[
157]
In his interesting, though rather melodramatic, romance,
The Crisis,
Winston Churchill tells the imaginary story of a young lawyer who went from
New England to
St. Louis, and settled there shortly before the outbreak of the
Civil War. Having an abundance of leisure, and being an Abolitionist, he devoted a portion of the time that was not absorbed by his profession to writing articles on slavery for the
Missouri Democrat, which, notwithstanding its name, was the organ of the
Missouri emancipationists, and lived in part on the money he received as compensation for that work.
That in part describes the author's experience.
He was at that time a young lawyer in
St. Louis, to which place he had come from the
North, and those who have read the earlier chapters of this work are aware that he was an Abolitionist.
Having a good deal of time that was not taken up by his professional employments, he occupied a portion of it in writing Anti-Slavery contributions to the
Democrat, and, so far as he knows, he was the only person who to any extent did so. A collection was made of a portion of his articles, and with money contributed by friends of the cause, they were published in
