He spoke without a particle of expressed passion or ardor, though by no means incapable, when aroused, as those who have seen his plethoric countenance and figure can testify, of both.

“We are mutually helpful to each other. We want to use your navy and your factories.  You want our cotton.  The North to manufacture, and the South to produce, would make the strongest nation.  But, if we separate, we shall try to do more in Virginia than we do now.  We shall make mills on our streams.”

His language was chiefly Saxon monosyllables.

“The climate is not as severe, the nights are not as long with us as with you.  I think we can do well at manufacturing in Virginia.  The Chesapeake Bay and our rivers should aid commerce.  As for the slaves, I think there is little danger of any trouble.  There may be some,” he said, with a frankness that surprised us slightly, but in the same moderate, honest way, his hands clasped upon his breast, and the extended feet rubbing together slowly, “in the Cotton States, where they are very thick together; but I think that there is very little danger in Virginia.  The way they take to rise in never shows much skill.  The last time they rose in our State, I think the attempt was brought on by some sign in an eclipse of the moon.”

Nearly all that passed of political interest is contained in the foregoing sentences, except one honest reply to a question concerning his opinion of the probability of the North’s attempting coercion.

“If only three States go out, they may coerce,” said Mr. Hunter; “but if fifteen go, I guess they won’t try.”

At the present period of the Rebellion, this indication of the anticipations of its leaders in engaging in it must be of interest.

It must be understood that the writer and his companions presented themselves simply as students, with no fixed exclusive predilections for either of the public parties in politics,—­which, in the writer’s case at least, was certainly a statement wholly true,—­and that this evident freedom from political bias secured perhaps an unusual share of the confidence of the Southern Senators.  It will be remembered, also, that in every conversation, however startling the revelation of criminal purpose or absurd motive, the manner of these Senators was always totally devoid of any approach to that vulgar intellectual levity which too often, in treating of public affairs, painfully characterizes the fifth-rate men whom the North sometimes chooses to make its representatives.  The manner of the Southern leaders was to us a sufficient proof of their sincerity.

* * * * *

At the house of the Honorable Jefferson Davis, now in the world’s gaze President of the then nascent Confederacy, the writer, in the intelligent and genial company of the graduate of Harvard and the student of Amherst before mentioned, called formally, on the evening of the New Year’s reception-day.  A representative from one of the Southwestern States was present, but we were soon admitted to the front of the open blazing grate of the reception-parlor.  We had before seen Mr. Davis busy in the Senate.