he was
wearing, for if he had she would beg to inform him that he had given
away his best ones! But the pioneer's splendid indifference to _meum_
and _tuum_ where his own possessions were concerned was equal to the
occasion. He got his compensation in the thought that his loss was
another's gain. That, indeed, was not to be accounted loss which had
gone to a brother-man whose needs were greater than his own.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE TURNING OF A LONG LANE.

Garrison's forecast of the future, directly after the annexation of
Texas, proved singularly correct. Never, as at that moment, had the
slave-power seemed so secure in its ascendency, yet never, at any
previous period, was it so near its downfall. Freedom had reached that
darkest hour just before dawn; and this, events were speedily to make
clear. If the South could have trammeled up the consequences of
annexation, secure, indeed, for a season, would it have held its
political supremacy in America? But omnipotent as was the slave-power in
the Government, it was not equal to this labor. In the great game, in
which Texas was the stakes, Fate had, unawares, slipped into the seat
between the gamesters with hands full of loaded dice. At the first throw
the South got Texas, at the second the war with Mexico fell out, and at
the third new national territory lay piled upon the boards.

Calhoun, the arch-annexationist, struggled desperately to avert the war.
He saw as no other Southern leader saw its tremendous significance in
the conflict between the two halves of the Union for the political
balance. The admission of Texas had made an adjustment of this balance
in favor of the South. Calhoun's plan was to conciliate Mexico, to sweep
with our diplomatic broom the gathering war-clouds from the national
firmament. War, he knew, would imperil the freshly fortified position of
his section--war which meant at its close the acquisition of new
national territory, with which the North would insist upon retrieving
its reverse in the controversy over Texas. War, therefore, the great
nullifier resolved against. He cried halt to his army, but the army
heard not his voice, heeded not his orders, in the wild uproar and
clamor which arose at the sight of helpless Mexico, and the temptation
of adding fresh slave soil to the United States South, through her
spoliation; Calhoun confessed that, with the breaking out of hostilities
between the two republics an impenetrable curtain