Sincere, but undoubtedly mistaken, Mr. Toombs!  To this philippic, let the words of another Southern, but not sectional Senator, reply, and that from a golden age:—­

“But if, unhappily, we should be involved in war, in civil war, between the two parts of this Confederacy, in which the effort upon the one side should be to restrain the introduction of slavery into the new territories, and upon the other side to force its introduction there, what a spectacle should we present to the astonishment of mankind, in an effort, not to propagate right, but—­I must say it, though I trust it will be understood to be said with no design to excite feeling—­a war to propagate wrong in the territories thus acquired from Mexico.  It would be a war in which we should have no sympathies, no good wishes, in which all mankind would be against us; for, from the commencement of the Revolution down to the present time, we have constantly reproached our British ancestors for the introduction of slavery into this country.”—­HENRY CLAY, Congressional Globe, Part II., Vol. 22, p. 117.]

Sick at heart, as the future of the nation stood to his dim vision through the present, the writer found his way to his hotel.  At this time the North was silent, apparently apathetic, unbelieving, almost criminally allowed to be undeceived by its presses and by public men who had means of information, while this volcano continued to prepare itself thus defiantly beneath the very feet of a President sworn to support the laws!

* * * * *

The formal interview with the Honorable R.M.T.  Hunter was sought in company with two other students of New-England colleges.  We had hoped to meet Mr. Mason at the same apartments, but were disappointed.  The great contrast of personal character between Mr. Hunter and Mr. Toombs made the concurrence of the former in the chief views presented by the latter the more significant.  The careful habits of thought, the unostentatiousness, and the practical common sense for which the Virginian farmer is esteemed, and which had made his name a prominent one for President of a Central Confederacy, in case of the separate secession of the Border States, were curiously manifested both in his apartments and his manner.  The chamber was apparently at a boarding-house, but very plainly furnished with red cotton serge curtains and common hair-cloth chairs and sofa.  The Senator’s manner of speech was slow, considerate,—­indeed, sometimes approaching awkwardness in its plain, farmer-like simplicity.  One of the first questions was the central one, concerning the chief grievance of the South, which had been presented to Mr. Toombs.

“Yes,” was Mr. Hunter’s reply, somewhat less promptly given, “it may be said to come chiefly from that,—­the non-recognition of our property under the Constitution.  We wish our property recognized, as we think the Constitution provides.  We should like to remain with the North.”