54-40 or Fight

en is always for t

Had it been another man who asked me to carry this message, I must have ref

nsible for the war between North and South-call him the arch apostle of that impossible doctrine of slavery, which we all now admit was wr

had had some three or four years' semi-diplomatic training when I first met Calhoun and entered his service as assistant. It was under him that I finish

rely I had my share. I knew the frontier marches of Tennessee and Alabama, the intricacies of politics of Ohio and New York, mixed as those things were in Tyler's time. I had even been as far west as the Rockies, of whic

at was a day of Warwicks. The nominal rulers did not hold the greatest titles. Naturally, I knew something of these things, from the nature of my work in Calhoun's office. I have had insi

all admitted-could care to be concerned with this purely political question of our possible territories, I was not shrewd enough at that moment in advance to guess; for I had nothing more cer

long Pennsylvania Avenue, into which finally I swung after I had crossed Rock Bridge, the more I realized that perhaps this big game was worth playing in detail and wit

e and people; fond of a horse and a dog and a rifle-yes, and a glass and a girl, if truth be told. I was not yet thirty, in spite of my western travels. At that age the rustle of silk or dimity, the suspicion of adventure, tempts the worst or the best of us, I fear. Woman!-th

ough made but to myself. I