UPON the failure to convict the President, Edwin M. Stanton resigned, sank into despair and died, and a soldier Secretary of War opened the prison doors.
Ben Cameron and his father hurried Southward to a home and land passing under a cloud darker than the dust and smoke of blood-soaked battle-fields—the Black Plague of Reconstruction.
For two weeks the old Commoner wrestled in silence with Death. When at last he spoke, it was to the stalwart negroes who had called to see him and were standing by his bedside.
Turning his deep-sunken eyes on them a moment, he said slowly:
"I wonder whom I'll get to carry me when you boys die!"
Elsie hurried to his side and kissed him tenderly. For a week his mind hovered in the twilight that lies between time and eternity. He seemed to forget the passions and fury of his fierce career and live over the memories of his youth, recalling pathetically its bitter poverty and its fair dreams. He would lie for hours and hold Elsie's hand, pressing it gently.
In one of his lucid moments he said:
"How beautiful you are, my child! You shall be a queen. I've dreamed of boundless wealth for you and my boy. My plans are Napoleonic—and I shall not fail—never fear—aye, beyond the dreams of avarice!"
"I wish no wealth save the heart treasure of those I love, father," was the soft answer.
"Of course, little day-dreamer. But the old cynic who has outlived himself and knows the mockery of time and things will be wisdom for your foolishness. You shall keep your toys. What pleases you shall please me. Yet I will be wise for us both."
She laid her hand upon his lips, and he kissed the warm little fingers.
In these days of soul-nearness the iron heart softened as never before in love toward his children. Phil had hurried home from the West and secured his release from the remaining weeks of his term of service.
As the father lay watching them move about the room, the cold light in his deep-set wonderful eyes would melt into a soft glow.
As he grew stronger, the old fierce spirit of the unconquered leader began to assert itself. He would take up the fight where he left it off and carry it to victory.
Elsie and Phil sent the doctor to tell him the truth and beg him to quit politics.
"Your work is done; you have but three months to live unless you go South and find new life," was the verdict.
"In either event I go to a warmer climate, eh, doctor?" said the cynic.
"Perhaps," was the laughing reply.
"Good. It suits me better. I've had the move in mind. I can do more effective work in the South for the next two years. Your decision is fate. I'll go at once."
The doctor was taken aback.
"Come now," he said, persuasively. "Let a disinterested Englishman give you some advice. You've never taken any before. I give it as medicine, and I won't put it on your bill. Slow down on politics. Your recent defeat should teach you a lesson in conservatism."
The old Commoner's powerful mouth became rigid, and the lower lip bulged:
"Conservatism—fossil putrefaction!"
"But defeat?"
"Defeat?" cried the old man. "Who said I was defeated? The South lies in ashes at my feet—the very names of her proud states blotted from history. The Supreme Court awaits my nod. True, there's a man boarding in the White House, and I vote to pay his bills; but the page who answers my beck and call has more power. Every measure on which I've set my heart is law, save one—my Confiscation Act—and this but waits the fulness of time."
The doctor, who was walking back and forth with his hands folded behind him, paused and said:
"I marvel that a man of your personal integrity could conceive such a measure; you, who refused to accept the legal release of your debts until the last farthing was paid—you, whose cruelty of the lip is hideous, and yet beneath it so gentle a personality, I've seen the pages in the House stand at your back and mimic you while speaking, secure in the smile with which you turned to greet their fun. And yet you press this crime upon a brave and generous foe?"
"A wrong can have no rights," said Stoneman, calmly. "Slavery will not be dead until the landed aristocracy on which it rested is destroyed. I am not cruel or unjust. I am but fulfilling the largest vision of universal democracy that ever stirred the soul of man—a democracy that shall know neither rich nor poor, bond nor free, white nor black. If I use the wild pulse-beat of the rage of millions, it is only a means to an end—this grander vision of the soul."
"Then why not begin at home this vision, and give the stricken South a moment to rise?"
"No. The North is impervious to change, rich, proud, and unscathed by war. The South is in chaos and cannot resist. It is but the justice and wisdom of Heaven that the Negro shall rule the land of his bondage. It is the only solution of the race problem. Lincoln's contention that we could not live half white and half black is sound at the core. When we proclaim equality, social, political, and economic for the Negro, we mean always to enforce it in the South. The Negro will never be treated as an equal in the North. We are simply a set of cold-blooded liars on that subject, and always have been. To the Yankee the very physical touch of a Negro is pollution."
"Then you don't believe this twaddle about equality?" asked the doctor.
"Yes and no. Mankind in the large is a herd of mercenary gudgeons or fools. As a lawyer in Pennsylvania I have defended fifty murderers on trial for their lives. Forty-nine of them were guilty. All these I succeeded in acquitting. One of them was innocent. This one they hung. Can a man keep his face straight in such a world? Could Negro blood degrade such stock? Might not an ape improve it? I preach equality as a poet and seer who sees a vision beyond the rim of the horizon of to-day."
The old man's eyes shone with the set stare of a fanatic.
"And you think the South is ready for this wild vision?"
"Not ready, but helpless to resist. As a cold-blooded scientific experiment, I mean to give the Black Man one turn at the Wheel of Life. It is an act of just retribution. Besides, in my plans I need his vote; and that settles it."
"But will your plans work, Your own reports show serious trouble in the South already."
Stoneman laughed.
"I never read my own reports. They are printed in molasses to catch flies. The Southern legislatures played into my hands by copying the laws of New England relating to Servants, Masters, Apprentices and Vagrants. But even these were repealed at the first breath of criticism. Neither the Freedman's Bureau nor the army has ever loosed its grip on the throat of the South for a moment. These disturbances and 'atrocities' are dangerous only when printed on campaign fly-paper."
"And how will you master and control these ten great Southern states?"
"Through my Reconstruction Acts by means of the Union League. As a secret between us, I am the soul of this order. I organised it in 1863 to secure my plan of confiscation. We pressed it on Lincoln. He repudiated it. We nominated Frémont at Cleveland against Lincoln in '64, and tried to split the party or force Lincoln to retire. Frémont, a conceited ass, went back on this plank in our platform, and we dropped him and helped elect Lincoln again."
"I thought the Union League a patriotic and social organisation?" said the doctor, in surprise.
"It has these features, but its sole aim as a secret order is to confiscate the property of the South. I will perfect this mighty organisation until every negro stands drilled in serried line beneath its banners, send a solid delegation here to do my bidding, and return at the end of two years with a majority so overwhelming that my word will be law. I will pass my Confiscation Bill. If Ulysses S. Grant, the coming idol, falters, my second bill of Impeachment will only need the change of a name."
The doctor shook his head.
"Give up this madness. Your life is hanging by a thread. The Southern people even in their despair will never drink this black broth you are pressing to their lips."
"They've got to drink it."
"Your decision is unalterable?"
"Absolutely. It's the breath I breathe. As my physician you may select the place to which I shall be banished. It must be reached by rail and wire. I care not its name or size. I'll make it the capital of the Nation. There'll be poetic justice in setting up my establishment in a fallen slaveholder's mansion."
The doctor looked intently at the old man:
"The study of men has become a sort of passion with me, but you are the deepest mystery I've yet encountered in this land of surprises."
"And why?" asked the cynic.
"Because the secret of personality resides in motives, and I can't find yours either in your actions or words."
Stoneman glanced at him sharply from beneath his wrinkled brows and snapped.
"Keep on guessing."
"I will. In the meantime I'm going to send you to the village of Piedmont, South Carolina. Your son and daughter both seem enthusiastic over this spot."
"Good; that settles it. And now that mine own have been conspiring against me," said Stoneman, confidentially, "a little guile on my part. Not a word of what has passed between us to my children. Tell them I agree with your plans and give up my work. I'll give the same story to the press—I wish nothing to mar their happiness while in the South. My secret burdens need not cloud their young lives."
Dr. Barnes took the old man by the hand:
"I promise. My assistant has agreed to go with you. I'll say good-bye. It's an inspiration to look into a face like yours, lit by the splendour of an unconquerable will! But I want to say something to you before you set out on this journey."
"Out with it," said the Commoner.
"The breed to which the Southern white man belongs has conquered every foot of soil on this earth their feet have pressed for a thousand years. A handful of them hold in subjection three hundred millions in India. Place a dozen of them in the heart of Africa, and they will rule the continent unless you kill them"
"Wait" cried Stoneman, "until I put a ballot in the hand of every negro and a bayonet at the breast of every white man from the James to the Rio Grande!"
"I'll tell you a little story," said the doctor with a smile. "I once had a half-grown eagle in a cage in my yard. The door was left open one day, and a meddlesome rooster hopped in to pick a fight. The eagle had been sick a week and seemed an easy mark. I watched. The rooster jumped and wheeled and spurred and picked pieces out of his topknot. The young eagle didn't know at first what he meant. He walked around dazed, with a hurt expression. When at last it dawned on him what the chicken was about, he simply reached out one claw, took the rooster by the neck, planted the other claw in his breast, and snatched his head off."
The old man snapped his massive jaws together and grunted contemptuously.