Such men as
Stephens of the South were insisting now that the real intellect-of the
North cared nothing about slavery, and only used it to masquerade their
centralizing plots. If local self-government could be extinguished for
the purposes of abolition why not for anything, in behalf of which a
moral enthusiasm could be evoked? Why not a constitutional amendment
establishing a state religion? Why not a state religion under the
present constitutional clause which makes provision for the general
welfare?
One day when Dorothy and I were seated at Niblo's at luncheon I felt
some one touch my shoulder. I looked up and saw Aldington, back of him
Abigail, who was laughing at my expression of surprise. We all broke
into exclamations. They had just returned from Europe. They joined us in
the meal; and there was scarcely enough time to tell back and forth all
that was of mutual interest. He saw me with the _Independent_ and began
to rally me. "Did you know," he said, "that the early Puritans in New
England were the progenitors of one third of the whole population of the
United States by 1834? They constitute one half of the population of the
states of Ohio and New York now, and they have gone into the northwest.
They will make trouble for your Douglas. I admit that they have blighted
art and hobbled literature.
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