AC dBooks

There were evidently impending storms in the political horizon. I could
not bend my sails to suit every favoring gale; and if, in the future,
there should come a time that my conscience should lie in one direction,
and my popularity and pecuniary interest in the other, I did not like to
invite such a temptation. At any rate, I did not like to place myself in
such a position that to bring down on my head popular odium would be to
invite pecuniary ruin. These counties in the Military Tract were old
settled counties, and land was high; and I was not rich. At this time
the Kansas-Nebraska bill had been adopted by Congress, and Kansas had
been opened for settlement. It was certain that Eastern Kansas, in the
matter of fertility of soil, and all the elements of agricultural
wealth, would be a desirable location.
"But there might be a political and social conflict." Yes, and there
might be a political and social conflict in Illinois; or, for the matter
of that, it might cover the West as with a blanket.


Pages:
31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55