my friend.
I've seen a lot of Yankees under fire. I've seen a lot of them die. And
I know better. Your idea of a Yankee is about as correct as the Northern
notion of Southern fighters. A notion they're beginning to exploit in
cartoons which show an effeminate lady killer with an umbrella stuck in
the end of his musket and a negro mixing mint juleps for him."
"We've got to denounce those slanders. I'm a man of cool judgment and I
never lose my temper--"
He leaped to his feet purple with rage.
"But, by God, sir, we can't sit quietly under the assault of these
narrow-minded bigots. You must give the lie to this infamous book!"
"How can I, my friend?"
"Doesn't she make heroes of law breakers?"
"Surely."
"Is there no reverence for law left in this country?"
"In Courts of Justice, yes. But not in the courts of passion, prejudice,
beliefs, sentiment. The writers of sentiment sing the praises of law
breakers--"
"But there can be no question of the right or wrong of this book. It is
an infamous slander. I deny and impeach it!"
"I'm afraid that's all we can do, Ruffin--deny and impeach it. When we
come down to brass tacks we can't answer it. From their standpoint the
North is right. From our standpoint we are right, because our rights are
clear under the Constitution. Slavery is not a Southern institution; it
is a national inheritance. It is a national calamity. It was written
into the Constitution by all the States, North and South. And if the
North is ignorant of our rights under the laws of our fathers, we have
failed to enlighten them--"
"We won't be dictated to, sir, by a lot of fanatics and hypocrites."
"Exactly, we stand on our dignity. We deny and we are ready to fight.
But we will not argue. As an abstract proposition in ethics or
economics, Slavery does not admit of argument. It is a curse. It's on
us and we can't throw it off at once. My quarrel with the North is
that they do not give us their sympathy and their help in our dilemma.
Instead they rave and denounce and insult us. They are even more
responsible than we for the existence of Slavery, since their ships, not
ours, brought the negro to our shores. Slavery is an outgrown economic
folly, a bar to progress, a political and social curse to the white
race. It must die of its own weakness, South, as it died of its own
weakness, North. It is now in the process of dying. The South has freed
over three hundred thousand slaves by the voluntary act of the master.
If these appeals of the mob leader to the spirit of the mob can be
stopped, a solution will be found."
"It will never be found in the ravings of Abolitionists."
"Nor in the hot tempers of our Southern partisans, Ruffin. Look in
the mirror, my good friend. Chattel Slavery is doomed because of the
superior efficiency of the wage system. Morals have nothing to do with
it. The Captain of Industry abolished Chattel Slavery in the North, not
the preacher or the agitator. He established the wage system in its
place because it is a mightier weapon in his hand. It is subject to but
one law. The iron law of supply and demand. Labor is a commodity to be
bought and sold to the highest bidder. And the highest bidder is at
liberty to bid lower than the price of bread, clothes, fuel and shelter,
if he chooses. This system is now moving Southward like a glacier from
the frozen heart of the Northern mountains, eating all in its path. It
is creeping over Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri. It will slowly engulf
Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee and the end is sure. Its
propelling force is not moral. It is soulless. It is purely economic.
The wage earner, driven by hunger and cold, by the fear of the loss of
life itself--is more efficient in his toil than the care-free negro
slave of the South, who is assured of bread, of clothes, of fuel and
shelter, with or without work. Slavery does not admit of argument, my
friend. To argue about it is to destroy it."
"I disagree with you, sir!" Ruffin thundered.
"I know you do. But you can't answer this book."
"It can be answered, sir."
Lee paced the floor, his arms folded behind his back, paused and watched
Ruffin's flushed face. He shook his head again.
"The book is unanswerable, because it is an appeal to emotion based on a
study of Slavery in the abstract. If no allowance be made for the tender
and humane character of the Southern people or the modification of
statutory law by the growth of public sentiment, its imaginary scenes
are within the bounds of the probable. The story is crude, but it is
told with singular power without a trace of bitterness. The blind
ferocity of Garrison, who sees in every slaveholder a fiend, nowhere
appears in its pages. On the other hand, Mrs. Stowe has painted one
slaveholder as gentle and generous. Simon Legree, her villain, is a
Yankee who has moved South and taken advantage of the power of a master
to work evil. Such men have come South. Such things might be done. It
is precisely this possibility that makes Slavery indefensible. You know
this. And I know it."
"You astound me, Colonel."
"Yes, I'm afraid I do. I'd like to speak a message to the South about
this book. I've a great deal more to say to my own people than to our
critics."
Ruffin rose, thrust his hands in his pockets, walked to the window,
turned suddenly and faced his host.
"But look here, Colonel Lee, I'm damned if I can agree with you, sir!
Suppose Slavery _is_ wrong--an economic fallacy and a social evil--I
don't say it is, mind you. Just suppose for the sake of argument that it
is. We don't propose to be lectured on this subject by our inferiors in
the North. The children of the men who stole these slaves from Africa
and sold them to us at a profit!"
Lee laughed softly.
"The sins of an inferior cannot excuse the mistakes of a superior. The
man of superior culture and breeding should lead the world in progress.
What has come over us in the South, Ruffin? Your father and mine never
defended Slavery. They knew it was to them, their children and this
land, a curse. It was a blessing only to the savage who was being taught
the rudiments of civilization at a tremendous cost to his teacher. The
first Abolition Societies were organized in the South. Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Randolph, all the great leaders of the
old South, the men whose genius created this republic--all denounced
Slavery. They told us that it is a poison, breeding pride and tyranny
of character, that it corrupts the mind of the child, that it degrades
labor, wears out our land, destroys invention, and saps our ideal of
liberty. And yet we have begun to defend it."
"Because we are being hounded, traduced and insulted by the North,
yes--"
"Yes, but also because we must have more land."
"We've as much right in the West as the North."
"That's not the real reason we demand the right of entry. We are
exhausting the soil of the South by our slipshod farming on great
plantations where we use old-fashioned tools and slave labor. We refuse
to study history. Ancient empires tried this system and died. The
Carthagenians developed it to perfection and fell before the Romans. The
Romans borrowed it from Carthage. It destroyed the small farms and drove
out the individual land owners. It destroyed respect for trades and
crafts. It strangled the development of industrial art. And when the
test came Roman civilization passed. You hot-heads under the goading of
Abolition crusaders now blindly propose to build the whole structure of
Southern Society on this system."
"We've no choice, sir."
"Then we must find one. Slowly but surely the clouds gather for the
storm. We catch only the first rumblings now but it's coming."
Ruffin flared.
"Now listen to me, Colonel. I'm a man of cool judgment and I never lose
my temper, sir--"
He choked with passion, recovered and rushed on.
"If they ever dare attack us, we won't need _writers_. We'll draw our
swords and thrash them! The South is growing rich and powerful."
Lee lifted his hand in a quick gesture of protest.
"A popular delusion, my friend. Under Slave labor the South is growing
poorer daily. While the Northern States, under the wage system, ten
times more efficient, are draining the blood and treasure of Europe and
growing richer by leaps and bounds. Norfolk, Richmond and Charleston
should have been the great cities of the Eastern Seaboard. They are as
yet unimportant towns in the world commerce. Boston, Philadelphia and
New York have become the centers of our business life, of our trade, our
culture, our national power. While slavery is scratching the surface of
our soil with old-fashioned plows, while we quit work at twelve o'clock
every Saturday, spend our Sundays at church, and set two negroes to
help one do nothing Monday morning, the North is sweeping onward in the
science of agriculture. While they invent machines which double their
crops, cut their labor down a hundred per cent, we are fighting for new
lands in the West to exhaust by our primitive methods. The treasures of
the earth yet lie in our mines untouched by pick or spade. Our forests
stand unbroken--vast reaches of wilderness. The slave is slow and
wasteful. Wage labor, quick, efficient. Our chief industry is the
breeding of a race of feverish politicians."
"You know, Colonel Lee, as well as I do that Slavery in the South has
been a blessing to the negro."
Lee moved his head in quick assent.
"I admit that Slavery took the negro from the jungle, from a slavery the
most cruel known to human history, that it has taught him the use of
tools, the science of agriculture, the worship of God, the first lessons
in the alphabet of humanity. But unless we can now close this school, my
friend, somebody is going to try to divide this Union some day--"
Ruffin struck his hands together savagely.
"The quicker the better, I say! If the children of the men who created
this republic are denied equal rights under its laws and in its
Territories, then I say, to your tents, oh, Israel!"
"And do you know what that may mean?"
"A Southern and a Northern Nation. Let them come!"
"The States have been knit together slowly, but inevitably by steam and
electricity. I can conceive of no greater tragedy than an attempt to-day
to divide them."
"I can conceive of no greater blessing!" Ruffin fairly shouted.
"So William Lloyd Garrison, the leader of Abolition, is saying in his
paper _The Liberator_. And, Ruffin, unless we can lock up some hot-heads
in the South and such fanatics as Garrison in the North, the mob, not
the statesman, is going to determine the laws and the policy of this
country. Somebody will try to divide the Union. And then comes the
deluge! When I think of it, the words of Thomas Jefferson ring through
my soul like an alarm bell in the night. 'I tremble for my country when
I reflect that God is just and that His justice cannot sleep forever.
Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than these black
people shall be free--'"
Ruffin lifted his hand in a commanding gesture.
"Don't omit his next sentence, sir--'nor is it less certain, that the
two races, equally free, cannot live under the same government--'"
"Exactly," Lee answered solemnly. "And that is the only reason why I
have ever allowed myself to own a slave for a moment--the insoluble
problem of what to do with him when freed. The one excuse for Slavery
which the South can plead without fear before the judgment bar of God is
the blacker problem which their emancipation will create. Unless it can
be brought about in a miracle of patience, wisdom and prayer."
He paused and smiled at Ruffin's forlorn expression.
"Will you call your reporter now to take my views?"
"No, sir," the planter growled. "I've changed my mind."
The Colonel laughed softly.
"I thought you might."
Ruffin gazed in silence through the window at the blinking lights in
Washington, turned and looked moodily at his calm host. He spoke in a
slow, dreamy monotone, his eyes on space seeing nothing:
"Colonel Lee, this country is hell bent and hell bound. I can see no
hope for it."
Lee lifted his head with firm faith.
"Ruffin, this country is in God's hands--and He will do what's right--"
"That's just what I'm afraid, sir!" Ruffin mused. "Oh, no--I--don't mean
that exactly. I mean that we must anticipate--"
"The wisdom of God?"
"That we must prepare to meet our enemies, sir."
"I agree with you. And I'm going to do it. I've been doing a lot of
thinking and _soul_ searching since you gave me this troublesome book to
read--"
He stopped short, rose and drew the old-fashioned bell cord.
Ben appeared in full blue cloth and brass buttons, on duty again as
butler.
"Yassah--"
"I'm glad to see you, Ben. You're feeling yourself again?"
"Yassah. Praise God, I'se back at my place once mo', sah."
The master lifted his hand in warning.
"Take care of yourself now. No more risks. You're not as young as you
once were."
"Thankee, sah."
"Ask Mrs. Lee to bring me the document on my desk. Find Sam and fetch
him here."
Ben bowed.
"Yassah. Right away, sah."
Lee turned to his guest genially.
"I'm going to ask you to witness what I'm about to do, Ruffin. And
you mustn't take offense. We differ about Slavery and politics in the
abstract, but whatever our differences on the surface, you are an old
Virginia planter and I trust we shall always be friends."
The two men clasped hands and Ruffin spoke with deep emotion.
"I am honored in your friendship, Colonel Lee. However I may differ with
you about the Union, we agree on one thing, that the old Dominion is the
noblest state on which the sun has ever shown!"
Lee closed his eyes as if in prayer.
"On that we are one. Old Virginia, the mother of Presidents and of
states, as I leave her soil I humbly pray that God's blessings may ever
rest upon her!"
"So say I, sir," Ruffin responded heartily. "And I'll try to do the
cussin' for her while you do the praying."
Mrs. Lee entered and handed to her husband a folded document, as Ben
came from the kitchen with Sam, who bowed and grinned to every one in
the room.
Lee spoke in low tones to his wife.
"Ask the young people to come in for a moment, my dear."
Mrs. Lee crossed quickly to the library door and called:
"Come in, children, Colonel Lee wishes to see you all."
Mary, Stuart, Custis, Phil, Robbie and Sid pressed into the hall in
curious, expectant mood. Mrs. Marshall knew that Ruffin was still there,
but her curiosity got the better of her aversion. She followed the
children, only to run squarely into Ruffin.
He was about to speak in his politest manner when she stiffened and
passed him.
Ruffin's eye twinkled. He knew that she saw him. She hated him for
his political views. She also knew that he hated her husband, Judge
Marshall, with equal cordiality. His pride was too great to feel the
slightest hurt at her attempt to ignore him. She was a fanatic on the
subject of the Union. All right, he was a fanatic on the idea of an
independent South. They were even. Let it be so.
With a toss of his head, he turned toward Lee who had seated himself at
the table behind the couch.
The children were chatting and laughing as they entered. A sudden hush
fell on them as they caught the serious look on the Colonel's face. He
was writing rapidly. He stopped and fixed a seal on the paper which he
held in his hand. He read it carefully, lifted his eyes to the group
that had drawn near and said:
"Children, my good friend, Mr. Ruffin, has called to-day to bid us
God-speed on our journey North. And he has asked me to answer _Uncle
Tom's Cabin_. I've called you to witness the only answer I know how to
make at this moment."
He paused and turned toward Sam.
"Come here, Sam."
The young negro rolled his eyes in excited wonder about the room and
laughed softly at nothing as he approached the table.
"Yassah, Marse Robert."
"How old are you, Sam?"
"Des twenty, sah."
"I had meant to wait until you were twenty-one for this, but I have
decided to act to-day. You will arrange to leave here and go with us as
far as New York."
The negro bowed gratefully.
"Yassah, thankee sah, I sho did want ter go norf wid you, sah, but I
hated to axe ye."
Lee handed Sam the document.
"You will go with me a free man, my boy. You are the only slave I yet
hold in my own right. I have just given you your deed of emancipation.
From this hour you are your own master. May God bless you and keep you
in health and strength and give you long life and much happiness."
Sam stared at the paper and then at the kindly eyes of his old master. A
sob caught his voice as he stammered:
"May God bless you, Marse Robert--"
Ben lifted his hands in benediction and his voice rang in the solemn
cadence of the prophet and seer:
"And let the glory of His face shine upon him forever!"
Mrs. Marshall stooped and kissed her brother.
"You're a true son of Virginia, Robert, in this beautiful answer you
make to-day to all our enemies."
She rose and faced Ruffin with square antagonism.
Lee turned to the old butler.
"And Ben, tell all our servants of the estate that, under the will of
Mrs. Lee's father I will in due time set them free. I would do so to-day
if the will had not fixed the date."
Ben bowed gravely.
"I'se proud to be your servant, Marse Robert and Missis, and when
my freedom comes frum yo' hands, I'll be prouder still to serve you
always."
With head erect Ben proudly led the dazed young freedman from the hall
to the kitchen where his reception was one of mixed wonder and pity.
There fell a moment's awkward silence, broken at last by Stuart's clear,
boyish voice. He saw Ruffin's embarrassment. He knew the man's fiery
temper and wondered at his restraint.
"Well, Mr. Ruffin," Stuart began, "we may not see as clearly as Colonel
Lee to-day, but he's my commander, sir, and I'll say he's right."
Ruffin faced Lee with a look of uncompromising antagonism and fairly
shot his words.
"And for the millions of the South, I say he's wrong. There's a time
for all things. And this is not the time for such an act. From the
appearance of this book you can rest assured the emancipation of slaves
in the South will cease. We will never be bullied into freeing our
slaves by slander and insult. Colonel Lee's example will not be
followed. The fanatics of the North have begun to spit on our faces.
There's but one answer to an insult--and that's a blow!"
Lee stepped close to the planter, laid one hand gently on his shoulder,
searched his angry eyes for a moment and slowly said:
"And thrice is he armed, my friend, who hath his quarrel just. I set my
house in order before the first blow falls."
Ruffin smiled and threw off the ugly strain.
"I'm sorry, sir," he said with friendly indifference, "that my mission
has been a failure."
"And I'm sorry we can't agree."
"I won't be able to stay to dinner, Mrs. Lee, and I bid you all good
evening."
With a wave of his hand in a gesture behind which lurked the tingling of
taut nerves, he turned and left.
The beat of his horse's hoof echoed down the road with a sharp, angry
crack.