"Buchanan!" roared the Judge, with his mouth full.

"Another traitor, sir. Another traitor worse than the first. He swallows
the Dred Scott decision, and smirks. What a blot on the history of this
Republic! O Lord!" cried Mr. Whipple, "what are we coming to? A Northern
man, he could gag and bind Kansas and force her into slavery against the
will of her citizens. He packs his Cabinet to support the ruffians you
send over the borders. The very governors he ships out there, his
henchmen, have their stomachs turned. Look at Walker, whom they are
plotting against in Washington. He can't stand the smell of this
Lecompton Constitution Buchanan is trying to jam down their throats.
Jefferson Davis would have troops there, to be sure that it goes through,
if he had his way. Can't you see how one sin leads to another, Carvel?
How slavery is rapidly demoralizing a free people?"

"It is because you won't let it alone where it belongs, sir," retorted
the Colonel. It was seldom that he showed any heat in his replies. He
talked slowly, and he had a way of stretching forth his hand to prevent
the more eager Judge from interrupting him.

"The welfare of the whole South, as matters now stand, sir, depends upon
slavery. Our plantations could not exist a day without slave labor. If
you abolished that institution, Judge Whipple, you would ruin millions of
your fellow-countrymen,--you would reduce sovereign states to a situation
of disgraceful dependence. And all, sir," now he raised his voice lest
the Judge break in, "all, sir, for the sake of a low breed that ain't fit
for freedom. You and I, who have the Magna Charta and the Declaration of
Independence behind us, who are descended from a race that has done
nothing but rule for ten centuries and more, may well establish a