The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1904-01-31
CONTINUED from Last Sundays News.)
CHAPTER XIV.

HOW PEG WAS SAVED FROM PEG
Now when the Generals toast at
that banquet in the Indian Queen had
gone abroad, it would have the effect
of a warning, each man taking il
home. A mighty silence fell upon
States Rights; the foxes of Nullifca-
ton found their dens, and were to be
noticed for a sudden absence from one s
eyes and ear where but the day before
with their presence and their yelpings
they would fill both.
1t will have a strange look, but 1t
was the General, himself, who of all
folk fostered a distrust of his course.
1t was to Noah and me he one day
told this. Noah mentioned the cast
silence of a voiceless conservatism
which had fallen upon that movement
of Secession, late so reboant and ram
pant.
"And yet" said the General, ''the
story of the country will at last show
me wrong"
'Will yous say how?'' asked Noah.
Surely, you do not doubt the common
need of a union between the states,
and one strong enough to defy the
caprice or the ambition, of a clique"
MY sentiment for the Union" said
cation, and it is because I stand for
union and would die for union, that
am not sure of the wisdom of that
toast of mine. 1t would have been
better to stand aloof, and let Secs
sion go the length of treason. Had
] held to such a course, perhaps as
many as one hundred might have an
swered for the crime with their lives.
But the question would have been set
tied; the dispute would have been made
res adjudicata and the future forever
freed of that struggle. Now the SER
pent is only bruised, not killed; in
years to follow yours and mine 1t will
revive in rebellion and may yet crush
the country in its folds"
II can not think you are right" said
I. for I was having part in the con-
versation with the others; 81 am no
Judge or you have closed the door
against this Notification.
"Ay!" responded the General, Clos
ed but not locked the door. 1t should
have been barred with a glbbet. Folk
are not taught by threats, but by ex-
ample. Had l stayed myself until
the leaders for Secession went so far
they were hanged for 1t, that would
have meant the end. Now the business
is deferred; the country VIII yet be
forced to fight a civil war and wade
knee keep in blood to save ITSELF
rs it," asked Noah. curiously, Us
it now you first hold these views?'
They are not new" returned the
General; Il owned them from the be-
ginning. But I lacked the hardihood
u act on them. L grow old; / have
beer in my hour the instrument by
which so much blood has been shed
tfat in my grey age I shrink from
more That toast was devised to save
myself from splitting further blOou; I
was thinking on myself when l franz
ed It and not of those black ones who
would d. treason. It's great purpose
was to save me from becoming their
eXeCutiOner.'
Now your feeling is mine, TOO" OBJ
served Noah. shaking a thoughtful
head. THE seed of the whole trouble
is slavery; while that exists the GER
tain chance of civil war stands open."
And how would one be rid of it?"
demanded the General. passionately
Washington was against slavery, JEFF
ferson was against it, Franklin was
against it. every one whose troWel
employed itself i'm laying the founda-
tions of our government was against
it, and vet there to-day it lives. They
could not cope with slavery; how, then,
shall WEI"
ut existed i'm the North" said Noah,
land ii was wiped out
The slaves were few in the North"
responded the General; 'as chattels
they made but slim fraction of that
regions riches. Moreover, slavery did
not pay a Northern profit. 1t is easy,
when there is money loss, to abandon
the cause of that loss. But conditions
within the present boundaries of slav-
cry show otherwise. The slaves cost
of keep is less, his months of labor
more in number and he is not winter
killed with maladies of the lungs. More
over, your slave makes a fairer unit
of labor in rice savsnnahs and cotton
fields, where a plantation carries tnou-
sands of acres, than he did where
land was more divided and form of
q hundred and sixty acres the common
holding of a man. In short the slave
spins that money profit for the South
which was lacking in the North. That
fact of profit-the greed of men-will
meet folk who would free the slave
and make you mighty difference"
And STILL" said Noah. Slavery
should be stricken down.
ITO that l agree" remarked the Cen
eral, but again I ask you, How?
Certain of our New England radicals
when they shout for Abolition, cry,
Down with slavery as lightly as one
should say: Marry! swallow a straw
berry When a man is i'm the upper
story OF burning mouse he does not
hurl himself from a window, he de-
sends by the stair. Let us, when
now we be ablaze over slavery--for it
is that, as you say, to lie at the bot
tom of this whole movement of States
Rights-let us grope cautiously until
we find the safe stairway of escape"
1T is not so clear to my mind -
said /, for the spirit to lecture, ex-
cited by example, began to move with
in me, that slavery is so bad for the
blacks. One must have account for
difference of race. You would not in
sist that a deer tear prey with his
teeth and howl on some hill of mid
night like a wolf. 1t has been the
never-fiagging mistake of government
to deal with the Indian as though be
were white, and enforce pale-face con-
ditions upon him. 1t would be as rife
of error to proceed with the negro as
though he were white or could work
out a white mans destiny. Make the
black man free. and I tell you ne will
be as helpless as ship ashore on The
instant"
ITO better the black" said the Gen
eral. is not my argument; / am
against slavery TO better the white
man. When 1 seek to destroy slav-