When it came to anything mechanical, Frank Master had always been excited by whatever was new and daring. But in political matters, like his Loyalist great-grandfather, he was naturally conservative. If the South was wedded to slavery, then he’d rather look for compromise. After all, that’s what Congress and the government had been doing for the last half-century. Every effort had been made to preserve the balance between the two cultures. As new slave states like Mississippi and Alabama had been created, they had been matched by new free states in the North. When Missouri had entered the Union as a slave state three decades ago, the free state of Maine had been created out of northern Massachusetts to keep the balance even. Conversely, free Hawaii had failed to become a state because of opposition from the South; though slave-holding Cuba had nearly been annexed as a new slave state several times.

As for the issue of slavery itself, wasn’t it best to ignore it for a while? Even in the North, most states still reckoned the black man was inferior. Negroes in New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania might be free, but they couldn’t vote. In 1850, the Fugitive Act had made it a federal crime, even up in Rhode Island or Boston, if you didn’t turn over an escaped slave when his Southern owner claimed him. Such awkward compromises might enrage the moralists and abolitionists, but in Frank Master’s opinion, they were necessary.

And that was the difference between him and Hetty. Frank Master loved his wife for her intelligence and strength of character. She’d been his intellectual partner in everything. He understood that if she believed strongly in something, she couldn’t remain silent, and he was not surprised when she joined the abolitionist cause. But if he could agree with her that the abolitionists were morally right, that did not make them wise.

At first, when she had argued with him, he had tried to smooth things over. But as time passed, she became more passionate. One day, returning from a meeting at which a powerful abolitionist minister had preached, she had even gone down on her knees to him and begged.

“Slavery is an evil, Frank. You know in your heart that it is so. Please join with me—others like you have done so. We cannot let this continue.” For her, the issue was so profound, so much a question of personal morality, that it was impossible not to take a stand. But he could not, and would not.