DINNER TALK.
America furnishes to the world her share of politicians. The United
States, with her free government, her freedom of thought, freedom of
speech and freedom of press, is prolific in their production. One who
had given the subject but little thought, and no investigation, would be
amazed to know their number. Nearly every boy born in the United States
becomes a politician, with views more or less pronounced, and the
subject is by no means neglected by the feminine portion of the
community. That part of Virginia, the scene of our story, abounded with
"village tavern and cross-roads politicians." Snagtown, on Briar creek,
was a village not more than three miles from Mr. Tompkins'. It boasted
of two taverns and three saloons, where loafers congregated to talk
about the weather, the doings in Congress, the terrible state of the
country, and their exploits in catching "runaway niggers." A large per
cent of our people pay more attention to Congressional matters than to
their own affairs. We do not deny that it is every man's right to
understand the grand machinery of this Government, but he should not
devote to it the time which should be spent in caring for his family.
Politics should not intoxicate men and lead them from the paths of
honest industry, and furnish food for toughs to digest at taverns and
street corners.
Anything which affords a topic of conversation is eagerly welcomed by
the loafer; and it is little wonder that politics is a theme that rouses
all his enthusiasm. It not only affords him food, but drink as well,
during a campaign. Many are the neglected wives and starving children
who, in cold and cheerless homes, await the return of the husband and
father, who sits, warm and comfortable, in some tavern, laying plans for
the election of a school director or a town overseer.
Snagtown could tell its story. It contained many such neglected homes,
and the thriftless vagabonds who constituted the voting majority never
failed to raise an excitement, to provoke bitter feelings and foment
quarrels on election day.
Plump, and short, and sleek was Mr. Hezekiah Diggs, the justice of the
peace of Snagtown. Like many justices of the peace, he brought to the
performance of his duties little native intelligence, and less acquired
erudition; but what he lacked in brains he made up in brass. He was one
of the foremost of the political gossipers of Snagtown, and had filled
his present position for several years.
'Squire Diggs was hardly in what might be termed even moderate
circumstances, though he and his family made great pretension in
society. He was one of that rare class in Virginia--a poor man who had
managed by some inexplicable means, to work his way into the better
class of society. His wife, unlike himself, was tall, slender and sharp
visaged. Like him, she was an incessant talker, and her gossip
frequently caused trouble in the neighborhood. Scandal was seized on as
a sweet morsel by the hungry Mrs. Diggs, and she never let pass an
opportunity to spread it, like a pestilence, over the town.
They had one son, now about twelve years of age, the joy and pride of
their hearts, and as he was capable of declaiming, "The boy stood on the
burning deck," his proud father discovered in him the future orator of
America, and determined that Patrick Henry Diggs should study law and
enter the field of politics. The boy, full of his father's conviction,
and of a conceit all his own, felt within his soul a rising greatness
which one day would make him the foremost man of the Nation. He did not
object to his father's plan; he was willing to become either a statesman
or a lawyer, but having read the life of Washington, he would have
chosen to be a general, only that there were now no redcoats to fight.
Poor as Diggs' family was, they boasted that they associated only with
the _elite_ of Southern society.
'Squire Diggs had informed Mr. Tompkins that he and his family would pay
him a visit on a certain day, as he wished to consult him on some
political matters, and Mr. Tompkins and his hospitable lady, setting
aside social differences, prepared to make their visitors welcome. On
the appointed day they were driven up in their antiquated carriage,
drawn by an old gray horse, and driven by a negro coachman older than
either. Mose was the only slave that the 'Squire owned, and though sixty
years of age, he served the family faithfully in a multiform capacity.
He pulled up at the door of the mansion, and climbing out somewhat
slowly, owing to age and rheumatism, he opened the carriage door and
assisted the occupants to alight.
Though Mrs. Tompkins felt an unavoidable repugnance for the gossiping
Mrs. Diggs, she was too sensible a hostess to treat an uninvited guest
otherwise than cordially.
"I've been just dying to come and see you," said Mrs. Diggs, as soon as
she had removed her wraps and taken her seat in an easy chair, with a
bottle of smelling salts in her hand and her gold-plated spectacles on
her nose, "you have been having so many strange things happen here; and
I told the 'Squire we must come over, for I thought the drive might do
me good, and I wanted to hear all about the murder of your husband's
brother's family, and see that strange baby and the crazy boy. Isn't it
strange, though? Who could have committed that awful murder? Who put
that baby on your piazza, and who is this crazy boy?"
Mrs. Tompkins arrested this stream of interrogatories by saying that it
was all a mystery, and they had as yet been unable to find a clew.
Baffled at the very onset in the chief object of her visit, Mrs. Diggs
turned her thoughts at once into new channels, and, graciously
overlooking Mrs. Tompkins' inability to gratify her curiosity, began to
recount the news and gossip and small scandals of the neighborhood.
'Squire Diggs was in the midst of an animated conversation on his
favorite theme, the politics of the day. The slavery question was just
assuming prominence. Henry Clay, Martin Van Buren, and others, had at
times hinted at emancipation, while John Brown and Jared Clarkson, and a
host of lesser lights, were making the Nation quake with the thunders of
their eloquence from rostrum and pulpit. 'Squire Diggs was bitter in his
denunciations of Northerners, believing that they intended "to take our
niggers from us." He invariably emphasized the pronoun, and always spoke
of _niggers_ in the plural, as though he owned a hundred instead of one.
'Squire Diggs was one of a class of people in the South known as the
most bitter slavery men, the small slaveholders--a class that bewailed
most loudly the freedom of the negro, because they had few to free. At
dinner he said:
"Slavery is of divine origin, and all John Brown and Jared Clarkson can
say will never convince the world otherwise."
"I sometimes think," said Mr. Tompkins, "that the country would be
better off with the slaves all in Siberia."
"What? My dear sir, how could we exist?" cried 'Squire Diggs, his small
eyes growing round with wonder. "If the slaves were taken from us, who
would cultivate these vast fields?"
"Do it ourselves, or by hired help," answered the planter.
"My dear sir, the idea is impracticable," said the 'Squire, hotly. "We
cannot give up our slaves. Slavery is of divine origin. The niggers,
descending from Ham, were cursed into slavery. The Bible says so, and no
nigger-loving Abolitionist need deny it."
"I believe my husband is an emancipationist," said Mrs. Tompkins, with
a smile.
"I am," said Mr. Tompkins; "not so much for the slaves' good as for the
masters'. Slavery is a curse to both white and black, and more to the
white than to the black. The two races can never live together in
harmony, and the sooner they are separated the better."
"How would you like to free them and leave them among us?" asked the
'Squire.
"That even would be better than to keep them among us in bondage."
"But Henry Clay, in his great speech on African colonization in the
House of Representatives, says: 'Of all classes of our population, the
most vicious is the free colored.' And, my dear sir, were this horde of
blacks turned loose upon us, without masters or overseers to keep them
in restraint, our lives would not be safe for a day. Domineering niggers
would be our masters, would claim the right to vote and hold office.
Imagine, my dear sir, an ignorant nigger holding an important office
like that of justice of the peace. Consider for a moment, Mr. Tompkins,
all of the horrors which would be the natural result of a lazy, indolent
race, incapable of earning their own living, unless urged by the lash,
being turned loose to shift for themselves. Slavery is more a blessing
to the slave than to the master. What was the condition of the negro in
his native wilds? He was a ruthless savage, hunting and fighting, and
eating fellow-beings captured in war. He knew no God, and worshiped
snakes, the sun and moon, and everything he could not understand. Our
slave-traders found him in this state of barbarism and misery. They
brought him here, and taught him to till the soil, and trained him in
the ways of peace, and led him to worship the true and living God. _Our_
niggers now have food to eat and clothes to wear, when in their native
country they were hungry and naked. They now enjoy all the blessings of
an advanced civilization, whereas they were once in the lowest
barbarism. Set them free, and they will drift back into their former
state."
"A blessing may be made out of their bondage," replied Mr. Tompkins.
"As Henry Clay said in the speech from which you have quoted, 'they will
carry back to their native soil the rich fruits of religion,
civilization, law and liberty. And may it not be one of the great
designs of the Ruler of the universe (whose ways are often inscrutable
by short-sighted mortals) thus to transform original crime into a single
blessing to the most unfortunate portions of the globe? But I fear we
uphold slavery rather for our own mercenary advantages than as a
blessing either to our country or to either race."
"Why, Mr. Tompkins, you are advocating Abolition doctrine," said Mrs.
Diggs.
"I believe I am, and that abolition is right."
"Would you be willing to lose your own slaves to have the niggers
freed?" asked the astonished 'Squire.
"I would willingly lose them to rid our country of a blighting curse."
"I would not," said Mrs. Tompkins, her Southern blood fired by the
discussion. "My husband is a Northern man, and advocates principles that
were instilled into his mind from infancy; but I oppose abolition from
principle. Slaves should be treated well and made to know their place;
but to set them free and ruin thousands of people in the South is the
idea of fanatics."
"I'm mamma's Democrat," said Oleah, who, seated at his mother's side,
concluded it best to approve her remarks by proclaiming his own
political creed.
"And I am papa's Whig," announced Abner, who was at his father's side.
"That's right, my son. You don't believe that people, because they are
black, should be bought and sold and beaten like cattle, do you?" asked
the father, looking down, half in jest and half in earnest, at his
eldest born.
"No; set the negroes free, and Oleah and I will plow and drive wagons,"
he replied, quickly.
"You don't believe it's right to take people's property from them for
nothing and leave people poor, do you, Oleah?" asked the mother, in
laughing retaliation.
"No, I don't," replied the young Southern aristocrat.
"You are liable to have both political parties represented in your own
family," said 'Squire Diggs. "Here's a difference of opinion already."
"Their differences will be easy to reconcile, for never did brothers
love each other as these do," returned Mr. Tompkins, little dreaming
that this difference of opinion was a breach that would widen, widen and
widen, separating the loving brothers, and bringing untold misery to his
peaceful home.
"What are you in favor of, Patrick Henry?" Mrs. Diggs asked, in her
shrill, sharp tones, of her own hopeful son.
"I'm in favor of freedom and the Stars and Stripes," answered Patrick
Henry, gnawing vigorously at the chicken bone he held in his hand.
"He is a patriot," exclaimed the 'Squire. "He talks of nothing so much
as Revolutionary days and Revolutionary heroes. He has such a taste for
military life that I'd send him to West Point, but his mother objects."
"Yes, I do object," put in the shrill-voiced, cadaverous Mrs. Diggs,
"They don't take a child of mine to their strict military schools. Why,
what if he was to get sick, away off there, and me here? I wouldn't stop
day or night till I got there."
Dinner over, the party repaired to the parlor, and 'Squire Diggs asked
his son to speak "one of his pieces" for the entertainment of the
company.
"What piece shall I say?" asked Patrick Henry, as anxious to display his
oratorical talents as his father was to have him.
"The piece that begins, 'I come not here to talk,'" said Mrs. Diggs, her
sallow features lit up with a smile that showed the tips of her false
teeth.
Several of the negroes, learning that a show of some kind was about to
begin in the parlor, crowded about the room, peeping in at the doors and
windows. Patrick Henry took his position in the centre of the room,
struck a pompous attitude, standing high as his short legs would permit,
and, brushing the hair from his forehead, bowed to his audience and, in
a high, loud monotone, began:
"I come not to talk! You know too well
The story of our thraldom. We--we--"
He paused and bowed his head.
"We are slaves," prompted the mother, who was listening with eager
interest. Mrs. Diggs had heard her son "say his piece" so often that she
had learned it herself, and now served as prompter. Patrick Henry
continued:
"We are slaves.
The bright moon rises----"
"No, sun," interrupted his mother.
"The bright sun rises in the East and lights
A race of slaves. He sets--and the--last thing"--
The young orator was again off the track.
"And his last beam falls on a slave," again the fond mother prompted.
By being frequently prompted, Patrick Henry managed to "speak his piece
through."
While the mother, alert and watchful, listened and prompted, the father,
short, and sleek, and fat, leaned back in his chair, one short leg just
able to reach across the other, listening with satisfied pride to his
son's display.
"The poor child has forgotten some of it," said the mother, at the
conclusion.
"Yes," added the father; "he don't speak much now, and so has forgotten
a great deal that he knew."
Mr. Tompkins and his wife, inwardly regretting that he had not forgotten
all, willingly excused Patrick Henry from any further efforts. And
though they had welcomed and entertained their guests with the cordial
Southern hospitality, they felt somewhat relieved when the Diggs
carriage, with its ancient, dark-skinned coachman, rolled away over the
hills towards Snagtown.