“The entire South refuses it!”

“Then let the South beware!”

“The North also may beware, my dear Sir!”

“We are aware, and we are prepared.  Not another inch for slavery!”

“Hush!” said the other, raising a hand.  “Not even you and I dare go into this.  The old quarrel is lulled for a time.  At last we have worked these measures through both the House and Senate.  In the House the administration can put through at any time the Wilmot proviso prohibiting slavery, and although the Senate always has and always can defeat such a measure, both branches, and the executive as well, have agreed to put this dog to sleep when possible, and when found sleeping, to let him lie.  My dear friend, it is not a question of principle, but of policy, to-day.”

“Principles should rule policies!” exclaimed the other virtuously.

“Agreed!  Agreed!  We are perfectly at one as to that.  But you know that Webster himself reiterates again and again that no man should set up his conscience above the law of his country.  Your Free Soil party means not law, but anarchy,—­and worse than that—­it means disunion!  Clay, Cass, Webster, Benton, even the hottest of the men from Mississippi and South Carolina, are agreed on that.  My dear Sir, I say it with solemn conviction, the formation of a new party of discontent to-day, when everything is already strained to breaking, will split this country and plunge the divided sections into a bloody war!”

The other sat gravely for a time before he made reply.  “Our people feel too sternly to be reconciled.  We need some new party—­”

Again the other raised a warning hand. “Do not say that word!  Others have principles as much as you and I. Let us not speak with recklessness of consequences.  But, privately, and without hot argument, my dear friend, the singular thing to me is that you, an old leader of the people, with a wide following in the North and South, should now be entertaining precisely the same principles—­ though not expressing them with the same reckless fervor—­which are advanced by the latest and most dangerous abolitionist of the time.”

“You do not mean Mr. Garrison?  Any of my New York or Boston friends?”

“No, I mean a woman, here in Washington.  You could perhaps guess her name.”

The other drew his chair closer.  “I presume you mean the lady reputed to have been connected with President Taylor’s commission, of inquiry into affairs in Hungary—­”

“Yes,—­the ‘most beautiful woman in Washington to-day.’  So she is called by some—­’the most dangerous,’ by others.”

“Has Kentucky forgotten its gallantry so fully as that?  Rumor has reported the young woman to me as a charming young widow, of beauty, wealth and breeding.”