_vim_ to a body with the differing members of your army. You, with your
ideal theory, and Billy Wilson with his 'Blood and Baltimore!' Try human
freedom. That's high and sharp and broad."

Ben drew a step closer.

"You are shrewd, Lamar. I am to go below all constitutions or expediency
or existing rights, and tell Ben here that he is free? When once the
Government accepts that doctrine, you, as a Rebel, must be let alone."

The slave was hid back in the shade.

"Dorr," said Lamar, "you know I'm a groping, ignorant fellow, but it
seems to me that prating of constitutions and existing rights is surface
talk; there is a broad common-sense underneath, by whose laws the world
is governed, which your statesmen don't touch often. You in the North,
in your dream of what shall be, shut your eyes to what is. You want a
republic where every man's voice shall be heard in the council, and the
majority shall rule. Granting that the free population are educated to a
fitness for this,--(God forbid I should grant it with the Snake-hunters
before my eyes!)--look here!"

He turned round, and drew the slave out into the light: he crouched
down, gaping vacantly at them.

"There is Ben. What, in God's name, will you do with him? Keep him a
slave, and chatter about self-government? Pah! The country is paying in
blood for the lie, to-day. Educate him for freedom, by putting a musket
in his hands? We have this mass of heathendom drifted on our shores by
your will as well as mine. Try to bring them to a level with the whites