Unnamed Spinster Aunts and Uncles

In his conversation with Cass about human, and specifically Southern history, Ike generalizes about a number of different kinds of people who, according to his account, were part of the explanation for the Civil War. This entry refers to what he calls "the Boston-bred (even when not born in Boston) spinster descendants of long lines of similarly-bred and likewise spinster aunts and uncles whose hands knew no callus except that of the indicting pen" - by which he means northern abolitionist writers (273).