BOSTON AND THE SOUTH 195 



sympathetic understanding of the Southern people. At that 

 time, to most of the folk of culture about Boston, the name of 

 Southerner was anathema. This was in a way natural. The 

 dastardly assault on Sumner, which was as much execrated in 

 Kentucky as in Massachusetts, was taken to be a typical sample 

 of the slaveholders' manners. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was still 

 making an atmosphere of hatred ; Lowell and Whittier were also 

 contributing to it. I was accustomed to hear hard things of my 

 people, or to have them stopped in mid-saying because they 

 caught my ear. There was ever the sense that I was in a hostile 

 country, where toleration was a matter of courtesy and not of 

 right. It must be said that the manners of the Southern stu- 

 dents were sometimes of a nature to be exasperating to those 

 from the North. I myself shared the motives of both sections, 

 but so much of me as was Southern evidently grated on the 

 feelings of associates whom I liked and respected. Thus, shortly 

 after I came to be with Agassiz, a fellow student from Salem, 

 a good fellow from the middle-class folk, stopped me on the 

 street when I was carrying a large bundle and asked me a 

 question as to something I had done or left undone, and when 

 I made my answer, said, "You are a liar"; whereupon I put 

 aside my load and knocked him down. As he got up, apparently 

 unruffled, he remarked, "What did you do that for?" It puz- 

 zled me much to find that my conduct was generally reprobated. 

 The division between the students from the South and those 

 from the North had been made the more evident by the John 

 Brown raid, which greatly moved the Boston community. At 

 the moment it seemed likely that it would lead to a servile war 

 in Virginia, which would spread to other parts of the slave- 

 holding section. It was the natural conclusion that this was a 

 part of an extended conspiracy for raising the negroes in arms. 

 I have forgotten the details of the business, but there was an 

 agreement among the Southern students to offer our services 

 to our several states in case there was need of help. It is in my 

 memory that a list of names was prepared and the offer of this 



