Ercildoune's reply. "There are some
exceedingly fine ones among my countrymen. I come from the South: that
is a bad climate for the tint of the skin."
"Is it so?" exclaimed John Bull,--"worse than the North?"
"Very much worse, sir, in more ways than one."
Perhaps Robert Ercildoune was a trifle fairer than his father, but there
was still perceptible the shade which marked him as effectually an
outcast from the freedom of American society, and the rights of American
citizenship, as though it had been the badge of crime or the strait
jacket of a madman. Something of this was manifested in the conversation
in which the two were engaged.
"It is folly, Robert, for you to carry your refinement and culture into
the ranks as a common soldier, to fight and to die, without thanks. You
are made of too good stuff to serve simply as food for powder."
"Better men than I, father, have gone there, and are there to-day; men
in every way superior to me."
"Perhaps,--yes, if you will have it so. But what are they? white men,
fighting for their own country and flag, for their own rights of manhood
and citizenship, for a present for themselves and a future for their
children, for honor and fame. What is there for you?"
"For one thing, just that of which you spoke. Perhaps not a present for
me, but certainly a future for those that come after."
"A future! How are you to know? what warrant or guarantee have you for
any such future? Do you judge by the past? by the signs of to-day? I
tell you this American nation will resort to any means--will pledge
anything, by word or implication--to secure the end for which it fights;
and will break its pledges just so soon as it can, and with whomsoever
it can with impunity.
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