XXVIII THE ADVANCING SHADOW

NO sooner were Dorothy and Edmonia gone than Arthur turned again to affairs. It was a troubled uneasy time in Virginia, a time of sore apprehension and dread. The “irrepressible conflict” over slavery had that year taken on new and more threatening features than ever before.

There was now a strong political party at the North the one important article of whose creed was hostility to the further extension of slavery into the territories. It was a strictly sectional party in its composition, having no existence anywhere at the South. It was influential in Congress, and in 1856 it had strongly supported a candidate of its own for president. By the beginning of 1860 its strength had been greatly increased and circumstances rendered probable its success in electing a president that year, for the hopeless division of the Democratic party, which occurred later in the year, was already clearly foreshadowed, an event which in fact resulted in the nomination of three rival candidates against Mr. Lincoln and made his election certain in spite of a heavy popular majority against him.

Had this been all, Virginia would not have been greatly disturbed by the political situation and prospect. But during the preceding autumn the Virginians had been filled with apprehension for the safety of their homes and families by John Brown’s attempt, at Harper’s Ferry, to create a negro insurrection, the one catastrophe always most dreaded by them. That raid, quickly suppressed as it was, wrought a revolution in Virginian feeling and sentiment. The Virginians argued from it, and from the approval given to it in some parts of the North, that Northern sentiment was rapidly ripening into readiness for any measures, however violent they might be, for the extinction of slavery and the destruction of the autonomy of the Southern States.

They found it difficult under the circumstances to believe the Republican party’s disclaimer of all purpose or power to interfere with the institution in the states. They were convinced that only opportunity was now wanting to make the Southern States the victims of an aggressive war, with a servile insurrection as a horrible feature of it. They cherished a warm loyalty to that Union which Virginia had done so much to create, but they began seriously to fear the time when there would be no peace or safety for their state or even for their wives and children within the Union. They were filled with resentment, too, of what they regarded as a wanton and unlawful purpose to interfere with their private concerns, and to force the country into disunion and civil war.

There were hot heads among them, of course, who were ready to welcome such results; but these were very few. The great body of Virginia’s people loved the Union, and even to the end—a year later—their strongest efforts were put forth to persuade both sides to policies of peace.

But in the meantime a marked change came over the Virginian mind with respect to slavery. Many who had always regarded the institution as an inherited evil to be got rid of as soon as that might be safely accomplished, modified or reversed their view when called upon to stand always upon the defensive against what they deemed an unjust judgment of themselves.

Arthur Brent did not share this change of view, but he shared in the feelings of resentment which had given it birth. In common with other Virginians he felt that this was a matter belonging exclusively to the individual states, and still more strongly he felt that the existing political situation and the methods of it gravely menaced the Union in ways which were exceedingly difficult for Southern men who loved the Union to meet. He saw with regret the great change that was coming over public and private sentiment in Virginia—sentiment which had been so strongly favorable to the peaceable extinction of slavery, that John Letcher—a lifelong advocate of emancipation as Virginia’s true policy—had been elected Governor the year before upon that as the only issue of a state campaign.

But Arthur was still bent upon carrying out his purpose of emancipating himself and, incidentally his slaves. And the threatening aspect of political affairs strengthened his determination at any rate to rid both his own estate and Dorothy’s of debt.

“When that is done, we shall be safe, no matter what happens,” he told himself.

To that end he had already done much. In spite of his preöccupation with the fever epidemic he had found time during the autumn to institute many economies in the management of both plantations. He had shipped and sold the large surplus crops of apples and sweet potatoes—a thing wholly unprecedented in that part of Virginia, where no products of the soil except tobacco and wheat were ever turned to money account. He was laughed at for what his neighbors characterized as “Yankee farming,” but both his conscience and his bank account were comforted by the results. In the same way, having a large surplus of corn that year, he had fattened nearly double the usual number of hogs, and was now preparing to sell so much of the bacon as he did not need for plantation uses. In these and other ways he managed to diminish the Wyanoke debt by more than a third and that of Pocahontas by nearly one-half, during his first year as a planter.

“If they don’t quit laughing at me,” he said to Archer Bannister one day, “I’ll sell milk and butter and even eggs next summer. I may conclude to do that anyhow. Those are undignified crops, perhaps, but I’m not sure that they could not be made more profitable than wheat and tobacco.”

“Be careful, Arthur,” answered his friend. “It isn’t safe to make planting too profitable. It is apt to lead to unkindly remark.”

“How so? Isn’t planting a business, like any other?”

“A business, yes, but not like any other. It has a certain dignity to maintain. But I wasn’t thinking of that. I was thinking of Robert Copeland.”

“I wish you’d tell me about him, Archer. What has he done? I observe that everybody seems to shun him—or at least nobody seems quite willing to recognize him as a man in our class, though they tell me his family is fairly good, and personally he seems agreeable. Nobody says anything to his discredit, and yet I observe a general shoulder shrugging whenever his name is mentioned.”

“He makes too many hogsheads of tobacco to the hand,” answered Archer smiling but speaking with emphasis and slowly.

“Is he cruel to his negroes?”

“Yes, and no. He is always good natured with them and kindly in his fashion, but he works them much too hard. He doesn’t drive them particularly. Indeed I never heard of his striking one of them. But he has invented a system of money rewards and the like, by which he keeps them perpetually racing with each other in their work. They badly overtax themselves, and the community regards the matter with marked disfavor. In the matter of family he isn’t in our class at all, but his father was much respected. He was even a magistrate for some years before his death. But the son has shut himself out of all social position by over working his negroes, and the fact that he does it in ways that are ingenious and not brutal doesn’t alter the fact, at least not greatly. Of course, if he did it in brutal ways he would be driven out of the county. As it is he is only shut out of society. I was jesting when I warned you of danger of that sort. But if you are not careful in your application of ‘practical’ methods down here, you’ll get a reputation for money loving, and that wouldn’t be pleasant.”

Arthur stoutly maintained his right and his duty to market all that the two plantations produced beyond their own needs, especially so long as there were debts upon them. Till these should be discharged, he contended, he had no moral right to let products go to waste which could be turned into money. Archer admitted the justice of his view, but laughingly added:

“It isn’t our way, down here, and we are so conservative that it is never quite prudent to transgress our traditions. At the same time I wish we could all rid our estates from debt before the great trouble comes. For it is surely coming and God only knows what the upshot of it all will be. Don’t quote me as saying that, please. It isn’t fashionable with us to be pessimistic, or to doubt either the righteousness or the ultimate triumph of our cause. But nobody can really foresee the outcome of our present troubles, and whatever it may be, the men who are out of debt when it comes—if there are any—will be better equipped to meet fate with a calm mind than the rest of us.”