"And I say, how may one escape from insignificance? - anyhow?"
"A man with your income need not ask that," said Ransom.
"What does Miss Randolph say?" De Saussure insisted.
"If you will tell me, Mr. De Saussure, what the South is
fighting for, I can better answer you."
"That speech is Daisy all over!" said Ransom impatiently. "She
never will commit herself, if she can get somebody to do it
for her."
"Fighting for freedom - for independence, of course!" Mr. De
Saussure said, opening his eyes. "Is there any question?"
"How was their freedom threatened?"
"Why," said Ransom, hotly, "what do you think of armies upon
the soil of Virginia? - invading armies, come to take what
they like? What do you think of Southern forts garrisoned by
Northern troops, and Southern cities in blockade? Is that your
idea of freedom?"
"These are not the cause, but the effect, of the position
taken by the South," I said.
"Yes, we fired the first gun, Randolph," said Mr. Marshall.
"Sumter was held against us," said Ransom.
"Not till South Carolina had seceded."
"Well, she had a right to secede!" cried Ransom. "And this
right the Northern mudsills are trying to trample out. If she
has not a right to be governed as she likes, she is not free."
"But why did she secede?" I asked. "What wrong was done her?"
"You are a girl, and cannot understand such matters!" Ransom
answered, impatiently. "Just ask mamma to talk to you; - or I
will!"
"Miss Randolph's question is pertinent though," said Mr.
Marshall; "and I am ashamed to confess I am as little able to
answer it as she. What wrong had they to complain of?"
"Why, Hugh, you certainly know," his companion answered, "that
Lincoln was elected; and that if the government is to be in
the hands of those who do not think and vote with us - as this
election shows it will - we shall be pushed to the wall. The
South and her institutions will come to nothing - will be in a
contemptible minority. We do not choose that."
"Then the wrong done them was that they were out-voted?" Mr.
Marshall said.
"Put it so!" De Saussure replied, with heat; "we have a right
to say we will govern ourselves and sail our own boat."
"Yes, so I think we have," said the other. "Whether it is
worth such a war, is another question, Such a war is a serious
thing."
"It would be mean-spirited to let our rights be taken from
us," said Ransom. "It is worth anything to maintain them."
"It will not be much of a war," resumed De Saussure. "Those
poor tailors and weavers will find their workshops are a great
deal more comfortable than soldiers' tents and the battle-
ground; and they won't stand fire, depend upon it."