Southern States must supply that cotton, and that slavery alone makes
cotton possible for the world. It is a question of geography rather than
of politics; yet your Northern men make it a question of politics. Your
Congress is full of rotten tariff legislation, which will make a few of
your Northern men rich--and which will bring on this war quite as much
as anything the South may do. Moreover, this tariff disgusts England,
very naturally. Where will England side when the break comes? And what
will be the result when the South, plus England, fights these tariff
makers over here? I have no doubt that you, sir, know the complexion of
all these neighborhood families in these matters. I should be most happy
if you could find it possible for me to meet your father and his
neighbors, for in truth I am interested in these matters, merely as a
student. And I have heard much of the kindness of this country toward
strangers."

It was not our way in Virginia to allow persons of any breeding to put
up at public taverns. We took them to our homes. I have seen a hundred
horses around my father's barns during the Quarterly Meetings of the
Society of Friends. Perhaps we did not scrutinize all our guests
over-closely, but that was the way of the place. I had no hesitation in
saying to Mr. Orme that we should be glad to entertain him at Cowles'
Farms. He was just beginning to thank me for this when we were suddenly
interrupted.

We were sitting some paces from the room where landlord Sanderson kept
his bar, so that we heard only occasionally the sound of loud talk which
came through the windows. But now came footsteps and confused words in
voices, one of which I seemed to know. There staggered through the door
a friend of mine, Harry Singleton, a young planter of our neighborhood,
who had not taken my father's advice, but continued to divide his favor