“Undoubtedly,” was Mr. Toombs’s instant reply, “it all turns on that.  What you tax you must protect.”

This is the very strongest argument of the Southern side.  But the alleged slave-property is protected, though only under municipal law, by the Constitution.  To protect it elsewhere is against its whole spirit, and, in the present state of public sentiment, against its very letter.  Originally, as is well known, it was not proposed to protect at all, under the General Government, property so monstrous, except as it became necessary as a compromise, in order to secure a union.  But the provision of the Constitution that the slave-trade should be abolished, the absolute power given to Congress to make all laws for the Territories, the spirit of the preamble, the principles of the Declaration, indeed, the whole history of the origin and adoption of the fundamental law, prove that its principle and its expectation were, if not absolutely to place slavery in the States in process of extinction, at least never to recognize it except indirectly and remotely under municipal law, not even by admitting the word slave to its phraseology.

“Even in the Northern States themselves, to say nothing of the Territories, I am not safe with my property.  I can travel through France or England and be safe; but if I happen to lose my servant up in Vairmount,”—­Mr. Toombs pronounced the word with a somewhat marked accent of derision,—­“and undertake to recover him, I get jugged.  Besides, your Northern statesmen are far from being honest.  Here is Billy Seward, for instance,”—­with a gesture toward his neighbor’s house,—­“who says slavery is contrary to the Higher Law, and that he is bound as a Christian to obey the Higher Law; but yet he takes an oath to uphold the Constitution, which protects slavery.  This inconsistency runs through most of the Northern platforms.  How can we live with such men?  They will not be true even to a compact which they themselves acknowledge.”

“You would think, then, Wendell Phillips, for instance, more consistent in his political opinions than Mr. Seward?”

“Certainly.  I can understand his position.  ‘Slavery,’ he says, ’is wrong.  The Constitution protects slavery; therefore I will have nothing to do with the Constitution, and cannot become a citizen.’  This is logical and consistent.  I can respect such a position as that.”

Here Mr. Toombs—­ejecting, as perhaps the writer ought not to relate, a competent mass of tobacco-saliva into the blazing coal—­paused somewhat reflectively, perhaps unpleasantly revolving certain possible indirect influences of the position he had characterized.

“Upon which side, Sir, do you think there is usually the most misunderstanding,—­on the part of the North concerning the South? or on the part of the South concerning the North?”