We are expected to love those whose hands are red with the blood of our children; to take to our bosoms the murderers and robbers who have slain upon the soil of their nativity our people, and who have robbed our homes and devastated our country; who have fattened Southern soil with Southern blood, and enriched their homes with the stolen wealth of ours.  Are we not men, and manly?  Do we feel as men? and is not this insult to manliness, and a vile mockery to the feelings of men?  We can never forget—­we will never forgive, and we will wait; for when the opportunity shall come, as come it will, we will avenge the damning wrong.

This may be unchristian, but it is natural—­nature is of God and will assert herself.  No mawkish pretension, no hypocritical cant, can repress the natural feelings of the heart:  its loves and resentments are its strongest passions, and the love that we bore for our children and kindred kindles to greater vigor in the hatred we bear for their murderers.

CHAPTER XVII.

CONGRESS IN ITS BRIGHTEST DAYS.

MISSOURI COMPROMISE—­JOHN RANDOLPH’S JUBA—­MR. MACON—­HOLMES AND CRAWFORD—­MR. CLAY’S INFLUENCE—­JAMES BARBOUR—­PHILIP P. BARBOUR—­MR. PINKNEY—­MR. BEECHER, OF OHIO—­“CUCKOO, CUCKOO!”—­NATIONAL ROADS—­ WILLIAM LOWNDES—­WILLIAM ROSCOE—­DUKE OF ARGYLE—­LOUIS McLEAN—­WHIG AND DEMOCRATIC PARTIES.

It was at the last session of the fifteenth Congress, in the winter of 1820-21, when the famous Compromise measure, known as the Missouri Compromise, was effected.  A portion of that winter was spent by the writer at Washington.  Congress was then composed of the first intellects of the nation, and the measure was causing great excitement throughout the entire country.

Missouri, in obedience to a permissory statute, had framed a constitution, and demanded admission into the Union as a State.  By this constitution slavery was recognized as an institution of the State.  Objection was made to this clause on the part of the Northern members, which led to protracted and sometimes acrimonious debate.  At the first session of the Congress the admission of the State had been postponed, and during the entire second session it had been the agitating question; nor was it until the very end of the session settled by this famous compromise.

The debates were conducted by the ablest men in Congress, in both the Senate and the House of Representatives.  In the Senate, William Pinkney, of Maryland; Rufus King, of New York; Harrison Gray Otis, of Massachusetts; James Barbour, of Virginia; William Smith, of South Carolina, and Freeman Walker, of Georgia, were most conspicuous.  In the House were John Randolph, of Virginia; William Lowndes, of South Carolina; Louis McLean, of Delaware; Thomas W. Cobb, of Georgia, and Louis Williams, of North Carolina, and many others of less note.  Henry Clay, of Kentucky, was Speaker of the House during the first session of the Congress;