ippi, where he kept slaves, bringing them from and returning
them to his Tennessee estate, at his convenience, and no man saying him
nay.

He owned immense tracts of land; had and disposed of all the government
contracts he pleased; traveled over Europe with his salaried physician;
said to this man "go," and he went, to that "come," and he came, and to
a third "do this," and it was done. But of all his commands "go" was
most potent; for, as president of a claim club, his orders to
pre-emptors were enforced by Judge Lynch. He never condescended to go to
Congress, but sent an agent; furnished all the Democratic votes that
could possibly be wanted in any emergency, and nobody wondered when a
good list came from a precinct in which no one lived.

Republicans on their arrival in his dominion, were converted to the
Democratic faith, fast as sinners to Christianity in a Maffitt meeting,
and those on whom the spirit fell not, kept very quiet. People had gone
there to make homes, not to fight the Southern tiger, and any attempt
against such overwhelming odds seemed madness, for Lowrie's dominion was
largely legitimate. He was one of those who are born to command--of
splendid physique and dignified bearing, superior intellect and mesmeric
fascination. His natural advantages had been increased by a liberal
education; he had been brought up among slaves, lived among Indians as
agent and interpreter, felt his own superiority, and asserted it with
the full force of honest conviction.

On all hands he was spoken of as Dictator, and there was both love and
respect mingled with the fear by which he governed. His father was a
Presbyterian minister, who taught that slavery was divine, and both
were generous and lenient masters. He was the embodiment of the slave
power. All its brute force, pious pretenses, plausibility, chivalry, all
the good and bad of the Southern character; all the weapons of the army
of despotism were concentrated in this man, the friend of my friends,
the man who stood ready to set me on the pinnacle of social distinction
by his recognition. Across the body of the prostrate slave lay the road
to wealth, and many good men had shut their eyes and stepped over.

The territorial government under Buchanan was a mere tool of slavery.
Every federal officer was a Southerner, or a Northern man with Southern
principles. Government gold flowed freely in that channel, and to the
eagles Gen. Lowrie had but to say, as to his ot