The Man in Gray. Jr. Thomas Dixon
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