hese gentlemen had removed their
coats and hung them across the backs of chairs, evidently intending
a serious session. In this procedure the last of the party now
followed suit,--the Honorable William Jones, state senator from
Belmont, Missouri. Seating himself, the latter now in turn began
shuffling a pack between fingers short, puffy, freckled and
experienced. His stooped shoulders thrust forward a beardless
round face, whose permanently arched eyebrows seemed to ask a
continuous question, his short, dark hair receded from a high
forehead, and a thick mid-body betokened alike middle age and easy
living. A planter of the back country, and a politician, his
capital was a certain native shrewdness and little else. Of
course, in company such as this, and at such a day, the
conversation must drift toward the ever fruitful topic of slavery.

"No, sir," began the Honorable William Jones, indulging himself in
the luxury of tobacco as he addressed his companions, "there ain't
no doubt about it. Us Southerners orto take all that new country
west of the Missoury, clean acrost to the Pacific."

The older gentleman smiled at him. "You forget California," said
he. "She is already in, and free by her own vote."

"An' a crime aginst the natural rights of the South! Sir, the
institution of slavery is as old as history. It is as old as the
first settlement of agricultural man upon one piece of ground.
It's as old as the idea of sovereignty itself."

Dunwody gave a sly wink at his neighbor, Judge Clayton. The latter
sank back in his chair resigned. Indeed, he proceeded to
precipitate what he knew was to come.

"Sir, England herself," he assented gravely, "is the oldest of
slavers. The Saxons, of whom we speak as the fathers of freedom,
were the worst slave masters in the world--they sold their very kin
into slavery at times."

The Honorable William Jones was impatient of interruption. "Comin'
to our own side of the sea, gentlemen, what do we find? New
England foremost in the slave trade! New York, ownin' onct more
slaves than Virginny ever did! Georgia was fo'ced to take on slave
labor, although she had tried to do without it. _Every_ race,
_every_ nation, sirs, has accepted the theory of slave labor. What
says Mr. Gibbon in his great work--in his remarkable work, his
treasure house of learnin'--_The Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire_--if I had my copy here I could put my finger on to the very
place wher