Memoirs of Service Afloat, During the War Between the States
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Title: Memoirs of Service Afloat, During the War Between the States
Author: Raphael Semmes
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[Illustration: ADML. R. SEMMES.
Kelly Piet & Co. Baltimore]
MEMOIRS OF SERVICE AFLOAT,
DURING THE
WAR BETWEEN THE STATES.
by
ADMIRAL RAPHAEL SEMMES,
Of the Late Confederate States Navy,
Author of "Service Afloat and Ashore, during the Mexican War."
Illustrated with Steel Engraved Portraits and Six Engravings
from Original Designs printed in Chromo-Tints.
Baltimore:
Kelly, Piet & Co., 174 Baltimore Street.
New York, L. P. Levy; Louisville, Ky., F. I. Dibble & Co.;
St. Louis, Mo., J. Hart & Co.; Richmond, Va., R. T. Taylor;
New Orleans, La., C. W. Jarratt; San Francisco, Cal., H. H.
Bancroft & Co.
London: Richard Bentley.
1869.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
Kelly, Piet & Co.
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States
for the District of Maryland.
PRESS OF KELLY, PIET & CO.
TO THE MEMORY OF THOSE
Sailors and Soldiers of the Southern States,
WHO LOST THEIR LIVES, IN THE WAR BETWEEN THE
STATES IN DEFENCE OF THE LIBERTIES WHICH HAD
BEEN BEQUEATHED TO THEM BY THEIR FATHERS,
THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY
INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR.
PREFACE.
A number of publications have appeared, first and last, concerning the
author and his career, as was naturally to have been expected. The
_Alabama_ was the first steamship in the history of the world--the
defective little _Sumter_ excepted--that was let loose against the
commerce of a great commercial people. The destruction which she caused
was enormous. She not only alarmed the enemy, but she alarmed all the
other nations of the earth which had commerce afloat, as they could not be
sure that a similar scourge, at some future time, might not be let loose
against themselves. The _Alabama_, in consequence, became famous. It was
the fame of steam. As a matter of course, she attracted the attention of
the book-makers--those cormorants ever on the lookout for a "speculation."
A number of ambitious _literateurs_ entered the seductive field. But it
was easier, as they soon found, to enter the field than to explore it, and
these penny-a-liners all made miserable failures,--not even excepting the
London house of Saunders, Otley & Co., to whom the author was induced to
loan his journals, in the hope that something worthy of his career might
be produced. To those who have chanced to see the "Log of the _Sumter_ and
_Alabama_," produced by that house, it will be unnecessary to say that the
author had no hand in its preparation. He did not write a line for it, nor
had he any interest whatever in the sale of it, as the loan of his
journals had been entirely gratuitous. So far as his own career was
concerned, the author would gladly have devolved the labor of the
historian on other shoulders, if this had been possible. But it did not
seem to be possible, after the experiments that had been made. With all
the facilities afforded the London house referred to, a meagre and barren
record was the result. The cause is sufficiently obvious. The cruise of a
ship is a biography. The ship becomes a personification. She not only
"Walks the waters like a thing of life,"
but she speaks in moving accents to those capable of interpreting her. But
her interpreter must be a seaman, and not a landsman. He must not only be
a seaman, he must have made the identical cruise which he undertakes to
describe. It will be seen, hence, that the career of the author was a
sealed book to all but himself. A landsman could not even interpret his
journals, written frequently in the hieroglyphics of the sea. A line, or a
bare mark made by himself, which to other eyes would be meaningless would
for him be fraught with the inspiration of whole pages.
Besides, the _Alabama_ had an inside as well as an outside life. She was a
microcosm. If it required a seaman to interpret her as to her outside
life, much more did it require one to give an intelligible view of the
little world that she carried in her bosom. No one but an eye-witness, and
that witness himself a sailor, could unveil to an outside world the
domestic mysteries of the every-day life of Jack, and portray him in his
natural colors, as he worked and as he played. The following pages may,
therefore, be said to be the first attempt to give anything like a
truthful picture of the career of the author upon the high seas, during
the late war, to the public. In their preparation the writer has discarded
the didactic style of the historian, and adopted that of memoir writing,
as better suited to his subject. This style gave him more latitude in the
description of persons and events, and relieved him from some of the
fetters of a mere writer of history. There are portions of the work,
however, purely historical, and these have been treated with the gravity
and dignity which became them. In short, the author has aimed to produce
what the title of his book imports--an historical memoir of his services
afloat during the war. That his book will be generally read by the
Northern people he does not suppose. They are scarcely in a temper yet to
read anything he might write. The wounds which he has inflicted upon them
are too recent. Besides, men do not willingly read unpalatable truths of
themselves. The people of America being sovereign, they are like other
sovereigns,--they like those best who fool them most, by pandering to
their vices and flattering their foibles. The author, not being a
flatterer, cannot expect to be much of a favorite at the court of the
Demos.
A word now as to the feeling with which the author has written. It has
sometimes been said that a writer of history should be as phlegmatic and
unimpassioned as the judge upon the bench. If the reader desires a dead
history, in other words, a history devoid of the true spirit of history,
the author assents to the remark. But if he desires a living, moving,
breathing picture of events--a _personam_ instead of a _subjectam_, the
picture must not be undertaken by one who does not feel something of that
which he writes. Such a terrible war as that through which we have passed
could not be comprehended by a stolid, phlegmatic writer, whose pulse did
not beat quicker while he wrote. When all the higher and holier passions
of the human heart are aroused in a struggle--when the barbarian is at
your door with the torch of the incendiary in one hand, and the uplifted
sword of diabolical revenge in the other,--_feeling_ is an important
element in the real drama that is passing before the eyes of the beholder.
To attempt to describe such a drama with the cold words of philosophy, is
simply ridiculous. If the acts be not described in words suited to portray
their infamy, you have a lie instead of history. Nor does it follow that
feeling necessarily overrides judgment. All passions blind us if we give
free rein to them; but when they are held in check, they sharpen, instead
of obscuring the intellect. In a well-balanced mind, feeling and judgment
aid each other; and he will prove the most successful historian who has
the two in a just equipoise. But though the author has given vent
occasionally to a just indignation, he has not written in malice. He does
not know the meaning of the word. He has simply written as a Southern man
might be supposed to think and feel, treading upon the toes of his enemies
as tenderly as possible. If he has been occasionally plain-spoken, it is
because he has used the English language, which calls a rogue a rogue,
notwithstanding his disguises. When the author has spoken of the Yankee
and his "grand moral ideas," he has spoken rather of a well-known type
than of individual men. If the reader will bear these remarks in mind as
he goes along, he will find them a key to some of the passages in the
book. In describing natural phenomena, the author has ventured upon some
new suggestions. He submits these with great diffidence. Meteorology is
yet a new science, and many developments of principles remain to be made.
ANCHORAGE, NEAR MOBILE, ALA.,
_December, 1868_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGE
A Brief Historical Retrospect 17
CHAPTER II.
The Nature of the American Compact 24
CHAPTER III.
From the Foundation of the Federal Government down to 1830,
both the North and the South held the Constitution to be a
Compact between the States 36
CHAPTER IV.
Was Secession Treason? 46
CHAPTER V.
Another Brief Historical Retrospect 52
CHAPTER VI.
The Question of Slavery as it affected Secession 62
CHAPTER VII.
The Formation of the Confederate Government, and the
Resignation of Officers of the Federal Army and Navy 71
CHAPTER VIII.
Author proceeds to Montgomery, and reports to the New
Government, and is dispatched northward on a Special Mission 81
CHAPTER IX.
The Commissioning of the Sumter, the First Confederate States
Ship of War 93
CHAPTER X.
The Preparation of the Sumter for Sea--She drops down between
the Forts Jackson and St. Philip--Receives her Sailing Orders--
List of her Officers 97
CHAPTER XI.
After long Waiting and Watching, the Sumter runs the Blockade
of the Mississippi, in open Daylight, pursued by the Brooklyn 108
CHAPTER XII.
Brief Sketch of the Officers of the Sumter--Her First Prize,
with other Prizes in Quick Succession 120
CHAPTER XIII.
Rapid Work--Seven Prizes in Two Days--The Sumter makes her
First Port, and what occurred there 132
CHAPTER XIV.
The Sumter on the Wing again--She is put wholly under Sail for
the first time--Reaches the Island of Curacoa, and is only able
to enter after a Diplomatic Fight 144
CHAPTER XV.
The Sumter at Curacoa--Her Surroundings--Preparations for Sea--
Her Captain solicited to become a Warwick--Her Departure--The
Capture of other Prizes--Puerto Cabello, and what occurred there 155
CHAPTER XVI.
Steaming along the Coast of Venezuela--The Coral Insect, and
the Wonders of the Deep--The Andes and the Rainy Season--The
Sumter enters the Port of Spain in the British Island of
Trinidad 170
CHAPTER XVII.
On the Way to Maranham--The Weather and the Winds--The Sumter
runs short of Coal, and is obliged to "bear up"--Cayenne and
Paramaribo, in French and Dutch Guiana--Sails again, and
arrives at Maranham, in Brazil 188
CHAPTER XVIII.
The Sumter at Maranham--More Diplomacy necessary--The Hotel
Porto and its Proprietor--A week on Shore--Ship coals and
sails again 210
CHAPTER XIX.
The Sumter at Martinique--Proceeds from Fort de France to St.
Pierre--Is an Object of much Curiosity with the Islanders--News
of the Arrest of Messrs. Mason and Slidell, on board the British
Mail Steamer, The Trent--Mr. Seward's extraordinary Course on
the Occasion 232
CHAPTER XX.
Arrival at St. Pierre of the Enemy's Steam-sloop Iroquois--How
she violates the Neutrality of the Port--Arrival of the French
Steamer-of-War Acheron--The Iroquois blockades the Sumter--
Correspondence with the Governor--Escape of the Sumter 252
CHAPTER XXI.
The Sumter pursues her Voyage across the Atlantic--Capture and
Burning of the Arcade, Vigilant, and Ebenezer Dodge--A Leaky
Ship and a Gale--An Alarm of Fire! 268
CHAPTER XXII.
Voyage across the Atlantic pursued--Christmas-day on board the
Sumter--Cape Fly-away, and the Curious Illusion produced by
it--The Sumter passes from the Desert Parts of the Sea into a
Tract of Commerce once more--Boards a large Fleet of Ships in
one Day, but finds no Enemy among them--Arrival at Cadiz 283
CHAPTER XXIII.
Annoyance of the Spanish Officials--Short Correspondence with
the U. S. Consul--The Telegraph put in Operation by the
Officials between Cadiz and Madrid--The Sumter is ordered to
leave in twenty-four Hours--Declines Obedience to the Order--
Prisoners land, and Ship Docked after much ado--Deserters--
Sumter leaves Cadiz 297
CHAPTER XXIV.
The Sumter off Cadiz--The Pillars of Hercules--Gibraltar--
Capture of the Enemy's Ships Neapolitan and Investigator--A
Conflagration between Europe and Africa--The Sumter anchors in
the Harbor of Gibraltar; the Rock; the Town; the Military; the
Review, and the Alameda 306
CHAPTER XXV.
The Sumter still at Gibraltar--Ship crowded with Visitors--A
Ride over the Rock with Colonel Freemantle--The Galleries and
other Subterranean Wonders--A Dizzy Height, and the Queen of
Spain's Chair--The Monkeys and the Neutral Ground 320
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Sumter in Trouble--Finds it impossible to coal, by reason
of a Combination against her, headed by the Federal Consul--
Applies to the British Government for Coal, but is refused--
Sends her Paymaster and Ex-Consul Tunstall to Cadiz--They are
arrested and imprisoned in Tangier--Correspondence on the
Subject--The Sumter laid up and sold 329
CHAPTER XXVII.
Author leaves Gibraltar and arrives in London--Mr. Commissioner
Mason--Confederate Naval News--Short Sojourn in London--Author
embarks on board the Steamer Melita for Nassau--Receives new
Orders from the Navy Department--Returns to Liverpool 346
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A Brief _Resume_ of the History of the War, from the date of
the commissioning the Sumter, to the commissioning of the
Alabama--Secretary Mallory and the Difficulties by which he was
surrounded--The Reorganization of the Confederate States Navy 361
CHAPTER XXIX.
The Legality of the Equipment of the Alabama, and a few
Precedents for her Career, drawn from the History of the War
of 1776 370
CHAPTER XXX.
The Equipment of the Alabama illustrated by that of sundry
Colonial Cruisers during the War of 1776--Benjamin Franklin and
Silas Deane sent to Paris as Chiefs of a Naval Bureau--The
Surprise and the Revenge--Captains Wickes and Conyngham, and
Commodore John Paul Jones 388
CHAPTER XXXI.
Author leaves Liverpool to join the Alabama--Arrives at
Terceira--Description of the Alabama--Preparing her for Sea--
The Portuguese Authorities--The commissioning of the Ship--A
Picture of her Birth and Death--Captain Bullock returns to
England--The Alabama on the High Seas 400
CHAPTER XXXII.
The Alabama a Ship of War, and not a Privateer--Sketch of the
Personnel of the Ship--Putting the Ship in Order for Service--
Sail and Steam--The Character of the Sailor--The First Blow is
struck at the Whale Fishery--The Habitat and Habits of the
Whale--Capture of the Ocmulgee 414
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Capture of the Starlight; Ocean Rover; Alert; Weather Gauge--A
Chase by Moonlight--Capture of the Altamaha; Virginia; Elisha
Dunbar--A Rough Sea, Toiling Boats, and a Picturesque
Conflagration in a Gale 428
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The Yankee Colony of the Island of Flores--What the Captains of
the Virginia and Elisha Dunbar said of the Alabama when they
got back among their Countrymen--The Whaling Season at the
Azores at an End--The Alabama changes her Cruising Ground--What
she saw and what she did 445
CHAPTER XXXV.
Capricious Weather of the Gulf Stream--Capture of the
Packet-Ship Tonawanda; of the Manchester and Lafayette--A
Cyclone, the Alabama's First Gale--How she behaved 463
CHAPTER XXXVI.
The Physiognomy of Ships--Capture of the Lafayette--Decree of
the Admiralty Court on board the Alabama in her Case, and in
that of the Lauretta--The Criticisms of the New York Press--
Further Evidence of the Rotary Nature of the Winds--The
Lauretta captured--The Crenshaw captured--The New York Chamber
of Commerce cries aloud in Pain--Capture of the Baron de
Castine, and of the Levi Starbuck--Capture of the T. B.
Wales--Lady Prisoners 479
CHAPTER XXXVII.
The Calm-Belts and the Trade-Winds--The Arrival of the Alabama
at the Island of Martinique--The Curiosity of the Islanders to
see the Ship--A Quasi Mutiny among the Crew, and how it was
quelled 498
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
The Alabama at Martinique--Is blockaded by the Enemy's Steamer
San Jacinto--How she escaped the Old Wagon--The Island of
Blanquilla, the Alabama's new Rendezvous--Coaling Ship--A
Yankee Skipper and his Alarm--How the Officers and Men amused
themselves at this Island--The Alabama sails again--Capture of
the Parker Cooke, Union, and Steamer Ariel 514
CHAPTER XXXIX.
The Alabama is disabled by an Accident, and stops to repair her
Machinery--Proceeds to her New Rendezvous at the Arcas Islands,
and thence to Galveston--Engagement with the United States
Steamer Hatteras, which she sinks 536
CHAPTER XL.
The Alabama proceeds to Jamaica, where she lands her Prisoners
and refits--Her Commander visits the Country--Intercourse with
the English Naval Officers--Earl Russell's Letter--Preparations
for Sea--A Boat Race by Moonlight, in which Strange Tactics are
practised--Captain Blake of the Hatteras complains of "Dixie"
being played by the English Bands--How the Matter is settled 551
CHAPTER XLI.
Departure from Jamaica--Capture of the Golden Rule--Coasting
the Island of Hayti--Capture of the Castelaine--The Old City of
St. Domingo and its Reminiscences--The Dominican Convent and
the Palace of Diego Columbus--Capture of the Palmetto, the
Olive Jane, and the Golden Eagle--How the Roads are blazed out
upon the Sea--Captain Maury 563
CHAPTER XLII.
The Crossing of the 30th Parallel--The Toll-Gate upon the Sea--
How the Travellers pass along the Highway--Capture of the
Washington; John A. Parks; the Bethia Taylor; the Punjaub; the
Morning Star; the Kingfisher; the Charles Hill; and the Nora--
Alabama crosses the Equator--Capture of the Louisa Hatch--
Arrival at Fernando de Noronha 581
CHAPTER XLIII.
Fernando de Noronha--Its Famous Peak--Is a Penal Settlement of
Brazil--A Visit from the Governor's Ambassadors--A Visit to the
Governor in return--The Aristocracy of the Island--Capture of
the Lafayette and the Kate Cory--Burning of these two Ships
with the Louisa Hatch--Prisoners sent to Pernambuco--The Cloud
Ring and the Rainy and Dry Seasons 596
CHAPTER XLIV.
The Alabama leaves Fernando de Noronha for a Cruise on the
Coast of Brazil--Enters the great Highway, and begins to
overhaul the Travellers--Capture of the Whalers Nye; Dorcas
Prince; Union Jack; Sea Lark--A Reverend Consul taken
Prisoner--Alabama goes into Bahia--What occurred there--Arrival
of the Georgia--Alabama proceeds to Sea again--Capture of the
Gildersleeve; the Justina; the Jabez Snow; the Amazonian; and
the Talisman 610
CHAPTER XLV.
The Alabama continues her Cruise on the Coast of Brazil--
American Ships under English Colors--The Enemy's Carrying-Trade
in Neutral Bottoms--The Capture of the Conrad--She is
commissioned as a Confederate States Cruiser--The Highways of
the Sea, and the Tactics of the Federal Secretary of the Navy--
The Phenomena of the Winds in the Southern Hemisphere--Arrival
at Saldanha Bay, on the Coast of Africa 626
CHAPTER XLVI.
The connecting Thread of the History of the War taken up--A
brief Review of the Events of the last twelve Months, during
which the Alabama has been commissioned--The Alabama arrives at
Cape Town--Capture of the Sea-Bride--Excitement thereupon--
Correspondence between the U. S. Consul and the Governor on the
Subject of the Capture 642
CHAPTER XLVII.
A Gale at Cape Town--The Alabama gets under way for Simon's
Town--Capture of the Martha Wenzell--The Tuscaloosa--Her
Status as a Ship of War considered--She proceeds to Sea--The
Alabama follows her--They, with the Sea-Bride, rendezvous at
Angra Pequena 660
CHAPTER XLVIII.
The Alabama on the Indian Ocean--The Passengers questioned, and
contracted with--The Agulhas Current--The brave West Winds--A
Theory--The Islands of St. Peter and St. Paul--The Tropic of
Capricorn--The South-east Trade-Winds, and the Monsoons--The
Alabama arrives off the Strait of Sunda--Capture of the
Amanda--Runs in and anchors under the Coast of Sumatra 674
CHAPTER XLIX.
The Alabama passes through the Strait of Sunda, seeing nothing
of the Wyoming--Burns the Winged Racer just inside of the
Strait--The Malay Boatmen, and their Alarm--Alabama makes for
the Gaspar Strait, and burns the Contest, after an exciting
Chase--She passes through the Carimata Passage--Discharges her
Prisoners into an English Ship--Miniature Sea-Serpents--The
Currents--Island of Pulo Condore--Arrives at Singapore 690
CHAPTER L.
The Alabama at Singapore--Panic among the Enemy's Shipping in
the China Seas--The Multitude flock to see the Alabama--Curious
Rumor concerning a Portion of her Crew--The Author rides to the
Country and spends a Night--The Chinese in possession of the
Business of Singapore--Alabama leaves Singapore--Capture of the
Martaban, alias Texan Star--Alabama touches at Malacca--Capture
of the Highlander, and Sonora--Alabama once more in the Indian
Ocean 708
CHAPTER LI.
The Alabama crosses the Bay of Bengal--The Pilgrims to Mecca,
and how they received her Boarding-Officer--The Burning of the
Emma Jane--The Town of Anjenga, and the Hindoos--The Great
Deserts of Central Asia, and the Cotton Crop of Hindoston--The
Alabama crosses the Arabian Sea--The Animalculae of the Sea--The
Comoro Islands--Johanna, and its Arab Population--The Alabama
passes through the Mozambique Channel--Arrives at the Cape of
Good Hope 722
CHAPTER LII.
The Alabama again in Cape Town--The Seizure of the Tuscaloosa,
and the Discussion which grew out of it--Correspondence between
the Author and Admiral Walker--Action of the Home Government,
and Release of the Tuscaloosa 738
CHAPTER LIII.
The Alabama at the Cape of Good Hope--Leaves on her Return to
Europe--Capture of the Rockingham, and of the Tycoon--She
crosses the Equator into the Northern Hemisphere, and arrives
at Cherbourg on the 11th of June, 1864--The Engagement between
the Alabama and the Kearsarge 744
CHAPTER LIV.
Other Incidents of the Battle between the Alabama and the
Kearsarge--The Rescue of a Portion of the Crew of the Alabama
by the English Steam-Yacht Deerhound--The United States
Government demands that they be given up--The British
Government refuses Compliance--The rescued Persons not
Prisoners--The Inconsistency of the Federal Secretary of the
Navy 761
CHAPTER LV.
The Federal Government and the English Steam-Yacht Deerhound--
Mr. Seward's Despatch--Mr. Lancaster's Letter to the "Daily
News"--Lord Russell's Reply to Mr. Adams, on the Subject of his
Complaint against Mr. Lancaster--Presentation of a Sword to the
Author by the Clubs of England; of a Flag by a Lady 774
CHAPTER LVI.
Author makes a Short Visit to the Continent--Returns to London,
and embarks on his Return to the Confederate States--Lands at
Bagdad, near the Mouth of the Rio Grande--Journey through
Texas--Reaches Louisiana; crosses the Mississippi, and reaches
his Home after an Absence of four Years 789
CHAPTER LVII.
Author sets out for Richmond--Is two Weeks in making the
Journey--Interview with President Davis; with General Lee--
Author is appointed a Rear-Admiral, and ordered to command the
James River Squadron--Assumes Command--Condition of the Fleet--
Great Demoralization--The Enemy's Armies gradually increasing
in Numbers--Lee's Lines broken 799
CHAPTER LVIII.
The Evacuation of Richmond by the Army--The Destruction of the
James River Fleet--The Sailors of the Fleet converted into
Soldiers--Their helpless Condition without any Means of
Transportation--The Conflagration of Richmond, and the Entry of
the Enemy into the Confederate Capital--The Author improvises a
Railroad Train, and escapes in it, with his Command, to
Danville, Va. 807
CHAPTER LIX.
Interview with President Davis and Secretary Mallory--Author's
Command organized as a Brigade of Artillery--The Brigade
marches to Greensboro', N. C.--Capitulation between General
Joseph E. Johnston and General Sherman--Dispersion of
Johnston's Command in Consequence--Author returns Home, and is
arrested--Conclusion 817
MEMOIRS OF SERVICE AFLOAT.
CHAPTER I.
A BRIEF HISTORICAL RETROSPECT.
The disruption of the American Union by the war of 1861 was not an
unforeseen event. Patrick Henry, and other patriots who struggled against
the adoption of the Federal Constitution by the Southern States, foretold
it in burning words of prophecy; and when that instrument was adopted,
when the great name and great eloquence of James Madison had borne down
all opposition, Henry and his compatriots seemed particularly anxious that
posterity should be informed of the manly struggle which they had made.
Henry said, "The voice of tradition, I trust, will inform posterity of our
struggles for freedom. If our descendants be worthy of the name of
Americans, they will preserve, and hand down to the latest posterity, the
transactions of the present times; and though I confess my explanations
are not worth the hearing, they will see I have done my utmost to preserve
their liberty."
The wish of these patriotic men has been gratified. The record of their
noble deeds, and all but inspired eloquence, has come down to posterity,
and some, at least, of their descendants, "worthy of the name of
Americans," will accord to them the foremost rank in the long list of
patriots and sages who illustrated and adorned our early annals.
But posterity, too, has a history to record and hand down. We, too, have
struggled to preserve our liberties, and the liberties of those who are to
come after us; and the history of that struggle must not perish. The one
struggle is but the complement of the other, and history would be
incomplete if either were omitted. Events have vindicated the wisdom of
Henry, and those who struggled with him against the adoption of the
Federal Constitution. Events will equally vindicate the wisdom of
Jefferson Davis, and other Confederate patriots, who endeavored to
preserve that Constitution, and hand it down, unimpaired, to their
posterity.
The wisdom of a movement is not always to be judged by its success.
Principles are eternal, human events are transitory, and it sometimes
takes more than one generation or one revolution to establish a principle.
At first sight, it may appear that there is some discordance between
Patrick Henry and Jefferson Davis, as the one struggled against the
adoption of the Constitution, and the other to preserve it. But they were,
in fact, both engaged in a similar struggle; the object of both being to
preserve the sovereignty of their respective States. Henry did not object
so much to the nature of the partnership, into which his State was about
to enter, as to the nature of the partners with whom she was about to
contract. He saw that the two sections were dissimilar, and that they had
different and antagonistic interests, and he was unwilling to trust to the
_bona fides_ of the other contracting party. "I am sure," said he, "that
the dangers of this system are real, when those who have no similar
interests with the people of this country are to legislate for us--when
our dearest interests are to be left in the hands of those whose advantage
it will be to infringe them."
The North, even at that early day, was in a majority in both houses of
Congress; it would be for the advantage of that majority to infringe the
rights of the South; and Henry, with much more knowledge of human nature
than most of the Southern statesmen of his era, refused to trust that
majority. This was substantially the case with Jefferson Davis and those
of us who followed his lead. We had verified the distrust of Henry. What
had been prophecy with him, had become history with us. We had had
experience of the fact, that our partner-States of the North, who were in
a majority, had trampled upon the rights of the Southern minority, and we
desired, as the only remedy, to dissolve the partnership into which Henry
had objected to entering--not so much because of any defect in the
articles of copartnership, as for want of faith in our copartners.
This was the wisdom of Jefferson Davis and his compatriots, which, I say,
will be vindicated by events. A final separation of these States must
come, or the South will be permanently enslaved. We endeavored to bring
about the separation, and we sacrificed our fortunes, and risked our lives
to accomplish it. Like Patrick Henry, we have done our "utmost to preserve
our liberties;" like him, we have failed, and like him, we desire that our
record shall go down to such of our posterity as may be "worthy of the
name of Americans."
The following memoirs are designed to commemorate a few of the less
important events of our late struggle; but before I enter upon them, I
deem it appropriate to give some "reason for the faith" that was in us, of
the South, who undertook the struggle. The judgment which posterity will
form upon our actions will depend, mainly, upon the answers which we may
be able to give to two questions: First, Had the South the right to
dissolve the compact of government under which it had lived with the
North? and, secondly, Was there sufficient reason for such dissolution? I
do not speak here of the right of revolution--this is inherent in all
peoples, whatever may be their form of government. The very term
"revolution" implies a forcible disruption of government, war, and all the
evils that follow in the train of war. The thirteen original Colonies, the
germ from which have sprung these States, exercised the right of
revolution when they withdrew their allegiance from the parent country.
Not so with the Southern States when they withdrew from their
copartnership with the Northern States. They exercised a higher right.
They did not form a part of a consolidated government, as the Colonies did
of the British Government. They were sovereign, equally with the Northern
States, from which they withdrew, and exercised, as they believed, a
peaceful right, instead of a right of revolution.
Had, then, the Southern States the peaceful right to dissolve the compact
of government under which they had lived with the North? A volume might be
written in reply to this question, but I shall merely glance at it in
these memoirs, referring the student to the history of the formation of
the old Confederacy, prior to the adoption of the Constitution of the
United States; to the "Journal and Debates of the Convention of 1787,"
that formed this latter instrument; to the debates of the several State
Conventions which adopted it, to the "Madison Papers," to the
"Federalist," and to the late very able work of Dr. Bledsoe, entitled "Is
Davis a Traitor?" It will be sufficient for the purpose which I have in
view--that of giving the reader a general outline of the course of
reasoning, by which Southern men justify their conduct in the late war--to
state the leading features of the compact of government which was
dissolved, and a few of its historical surroundings, about which there can
be no dispute.
The close of the War of Independence of 1776 found the thirteen original
Colonies, which had waged that war, sovereign and independent States. They
had, for the purpose of carrying on that war, formed a league, or
confederation, and the articles of this league were still obligatory upon
them. Under these articles, a Federal Government had been established,
charged with a few specific powers, such as conducting the foreign affairs
of the Confederacy, the regulation of commerce, &c. At the formation of
this Government, it was intended that it should be perpetual, and was so
declared. It lasted, notwithstanding, only a few years, for peace was
declared in 1783, and the _perpetual_ Government ceased to exist in 1789.
How did it cease to exist? By the _secession_ of the States.
Soon after the war, a convention of delegates met at Annapolis, in
Maryland, sent thither by the several States, for the purpose of devising
some more perfect means of regulating commerce. This was all the duty with
which they were charged. Upon assembling, it was found that several of the
States were not represented in this Convention, in consequence of which,
the Convention adjourned without transacting any business, and
recommended, in an address prepared by Alexander Hamilton, that a new
convention should be called at Philadelphia, with enlarged powers. "The
Convention," says Hamilton, "are more naturally led to this conclusion, as
in their reflections on the subject, they have been induced to think,
that the power of regulating trade is of such comprehensive extent, and
will enter so far into the great system of the Federal Government, that to
give it efficacy, and to obviate questions and doubts concerning its
precise nature and limits, may require a corresponding adjustment in other
parts of the _Federal_ system. That these are important defects in the
system of the Federal Government is acknowledged by the acts of those
States, which have concurred in the present meeting. That the defects,
upon closer examination, may be found greater and more numerous than even
these acts imply, is at least, so far probable, from the embarrassments
which characterize the present state of our national affairs, foreign and
domestic, as may reasonably be supposed to merit a deliberate and candid
discussion, in some mode which will unite the sentiments and counsels of
all the States."
The reader will observe that the Government of the States, under the
Articles of Confederation, is called a "Federal Government," and that the
object proposed to be accomplished by the meeting of the new Convention at
Philadelphia, was to _amend_ the Constitution of that _Government_.
Northern writers have sought to draw a distinction between the Government
formed under the Articles of Confederation, and that formed by the
Constitution of the United States, calling the one a league, and the other
a government. Here we see Alexander Hamilton calling the Confederation a
government--a Federal Government. It was, indeed, both a league and a
government, as it was formed by sovereign States; just as the Government
of the United States is both a league and a government, for the same
reason.
The fact that the laws of the Confederation, passed in pursuance of its
League, or Constitution, were to operate upon the _States_; and the laws
of the United States were to operate upon the _individual citizens_ of the
States, without the intervention of State authority, could make no
difference. This did not make the latter more a government than the
former. The difference was a mere matter of detail, a mere matter of
machinery--nothing more. It did not imply more or less absolute
sovereignty in the one case, than in the other. Whatever of sovereignty
had been granted, had been granted _by the States_, in both instances.
The new Convention met in Philadelphia, on the 14th of May, 1787, with
instructions to devise and discuss "all such _alterations_, and _further_
provisions as may be necessary to render the Federal Constitution adequate
to the exigencies of the Union." We see, thus, that the very Convention
which framed the Constitution of the United States, equally called the
Articles of Confederation a Constitution. It was, then, from a
Constitutional, Federal Government, that the States seceded when they
adopted the present Constitution of the United States! A Convention of the
States assembled with powers only to amend the Constitution; instead of
doing which, it abolished the old form of government altogether, and
recommended a new one, and no one complained. As each State formally and
deliberately adopted the new government, it as formally and deliberately
seceded from the old one; and yet no one heard any talk of a breach of
faith, and still less of treason.
The new government was to go into operation when nine States should adopt
it. But there were thirteen States, and if nine States only acceded to the
new government, the old one would be broken up, as to the other four
States, whether these would or not, and they would be left to provide for
themselves. It was by no means the voluntary breaking up of a compact, _by
all the parties to it_. It was broken up piece-meal, each State acting for
itself, without asking the consent of the others; precisely as the
Southern States acted, with a view to the formation of a new Southern
Confederacy.
So far from the movement being unanimous, it was a long time before all
the States came into the new government. Rhode Island, one of the Northern
States, which hounded on the war against the Southern States, retained her
separate sovereignty for two years before she joined the new government,
not uttering one word of complaint, during all that time, that the old
government, of which she had been a member, had been unduly broken up, and
that she had been left to shift for herself. Why was this disruption of
the old government regarded as a matter of course? Simply because it was a
league, or treaty, between sovereign States, from which any one of the
States had the right to withdraw at any time, without consulting the
interest or advantage of the others.
But, say the Northern States, the Constitution of the United States is a
very different thing from the Articles of Confederation. It was formed,
not by the States, but by the people of the United States in the
aggregate, and made all the States one people, one government. It is not a
compact, or league between the States, but an instrument under which they
have surrendered irrevocably their sovereignty. Under it, the Federal
Government has become the paramount authority, and the States are
subordinate to it. We will examine this doctrine, briefly, in another
chapter.
CHAPTER II.
THE NATURE OF THE AMERICAN COMPACT.
The two principal expounders of the Constitution of the United States, in
the North, have been Daniel Webster and Joseph Story, both from
Massachusetts. Webster was, for a long time, a Senator in Congress, and
Story a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The latter has
written an elaborate work on the Constitution, full of sophistry, and not
always very reliable as to its facts. The great effort of both these men
has been to prove, that the Constitution is not a compact between the
States, but an instrument of government, formed by the _people_ of the
United States, as contra-distinguished from the States. They both admit,
that if the Constitution were a compact between the States, the States
would have a right to withdraw from the compact--all agreements between
States, in their sovereign capacity, being, necessarily, of no more
binding force than treaties. These gentlemen are not always very
consistent, for they frequently fall into the error of calling the
Constitution a compact, when they are not arguing this particular
question; in short, it is, and it is not a compact, by turns, according to
the use they intend to make of the argument. Mr. Webster's doctrine of the
Constitution, chiefly relied on by Northern men, is to be found in his
speech of 1833, in reply to Mr. Calhoun. It is in that speech that he
makes the admission, that if the Constitution of the United States is a
compact between the States, the States have the right to withdraw from it
at pleasure. He says, "If a league between sovereign powers have no
limitation as to the time of duration, and contains nothing making it
perpetual, it subsists only during the good pleasure of the parties,
although no violation be complained of. If in the opinion of either party
it be violated, such party may say he will no longer fulfil its
obligations, on his part, but will consider the whole league or compact as
at an end, although it might be one of its stipulations that it should be
perpetual."
In his "Commentaries on the Constitution," Mr. Justice Story says, "The
obvious deductions which may be, and indeed have been drawn, from
considering the Constitution a _compact between States_, are, that it
operates as a mere treaty, or convention between them, and has an
obligatory force no longer than suits their pleasure, or their consent
continues." The plain principles of public law, thus announced by these
distinguished jurists, cannot be controverted. If sovereign States make a
compact, although the object of the compact be the formation of a new
government for their common benefit, they have the right to withdraw from
that compact at pleasure, even though, in the words of Mr. Webster, "it
might be one of its stipulations that it should be perpetual."
There might, undoubtedly, be such a thing as State merger; that is, that
two States, for instance, might agree that the sovereign existence of one
of them should be merged in the other. In which case, the State parting
with its sovereignty could never reclaim it by peaceable means. But where
a State shows no intention of parting with its sovereignty, and, in
connection with other States, all equally jealous of their sovereignty
with herself, only delegates a part of it--never so large a part, if you
please--to a common agent, for the benefit of the whole, there can have
been no merger. This was eminently the case with regard to these United
States. No one can read the "Journal and Debates of the Philadelphia
Convention," or those of the several State Conventions to which the
Constitution was submitted for adoption, without being struck with the
scrupulous care with which all the States guarded their sovereignty. The
Northern States were quite as jealous, in this respect, as the Southern
States. Next to Massachusetts, New Hampshire has been, perhaps, the most
fanatical and bitter of the former States, in the prosecution of the late
war against the South. That State, in her Constitution, adopted in 1792,
three years after the Federal Constitution went into operation, inserted
the following provision, among others, in her declaration of principles:
"The people of this Commonwealth have the sole and exclusive right of
governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent State; and do,
and forever hereafter shall exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction,
and right which is not, or may not hereafter be, by them, expressly
delegated to the United States."
Although it was quite clear that the States, when they adopted the
Constitution of the United States, reserved, by implication, all the
sovereign power, rights, and privileges that had not been granted away--as
a power not given is necessarily withheld--yet so jealous were they of the
new government they were forming, that several of them insisted, in their
acts of ratification, that the Constitution should be so amended as
explicitly to declare this truth, and thus put it beyond cavil in the
future. Massachusetts expressed herself as follows, in connection with her
ratification of the Constitution: "As it is the opinion of this
Convention, that certain amendments and alterations in said Constitution
would remove the fears, and quiet the apprehensions of the good people of
the Commonwealth, and more effectually guard against an undue
administration of the Federal Government, the Convention do, therefore,
recommend that the following alteration and provisions be introduced in
said Constitution: First, that it be explicitly declared, that all powers
not delegated by the aforesaid Constitution are reserved to the several
States, to be by them exercised."
Webster and Story had not yet arisen in Massachusetts, to teach the new
doctrine that the Constitution had been formed by the "_People of the
United States_," in contra-distinction to the people of the States.
Massachusetts did not speak in the name of any such people, but in her own
name. She was not jealous of the remaining people of the United States, as
fractional parts of a whole, of which she was herself a fraction, but she
was jealous of them as _States_; as so many foreign peoples, with whom she
was contracting. The powers not delegated were to be reserved to those
_delegating_ them, to wit: the "_several States_;" that is to say, to each
and every one of the States.
Virginia fought long and sturdily against adopting the Constitution at
all. Henry, Mason, Tyler, and a host of other giants raised their
powerful voices against it, warning their people, in thunder tones, that
they were rushing upon destruction. Tyler even went so far as to say that
"British tyranny would have been more tolerable." So distasteful to her
was the foul embrace that was tendered her, that she not only recommended
an amendment of the Constitution, similar to that which was recommended by
Massachusetts, making explicit reservation of her sovereignty, but she
annexed a condition to her ratification, to the effect that she retained
the right to withdraw the powers which she had granted, "whenever the same
shall be perverted to her injury or oppression."
North Carolina urged the following amendment--the same, substantially, as
that urged by Virginia and Massachusetts: "That each State in the Union
shall respectively [not aggregately] retain every power, jurisdiction, and
right which is not by this Constitution delegated to the Congress of the
United States, or to the departments of the Federal Government."
Pennsylvania guarded her sovereignty by insisting upon the following
amendment: "All the rights of sovereignty which are not, by the said
Constitution, expressly and plainly vested in the Congress, shall be
deemed to remain with, and shall be exercised by the several States in the
Union." The result of this jealousy on the part of the States was the
adoption of the 10th amendment to the Constitution of the United States as
follows: "The powers not delegated to the United States, by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the
States, or to the people."
It is thus clear beyond doubt, that the States not only had no intention
of merging their sovereignty in the new government they were forming, but
that they took special pains to notify each other, as well as their common
agent, of the fact. The language which I have quoted, as used by the
States, in urging the amendments to the Constitution proposed by them, was
the common language of that day. The new government was a federal or
confederate government--in the "Federalist," it is frequently called a
"Confederation"--which had been created by the States for their common use
and benefit; each State taking special pains, as we have seen, to declare
that it retained all the sovereignty which it had not expressly granted
away. And yet, in face of these facts, the doctrine has been boldly
declared, in our day, that the Constitution was formed by the people of
the United States in the aggregate, as one nation, and that it has a force
and vitality independent of the States, which the States are incompetent
to destroy! The perversion is one not so much of doctrine as of history.
It is an issue of fact which we are to try.
It is admitted, that if the fact be as stated by our Northern brethren,
the conclusion follows: It is, indeed, quite plain, that if the States did
not create the Federal Constitution, they cannot destroy it. But it is
admitted, on the other hand, by both Webster and Story, as we have seen,
that if they did create it, they may destroy it; nay, that any one of them
may destroy it as to herself; that is, may withdraw from the compact at
pleasure, with or without reason. It is fortunate for us of the South that
the issue is so plain, as that it may be tried by the record. Sophistry
will sometimes overlie reason and blind men's judgment for generations;
but sophistry, with all its ingenuity, cannot hide a fact. The speeches of
Webster and the commentaries of Story have been unable to hide the fact of
which I speak; it stands emblazoned on every page of our constitutional
history.
Every step that was taken toward the formation of the Constitution of the
United States, from its inception to its adoption, was taken by the
States, and not by the people of the United States in the aggregate. There
was no such people known as the people of the United States, in the
aggregate, at the time of the formation of the Constitution. If there is
any such people now, it was formed by the Constitution. But this is not
the question. The question now is, who formed the Constitution, not what
was formed by it? If it was formed by the States, admit our adversaries,
it may be broken by the States.
The delegates who met at Annapolis were sent thither by the States, and
not by the people of the United States. The Convention of 1787, which
formed the Constitution, was equally composed of members sent to
Philadelphia by the States. James Madison was chosen by the people of
Virginia, and not by the people of New York; and Alexander Hamilton was
chosen by the people of New York, and not by the people of Virginia. Every
article, section, and paragraph of the Constitution was voted for, or
against, by States; the little State of Delaware, not much larger than a
single county of New York, off-setting the vote of that great State.
And when the Constitution was formed, to whom was it submitted for
ratification? Was there any convention of the people of the United States
in the aggregate, as one nation, called for the purpose of considering it?
Did not each State, on the contrary, call its own convention? and did not
some of the States accept it, and some of them refuse to accept it? It was
provided that when nine States should accept it, it should go into
operation; was it pretended that the vote of these nine States was to bind
the others? Is it not a fact, on the contrary, that the vote of eleven
States did _not_ bind the other two? Where was that great constituency,
composed of the people of the United States in the aggregate, as one
nation, all this time?
"But," say those who are opposed to us in this argument, "look at the
instrument itself, and you will see that it was framed by the people of
the United States, and not by the States. Does not its Preamble read thus:
'We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect
Union, &c., do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United
States of America'?" Perhaps there has never been a greater literary and
historical fraud practised upon any people, than has been attempted in the
use to which these words have been put. And, perhaps, no equal number of
reading and intelligent men has ever before submitted so blindly and
docilely to be imposed upon by literary quackery and the legerdemain of
words, as our fellow-citizens of the North have in accepting Webster's and
Story's version of the preamble of the Constitution.
A brief history of the manner, in which the words, "We, the people," &c.,
came to be adopted by the Convention which framed the Constitution, will
sufficiently expose the baldness of the cheat. The only wonder is, that
such men as Webster and Story should have risked their reputations with
posterity, on a construction which may so easily be shown to be a
falsification of the facts of history. Mr. Webster, in his celebrated
speech in the Senate, in 1833, in reply to Mr. Calhoun, made this bold
declaration: "The Constitution itself, in its very front, declares, that
it was ordained and established by the people of the United States in the
aggregate!" From that day to this, this declaration of Mr. Webster has
been the chief foundation on which all the constitutional lawyers of the
North have built their arguments against the rights of the States as
sovereign copartners.
If the Preamble of the Constitution stood alone, without the lights of
contemporaneous history to reveal its true character, there might be some
force in Mr. Webster's position; but, unfortunately for him and his
followers, he has _misstated a fact_. It is not true, as every reader of
constitutional history must know, that the Constitution of the United
States was ordained by the people of the United States in the aggregate;
nor did the Preamble to the Constitution _mean to assert_ that it was
true. The great names of Webster, and Story have been lent to a palpable
falsification of history, and as a result of that falsification, a great
war has ensued, which has sacrificed its hecatomb of victims, and
desolated, and nearly destroyed an entire people. The poet did not say,
without reason, that "words are things." Now let us strip off the
disguises worn by these word-mongers, and see where the truth really lies.
Probably some of my readers will learn, for the first time, the reasons
which induced the framers of the Constitution to adopt the phraseology,
"We, the people," &c., in the formation of their Preamble to that
instrument. In the original draft of the Constitution, the States, by
name, were mentioned, as had been done in the Articles of Confederation.
The States had formed the old Confederation, the States were equally
forming the new Confederation; hence the Convention naturally followed in
their Preamble the form which had been set them in the old Constitution,
or Articles. This Preamble, purporting that the work of forming the new
government was being done by the States, remained at the head of the
instrument _during all the deliberations of the Convention_, and no one
member ever objected to it. It expressed a fact which no one thought of
denying. It is thus a fact beyond question, not only that the
Constitution was framed by the States, but that the Convention so
proclaimed in "_front of the instrument_."
Having been framed by the States, was it afterward adopted, or "ordained
and established," to use the words of Mr. Webster, by the people of the
United States, in the aggregate, and was this the reason why the words
were changed? There were in the Convention several members in favor of
submitting the instrument to the people of the United States in the
aggregate, and thereby accomplishing their favorite object of establishing
a consolidated government--Alexander Hamilton and Gouverneur Morris among
the number. On the "Journal of the Convention," the following record is
found: "Gouverneur Morris moved that the reference of the plan [i. e. of
the Constitution] be made to one General Convention, chosen and authorized
by the people, to consider, amend, and establish the same." Thus the
question, as to who should "ordain and establish" the Constitution,
whether it should be the people in the aggregate, or the people of the
States, was clearly presented to the Convention. How did the Convention
vote on this proposition? The reader will perhaps be surprised to learn,
that the question was not even brought to a vote, for want of a second;
and yet this is the fact recorded by the Convention.
The reader who has read Mr. Madison's articles in the "Federalist," and
his speeches before the Virginia Convention, in favor of the ratification
of the Constitution, will perhaps be surprised to learn that he, too, made
a somewhat similar motion. He was not in favor, it is true, of referring
the instrument for adoption to a General Convention of the whole people,
alone, but he was in favor of referring it to such a Convention, in
connection with Conventions to be called by the States, thus securing a
joint or double ratification, by the people of the United States in the
aggregate, and by the States; the effect of which would have been to make
the new government a still more complex affair, and to muddle still
further the brains of Mr. Webster and Mr. Justice Story. But this motion
failed also, and the Constitution was referred to the States for adoption.
But now a new question arose, which was, whether the Constitution was to
be "ordained and established" by the legislatures of the States, or by
the people of the States in Convention. All were agreed, as we have seen,
that the instrument should be referred to the States. This had been
settled; but there were differences of opinion as to how the States should
act upon it. Some were in favor of permitting each of the States to
choose, for itself, how it would ratify it; others were in favor of
referring it to the legislatures, and others, again, to the people of the
States in Convention. It was finally decided that it should be referred to
Conventions of the people, in the different States.
This being done, their work was completed, and it only remained to refer
the rough draft of the instrument to the "Committee on Style," to prune
and polish it a little--to lop off a word here, and change or add a word
there, the better to conform the language to the sense, and to the
proprieties of grammar and rhetoric. The Preamble, as it stood, at once
presented a difficulty. All the thirteen States were named in it as
adopting the instrument, but it had been provided, in the course of its
deliberations by the Convention, that the new government should go into
effect if nine States adopted it. Who could tell which these nine States
would be? It was plainly impossible to enumerate all the States--for all
of them might not adopt it--or any particular number of them, as adopting
the instrument.
Further, it having been determined, as we have seen, that the Constitution
should be adopted by the people of the several States, as
contra-distinguished from the legislatures of the States, the phraseology
of the Preamble must be made to express this idea also. To meet these two
new demands upon the phraseology of the instrument, the Committee on Style
adopted the expression, "We, the people of the United States,"--meaning,
as every one must see, "We, the people of the several States united by
this instrument." And this is the foundation that the Northern advocates
of a consolidated government build upon, when they declare that the people
of the United States in the aggregate, as one nation, adopted the
Constitution, and thus gave the fundamental law to the States, instead of
the States giving it to the Federal Government.
It is well known that this phrase, "We, the people," &c., became a
subject of discussion in the Virginia ratifying Convention. Patrick Henry,
with the prevision of a prophet, was, as we have seen, bitterly opposed to
the adoption of the Constitution. He was its enemy _a l'outrance_. Not
having been a member of the Convention, of 1787, that framed the
instrument, and being unacquainted with the circumstances above detailed,
relative to the change which had been made in the phraseology of its
Preamble, he attacked the Constitution on the very ground since assumed by
Webster and Story, to wit: that the instrument itself proclaimed that it
had been "ordained and established" by the people of the United States in
the aggregate, instead of the people of the States. Mr. Madison replied to
Henry on this occasion. Madison had been in the Convention, knew, of
course, all about the change of phraseology in question, and this was his
reply: "The parties to it [the Constitution] were the people, but not the
people as composing one great society, but the people as composing
thirteen sovereignties. If it were a consolidated government," continued
he, "the assent of a majority of the people would be sufficient to
establish it. But it was to be binding on the people of a State only by
their own separate consent." There was, of course, nothing more to be
said, and the Virginia Convention adopted the Constitution.
Madison has been called the Father of the Constitution. Next to him,
Alexander Hamilton bore the most conspicuous part in procuring it to be
adopted by the people. Hamilton, as is well known, did not believe much in
republics; and least of all did he believe in federal republics. His great
object was to establish a consolidated republic, if we must have a
republic at all. He labored zealously for this purpose, but failed. The
States, without an exception, were in favor of the federal form; and no
one knew better than Hamilton the kind of government which had been
established.
Now let us hear what Hamilton, an unwilling, but an honest witness, says
on this subject. Of the eighty-five articles in the "Federalist," Hamilton
wrote no less than fifty. Having failed to procure the establishment of a
consolidated government, his next great object was, to procure the
adoption by the States of the present Constitution, and to this task,
accordingly, he now addressed his great intellect and powerful energies.
In turning over the pages of the "Federalist," we can scarcely go amiss in
quoting Hamilton, to the point that the Constitution is a compact between
the States, and not an emanation from the people of the United States in
the aggregate. Let us take up the final article, for instance, the 85th.
In this article we find the following expressions: "The compacts which are
to embrace thirteen distinct States in a common bond of amity and Union,
must necessarily be compromises of as many dissimilar interests and
inclinations." Again: "The moment an alteration is made in the present
plan, it becomes, to the purpose of adoption, a new one, and must undergo
a new decision of each State. To its complete establishment throughout the
Union, it will, therefore, require the concurrence of thirteen States."
And again: "Every Constitution for the United States must, inevitably,
consist of a great variety of particulars, in which thirteen _Independent
States_ are to be accommodated in their interests, or opinions of
interests. * * * Hence the necessity of moulding and arranging all the
particulars which are to compose the whole in such a manner as to satisfy
all the _parties to the compact_." Thus, we do not hear Hamilton, any more
than Madison, talking of a "people of the United States in the aggregate"
as having anything to do with the formation of the new charter of
government. He speaks only of States, and of compacts made or to be made
by States.
In view of the great importance of the question, whether it was the people
of the United States in the aggregate who "ordained and established" the
Constitution, or the States,--for this, indeed, is the whole _gist_ of the
controversy between the North and South,--I have dwelt somewhat at length
on the subject, and had recourse to contemporaneous history; but this was
scarcely necessary. The Constitution itself settles the whole controversy.
The 7th article of that instrument reads as follows: "The ratification of
the Conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment
of the Constitution between the States so ratifying the same." How is it
possible to reconcile this short, explicit, and unambiguous provision with
the theory I am combating? The Preamble, as explained by the Northern
consolidationists, and this article, cannot possibly stand together. It is
not possible that the people of the United States in the aggregate, as one
nation, "ordained and established" the Constitution, and that the States
ordained and established it at the same time; for there was but one set of
Conventions called, and these Conventions were called by the States, and
acted in the names of the States.
Mr. Madison did, indeed, endeavor to have the ratification made in both
modes, but his motion in the Convention to this effect failed, as we have
seen. Further, how could the Constitution be binding only between the
States that ratified it, if it was not ratified--that is, not "ordained
and established"--by them at all, but by the people of the United States
in the aggregate? As remarked by Mr. Madison, in the Virginia Convention,
a ratification by the people, in the sense in which this term is used by
the Northern consolidationists, would have bound all the people, and there
would have been no option left the dissenting States. But the 7th article
says that they shall have an option, and that the instrument is to be
binding only _between such of them as ratify it_.
With all due deference, then, to others who have written upon this vexed
question, and who have differed from me in opinion, I must insist that the
proof is conclusive that the Constitution is a compact between the States;
and this being so, we have the admission of both Mr. Webster and Justice
Story that any one of the States may withdraw from it at pleasure.
CHAPTER III.
FROM THE FOUNDATION OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT DOWN TO 1830, BOTH THE NORTH
AND THE SOUTH HELD THE CONSTITUTION TO BE A COMPACT BETWEEN THE STATES.
One of the great difficulties in arguing the question of the relative
power of the States and of the Federal Government, consists in the fact
that the present generation has grown up under the shadow of the great
Federal monster, and has been blinded by its giant proportions. They see
around them all the paraphernalia and power of a great government--its
splendid capital, its armies, its fleets, its Chief Magistrate, its
legislature, and its judiciary--and they find it difficult to realize the
fact, that all this grandeur is not self-created, but the offspring of the
States.
When our late troubles were culminating, men were heard frequently to
exclaim, with plaintive energy, "What! have we no government capable of
preserving itself? Is our Government a mere rope of sand, that may be
destroyed at the will of the States?" These men seemed to think that there
was but one government to be preserved, and that that was the Government
of the United States. Less than a century had elapsed since the adoption
of the Constitution, and the generation now on the theatre of events had
seemingly forgotten, that the magnificent structure, which they
contemplated with so much admiration, was but a creature of the States;
that it had been made by them for their convenience, and necessarily held
the tenure of its life at sufferance. They lost sight of the fact that the
State governments, who were the creators of the Federal Government, were
the governments to be preserved, if there should be any antagonism between
them and the Federal Government; and that their services, as well as
their sympathies, belonged to the former in preference to the latter. What
with the teachings of Webster and Story, and a host of satellites, the
dazzling splendor of the Federal Government, and the overshadowing and
corrupting influences of its power, nearly a whole generation in the North
had grown up in ignorance of the true nature of the institutions, under
which they lived.
This change in the education of the people had taken place since about the
year 1830; for, up to that time, both of the great political parties of
the country, the Whigs as well as the Democrats, had been State-Rights in
doctrine. A very common error has prevailed on this subject. It has been
said, that the North and the South have always been widely separated in
their views of the Constitution; that the men of the North have always
been consolidationists, whilst the men of the South have been
secessionists. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Whilst the North and
the South, from the very commencement of the Government, have been at
swords' points, on many questions of mere construction and policy,--the
North claiming that more ample powers had been granted the Federal
Government, than the South was willing to concede,--there never was any
material difference between them down to the year 1830, as to the true
nature of their Government. They all held it to be a federal compact, and
the Northern people were as jealous of the rights of their States under
it, as the Southern people.
In proof of this, I have only to refer to a few of the well-known facts of
our political history. Thomas Jefferson penned the famous Kentucky
Resolutions of '98 and '99. The first of those resolutions is in these
words: "_Resolved_, That the several States comprising the United States
of America are not united on the principles of unlimited submission to
their general Government; but that by a compact, under the style and title
of the Constitution of the United States, and of amendments thereto, they
constitute a general Government for special purposes; and that whensoever
the general Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are
unauthoritative, void and of no force; that to this compact each State
acceded as a State, and is an integral party, its co-States forming, as to
itself, the other party; that the government created by this compact was
not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers
delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion, not the
Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all cases of
compact among persons having no common judge, each party has an equal
right to judge for itself, as well of infractions, as of the mode and
measure of redress."
It is unnecessary to quote the other resolution, as the above contains all
that is sufficient for my purpose, which is to show that Mr. Jefferson was
a secessionist, and that _with this record_ he went before the American
people as a candidate for the Presidency, with the following results: In
1800 he beat his opponent, John Adams, who represented the
consolidationists of that day, by a majority of 8 votes in the Electoral
College. In 1804, being a candidate for re-election, he beat his opponent
by the overwhelming majority of 162, to 14 votes. In the Northern States
alone, Mr. Jefferson received 85 votes, whilst in the same States his
opponent received but 9. This was a pretty considerable indorsement of
secession by the Northern States.
In 1808, Mr. Madison, who penned the Virginia Resolutions of '98, similar
in tenor to the Kentucky Resolutions, became a candidate for the
Presidency, and beat his opponent by a vote of 122 to 47; the Northern
majority, though somewhat diminished, being still 50 to 39 votes. Mr.
Madison was re-elected in 1812, and in 1816, James Monroe was elected
President by a vote of 183 to his opponent's 34; and more than one half of
these 183 votes came from the Northern States. In 1820, Mr. Monroe was
re-elected over John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, by a majority of 231
votes to 13. Besides Monroe and Adams, Crawford and Jackson were also
candidates, but these two latter received only 11 votes between them. This
last election is especially remarkable, as showing that there was no
opposition to Jefferson's doctrine of State-Rights, since _all_ the
candidates were of that creed. The opposition had been so often defeated,
and routed in former elections, that they had not strength enough left to
put a candidate in the field.
John Quincy Adams succeeded Mr. Monroe, and his State-Rights doctrines
are well known. He expressed them as follows: "The indissoluble link of
union between the people of the several States of this confederated
nation, is, after all, not in the _right_, but in the _heart_. If the day
should ever come (may heaven avert it) when the affections of the people
of these States shall be alienated from each other; when the fraternal
spirit shall give way to cold indifference, or _collision of interests
shall fester into hatred_, the bands of political association will not
long hold together parties, no longer attracted by the magnetism of
conciliated interests, and kindly sympathies; and _far better will it be
for the people of the dis-united States to part in friendship with each
other, than to be held together by constraint_. Then will be the time
for reverting to the precedents, which occurred at the formation, and
adoption of the Constitution, to form again a more perfect union, by
dissolving that which could no longer bind, and to leave the separated
parts to be reunited _by the law of political gravitation to the centre_."
General Jackson succeeded Mr. Adams in 1828, and was re-elected in 1832.
It was during his administration that the _heresy_ was first promulgated
by Mr. Webster, that the Constitution was not a compact between the
States, but an instrument of government, "ordained, and established," by
the people of the United States, in the aggregate, as one nation. With
respect to the New England States in particular, there is other and more
pointed evidence, that they agreed with Mr. Jefferson, and the South down
to the year 1830, on this question of State rights, than is implied in the
Presidential elections above quoted. Massachusetts, the leader of these
States in intellect, and in energy, impatient of control herself, has
always sought to control others. This was, perhaps, but natural. All
mankind are prone to consult their own interests. Selfishness,
unfortunately, is one of the vices of our nature, which few are found
capable of struggling against effectually.
The New England people were largely imbued with the Puritan element. Their
religious doctrines gave them a gloomy asceticism of character, and an
intolerance of other men's opinions quite remarkable. In their earlier
history as colonists, there is much in the way of uncharitableness and
persecution, which a liberal mind could wish to see blotted out. True to
these characteristics, which I may almost call instincts, the New England
States have always been the most refractory States of the Union. As long
as they were in a minority, and hopeless of the control of the Government,
they stood strictly on their State rights, in resisting such measures as
were unpalatable to them, even to the extremity of threatening secession;
and it was only when they saw that the tables were turned, and that it was
possible for them to seize the reins of the Government, that they
abandoned their State-Rights doctrines, and became consolidationists.
One of the first causes of the dissatisfaction of the New England States
with the General Government was the purchase of Louisiana, by Mr.
Jefferson, in 1803. It arose out of their jealousy of the balance of power
between the States. The advantages to result to the United States from the
purchase of this territory were patent to every one. It completed the
continuity of our territory, from the head waters of the Mississippi, to
the sea, and unlocked the mouths of that great river. But Massachusetts
saw in the purchase, nothing more than the creation of additional Southern
States, to contest, with her, the future control of the Government. She
could see no authority for it in the Constitution, and she threatened,
that if it were consummated, she would secede from the Union. Her
Legislature passed the following resolution on the subject: "_Resolved_,
That the annexation of Louisiana to the Union, transcends the
Constitutional power of the Government of the United States. It formed a
new Confederacy, to which the States [not the people of the United States,
in the aggregate] united by the former compact, are not bound to adhere."
This purchase of Louisiana rankled, for a long time, in the breast of New
England. It was made, as we have seen, in 1803, and in 1811 the subject
again came up for consideration; this time, in the shape of a bill before
Congress for the admission of Louisiana as a State. One of the most able
and influential members of Congress of that day from Massachusetts was Mr.
Josiah Quincy. In a speech on this bill, that gentlemen uttered the
following declaration: "If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion
that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union; that it will free the
States from their moral obligation, and as it will be the right of all, so
it will be the duty of some definitely to prepare for separation,
amicably if they can, violently if they must."
Time passed on, and the difficulties which led to our War of 1812, with
Great Britain, began to rise above the political horizon. Great Britain
began to impress seamen from New England merchant ships, and even went so
far, at last, as to take some enlisted men from on board the United States
ship of war Chesapeake. Massachusetts was furious; she insisted that war
should be declared forthwith against Great Britain. The Southern States,
which had comparatively little interest in this matter, except so far as
the federal honor was concerned, came generously to the rescue of the
shipping States, and war was declared. But the first burst of her passion
having spent itself, Massachusetts found that she had been indiscreet; her
shipping began to suffer more than she had anticipated, and she began now
to cry aloud as one in pain. She denounced the war, and the Administration
which was carrying it on; and not content with this, in connection with
other New England States, she organized a Convention, at Hartford, in
Connecticut, with a view to adopt some ulterior measures. We find the
following among the records of that Convention: "Events may prove, that
the causes of our calamities are deep, and permanent. They may be found to
proceed not merely from blindness of prejudice, pride of opinion, violence
of party spirit, or the confusion of the times; but they may be traced to
implacable combinations, of individuals, _or of States_, to monopolize
office, and to trample, without remorse, upon the rights and interests of
the commercial sections of the Union. Whenever it shall appear, that these
causes are radical, and permanent, _a separation by equitable arrangement,
will be preferable to an alliance, by constraint, among nominal friends
but real enemies, inflamed by mutual hatred, and jealousy, and inviting,
by intestine divisions, contempt and aggressions from abroad_." Having
recorded this opinion of what should be the policy of the New England
States, in the category mentioned, the "Journal of the Convention" goes on
to declare what it considers the right of the States, in the premises.
"That acts of Congress, in violation of the Constitution, are absolutely
void, is an indisputable position. It does not, however, consist with the
respect, from a _Confederate State_ toward the General Government, to fly
to open resistance, upon every infraction of the Constitution. The mode,
and the energy of the opposition should always conform to the nature of
the violation, the intention of the authors, the extent of the evil
inflicted, the determination manifested to persist in it, and the danger
of delay. But in case of deliberate, dangerous, and palpable infractions
of the Constitution, _affecting the sovereignty of the State_, and
liberties of the people, it is not only the right, but the _duty_, of each
State _to interpose its authority_ for their protection, in the manner
best calculated to secure that end. When emergencies occur, which are
either beyond the reach of judicial tribunals, or too pressing to admit of
the delay incident to their forms, _States_, which have no common umpire,
_must be their own judges_, and _execute their own decisions_." These
proceedings took place in January, 1815. A deputation was appointed to lay
the complaints of New England before the Federal Government, and there is
no predicting what might have occurred, if the delegates had not found,
that peace had been declared, when they arrived at Washington.
It thus appears, that from 1803-4 to 1815, New England was constantly in
the habit of speaking of the dissolution of the Union--her leading men
deducing this right from the nature of the compact between the States. It
is curious and instructive, and will well repay the perusal, to read the
"Journal of the Hartford Convention," so replete is it with sound
constitutional doctrine. It abounds in such expressions as these: "The
constitutional compact;" "It must be the duty of the State to watch over
the rights _reserved_, as of the United States to exercise the powers
_which were delegated_;" the right of conscription is "not delegated to
Congress by the Constitution, and the exercise of it would not be less
dangerous to their liberties, than hostile to the _sovereignty of the
States_." The odium which has justly fallen upon the Hartford Convention,
has not been because of its doctrines, for these were as sound, as we have
seen, as the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of '98 and '99, but because
it was a secret conclave, gotten together, _in a time of war_, when the
country was hard pressed by a foreign enemy; the war having, in fact, been
undertaken for the benefit of the very shipping States which were
threatening to dissolve the Union on account of it.
Mr. John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, himself,
as is well known, a Massachusetts man, speaking of this dissatisfaction of
the New England States with the Federal Government, says: "That their
object was, and had been, for several years, a dissolution of the Union
and the establishment of a separate Confederation, he knew from
unequivocal evidence, although not provable in a court of law; and that in
case of a civil war, the aid of Great Britain, to effect that purpose,
would be assuredly resorted to, as it would be indispensably necessary to
their design." See Mr. Adams' letter of Dec. 30th, 1828, in reply to
Harrison Gray Otis and others.
We have thus seen, that for forty years, or from the foundation of the
Federal Government, to 1830, there was no material difference of opinion
between the sections, as to the nature of the league or compact of
government which they had formed. There was this difference between the
sections, however. The South, during this entire period of forty years,
had substantially controlled the Government; not by force, it is true, of
her own majorities, but with the aid of a few of the Northern States. She
was the dominant or ruling power in the Government. During all this time,
she conscientiously adhered to her convictions, and respected the rights
of the minority, though she might have wielded her power, if she had been
so inclined, to her own advantage.
Constitutions are made for the protection of minorities, and she
scrupulously adhered to this idea. Minorities naturally cling to the
guarantees and defences provided for them in the fundamental law; it is
only when they become strong, when they throw off their pupilage, and
become majorities, that their principles and their virtues are really
tested. It is in politics, as in religion--the weaker party is always the
tolerant party. Did the North follow this example set her by the South?
No; the moment she became strong enough, she recanted all the doctrines
under which she had sought shelter, tore the Constitution into fragments,
scattered it to the winds; and finally, when the South threw herself on
the defensive, as Massachusetts had threatened to do, in 1803 and 1815,
she subjugated her.
What was the powerful motive which thus induced the North to overthrow the
government which it had labored so assiduously with the South to
establish, and which it had construed in common with the South, for the
period of forty years? It was the motive which generally influences human
conduct; it was the same motive which Patrick Henry had so clearly
foreseen, when he warned the people of Virginia against entering into the
federal compact; telling them, that interested majorities never had, in
the history of the world, and never would respect the rights of
minorities.
The great "American System," as it has been called, had in the meantime
arisen, championed by no less a personage than Henry Clay of Kentucky. In
1824, and again in 1828, oppressive tariffs had been enacted for the
protection of New England manufacturers. The North was manufacturing, the
South non-manufacturing. The effect of these tariffs was to shut out all
foreign competition, and compel the Southern consumer to pay two prices
for all the textile fabrics he consumed, from the clothing of his negroes
to his own broadcloth coats. So oppressive, unjust, and unconstitutional
were these acts considered, that South Carolina nullified them in 1830.
Immediately all New England was arrayed against South Carolina. An entire
and rapid change took place in the political creed of that section. New
England orators and jurists rose up to proclaim that the Constitution was
not a compact between the States. Webster thundered in the Senate, and
Story wrote his "Commentaries on the Constitution." These giants had a
herculean task before them; nothing less than the falsifying of the whole
political history of the country, for the previous forty years; but their
barren and inhospitable section of the country had been touched by the
enchanter's wand, and its rocky hills, and sterile fields, incapable of
yielding even a scanty subsistence to its numerous population, were to
become glad with the music of the spindle and the shuttle; and the giants
undertook the task! How well they have accomplished it, the reader will
see, in the course of these pages, when, toward the conclusion of my
narrative, he will be called upon to view the fragments of the grand old
Constitution, which has been shattered, and which will lie in such
mournful profusion around him; the monuments at once of the folly and
crimes of a people, who have broken up a government--a free
government--which might else have endured for centuries.
CHAPTER IV.
WAS SECESSION TREASON?
A few more words, and we shall be in a condition to answer the question
which stands at the head of this chapter. Being a legal question, it will
depend entirely upon the constitutional right the Southern States may have
had to withdraw from the Union, without reference to considerations of
expediency, or of moral right; these latter will be more appropriately
considered, when we come to speak of the causes which impelled the
Southern States to the step. I have combated many of the arguments
presented by the other side, but a few others remain to be noticed.
It has been said, that, admitting that the Constitution was a federal
compact, yet the States did in fact cede away a part of their sovereignty,
and from this the inference has been deduced, that they no longer remained
sovereign for the purpose of recalling the part, which had been ceded
away. This is a question which arises wholly under the laws of nations. It
is admitted, that the States were independent sovereignties, before they
formed the Constitution. We have only, therefore, to consult the
international code, to ascertain to what extent the granting away of a
portion of their sovereignty affected the remainder. Vattel, treating of
this identical point, speaks as follows: "Several sovereign and
independent States may unite themselves together by a perpetual
confederacy, without ceasing to be, each individually, a perfect State.
They will, together, constitute a federal republic; their joint
deliberations will not impair the sovereignty of each member, though they
may, in certain respects, _put some restraint upon the exercise of it_, in
virtue of _voluntary_ engagements." That was just what the American States
did, when they formed the Federal Constitution; they put some voluntary
restraint upon their sovereignty, for the furtherance of a common object.
If they are restrained, by the Constitution, from doing certain things,
the restraint was self-imposed, for it was they who ordained, and
established the instrument, and not a common superior. They, each, agreed
that they would forbear to do certain things, if their copartners would
forbear to do the same things. As plain as this seems, no less an
authority than that of Mr. Webster has denied it; for, in his celebrated
argument against Mr. Calhoun, already referred to, he triumphantly
exclaimed, that the States were not sovereign, because _they were
restrained of a portion of their liberty by the Constitution_. See how he
perverts the whole tenor of the instrument, in his endeavor to build up
those manufactories of which we spoke in the last chapter. He says:
"However men may think this ought to be, the fact is, that _the people of
the United States_ have chosen to _impose control_ on State sovereignty.
There are those, doubtless, who wish that they had been left without
restraint; but the Constitution has ordered the matter differently. To
make war, for instance, is an exercise of sovereignty, but, the
Constitution declares that no State shall declare war. To coin money is
another act of sovereign power; but no State is at liberty to coin money.
Again, the Constitution says, that no sovereign State shall be so
sovereign, as to make a treaty. These prohibitions, it must be confessed,
are a control on the State sovereignty of South Carolina, as well as of
the other States, which does not arise from her feelings of honorable
justice."
Here we see, plainly, the germ of the monstrous heresy that has riven the
States asunder, in our day. The "people of the United States," a common
superior, ordained and established the Constitution, says Mr. Webster, and
imposed restraints upon the States! However some might wish they had been
left without restraint, the Constitution has "_ordained it differently_!"
And the ostrich stomach of the North received, and digested this monstrous
perversion of the plainest historical truth, in order that the spindle
might whirr on, and the shuttle dance from side to side of the loom.
Following the idea of Mr. Webster, that the people of the United States
gave constitutional law to the States, instead of receiving it from them,
Northern writers frequently ask, in what part of the Constitution, is the
doctrine of secession found? In no part. It was not necessary to put it
there. The States who formed the instrument, delegated certain powers to
the Federal Government, retaining all others. Did they part, with the
right of secession? Could they have parted with it, without consenting to
a merger of their sovereignty? And so far from doing this, we have seen
with what jealous care they protested against even the implication of such
a merger, in the 10th amendment to the Constitution. If the power was not
parted with, by explicit grant, did it not remain to them, even before the
10th amendment was adopted, and still more, if possible, after it was
adopted?
To make it still more apparent, that the common understanding among the
Fathers of the Constitution was, that this right of secession was
reserved, it is only necessary to refer to what took place, during the
transition from the old to the new government. The thirteen original
States seceded, as we have seen, from the Articles of Confederation, not
unanimously, or all together, but one by one, each State acting for
itself, without consulting the interests, or inclinations of the others.
One of the provisions of those Articles was as follows: "Every State shall
abide by the determination of the United States, in Congress assembled, in
all questions, which, by this Confederation, are submitted to them; and
the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every
State, and the Union shall be _perpetual_; nor shall any alteration, at
any time hereafter, be made in any of them, unless such alteration be
agreed to, in a Congress of the United States, and be afterward confirmed
_by the legislature of every State_."
Now, it is a pertinent, and instructive fact, that no similar provision of
perpetuity was engrafted in the new Constitution. There must have been a
motive for this--it could not have been a mere accidental omission--and
the motive probably was, that the Convention of 1787 were ashamed to
attempt, a second time, to bind sovereign States, by _a rope of sand_,
which they, themselves, were in the act of pulling asunder. It was in
accordance with this understanding, that both New York and Virginia, in
their ratifications of the new Constitution, expressly reserved to
themselves the right of secession; and no objection was made to such
conditional ratifications. The reservations made by these States enure, as
a matter of course, to the benefit of all the States, as they were all to
go into the new Union, on precisely the same footing.
In the extract from Mr. Webster's speech, which has been given above, it
is alleged among other things, that the States are not sovereign, because
they cannot make treaties; and this disability also has been urged as an
argument against secession. The disability, like others, was self-imposed,
and, as any one may see, was intended to be binding on the States only so
long as the contract which they were then forming should endure. The
Confederate States respected this obligation while they remained in the
Federal Union. They scrupulously forbore from contracting with each other
until they had resumed, each for itself, their original sovereignty; they
were then not only free to contract with each other, but to do and perform
all the other acts enumerated by Mr. Webster; the act of declaring war
included, even though this war should be against their late confederates.
The truth is, the more we sift these arguments of our late enemies, the
less real merit there appears in them. The facts of history are too
stubborn, and refuse to be bent to conform to the new doctrines. We see it
emblazoned on every page of American history for forty years, that the
Constitution was a compact between the States; that the Federal Government
was created, by, and for the benefit of the States, and possessed and
could possess no other power than such as was conferred upon it by the
States; that the States reserved to themselves all the powers not granted,
and that they took especial pains to guard their sovereignty, in terms, by
an amendment to the Constitution, lest, by possibility, their intentions
in the formation of the new government, should be misconstrued.
In the course of time this government is perverted from its original
design. Instead of remaining the faithful and impartial agent of all the
States, a faction obtains control of it, in the interests of some of them,
and turns it, as an engine of oppression, against the others. These
latter, after long and patient suffering, after having exhausted all
their means of defence, within the Union, withdraw from the agent the
powers which they had conferred upon him, form a new Confederacy, and
desire "to be let alone." And what is the consequence? They are denounced
as rebels and traitors, armies are equipped, and fleets provided, and a
war of subjugation is waged against them. What says the reader? Does he
see rebellion and treason lurking in the conduct of these States? Are
they, indeed, in his opinion, in face of the record which he has
inspected, so bereft of their sovereignty, as to be incapable of defending
themselves, except with halters around the necks of their citizens?
Let us examine this latter question of halters for a moment. The States
existed before the Federal Government; the citizens of the States owed
allegiance to their respective States, and to none others. By what process
was any portion of this allegiance transferred to the Federal Government,
and to what extent was it transferred? It was transferred by the States,
themselves, when they entered into the federal compact, and not by the
individual citizens, for these had no power to make such a transfer.
Although it be admitted, that a citizen of any one of the States may have
had the right to expatriate himself entirely--and this was not so clear a
doctrine at that day--and transfer his allegiance to another government,
yet it is quite certain, that he could not, _ex mero motu_, divide his
allegiance. His allegiance then was transferred to the Federal Government,
by his State, whether he would or not.
Take the case of Patrick Henry, for example. He resisted the adoption of
the Federal Constitution, by the State of Virginia, with all the energies
of an ardent nature, solemnly believing that his State was committing
suicide. And yet, when Virginia did adopt that Constitution, he became, by
virtue of that act, a citizen of the United States, and owed allegiance to
the Federal Government. He had been born in the hallowed old Commonwealth.
In the days of his boyhood he had played on the banks of the Appomattox,
and fished in its waters. As he grew to man's estate, all his cherished
hopes and aspirations clustered around his beloved State. The bones of his
ancestors were interred in her soil; his loves, his joys, his sorrows
were all centred there. In short, he felt the inspiration of patriotism,
that noble sentiment which nerves men to do, and dare, unto the death, for
their native soil. Will it be said, _can_ it be said, without revolting
all the best feelings of the human heart, that if Patrick Henry had lived
to see a war of subjugation waged against his native State, he would have
been a traitor for striking in her defence? Was this one of the results
which our ancestors designed, when they framed the federal compact? It
would be uncharitable to accuse them of such folly, and stupidity, nay of
such cruelty. If this doctrine be true, that secession is treason, then
our ancestors framed a government, which could not fail to make traitors
of their descendants, in case of a conflict between the States, and that
government, let them act as they would.
It was frequently argued in the "Federalist," and elsewhere, by those who
were persuading the States to adopt the Federal Constitution, that the
State would have a sufficient guarantee of protection, in the love, and
affection of its citizens--that the citizen would naturally cling to his
State, and side with her against the Federal Government--that, in fact, it
was rather to be apprehended that the Federal Government would be too
weak, and the States too strong, for this reason, instead of the converse
of the proposition being true. It was not doubted, in that day, that the
primary and paramount allegiance of the citizen was due to his State, and,
that, in case of a conflict between her and the Federal Government, his
State would have the right to withdraw his allegiance, from that
Government. If it was she who transferred it, and if she had the right to
transfer it, it follows beyond question, that she would have the right to
withdraw it. It was not a case for the voluntary action of the citizen,
either way; he could not, of his own free will, either give his allegiance
to the Federal Government, or take it away.
If this be true, observe in what a dilemma he has been placed, on the
hypothesis that secession is treason. If he adheres to the Federal
Government, after his State has withdrawn his allegiance from that
Government, and takes up arms against his State, he becomes a traitor to
his State. If he adheres to his State, and takes up arms against the
Federal Government, he becomes a traitor to that Government. He is thus a
traitor either way, and there is no helping himself. Is this consistent
with the supposed wisdom of the political Fathers, those practical, common
sense men, who formed the Federal Constitution?
The mutations of governments, like all human events, are constantly going
on. No government stands still, any more than the individuals of which it
is composed. The only difference is, that the changes are not quite so
obvious to the generation which views them. The framers of the
Constitution did not dare to hope that they had formed a government, that
was to last forever. Nay, many of them had serious misgivings as to the
result of the _experiment_ they were making. Is it possible, then, that
those men so legislated, as to render it morally certain, that if their
experiment should fail, their descendants must become either slaves or
traitors? If the doctrine that secession is treason be true, it matters
not how grievously a State might be oppressed, by the Federal Government;
she has been deprived of the power of lawful resistance, and must regain
her liberty, if at all, like other enslaved States, at the hazard of war,
and rebellion. Was this the sort of experiment in government, that our
forefathers supposed they were making? Every reader of history knows that
it was not.
CHAPTER V.
ANOTHER BRIEF HISTORICAL RETROSPECT.
In the previous chapters, I have given a brief outline of the history and
formation of the Federal Constitution, proving, by abundant reference to
the Fathers, and to the instrument itself, that it was the intention of
the former to draft, and that they did draft, a _federal compact_ of
government, which compact was "ordained, and established," by the States,
in their sovereign capacity, and not by the people of the United States,
in the aggregate, as one nation. It resulted from this statement of the
question, that the States had the legal, and constitutional right to
withdraw from the compact, at pleasure, without reference to any cause of
quarrel. Accordingly, nothing has yet been said about the causes which
impelled the Southern States to a separation, except indeed incidentally,
when the tariff system was alluded to, as the motive which had induced
Massachusetts and the other Northern States, to change their State-Rights
doctrine.
It was stated in the opening chapter, that the judgment which posterity
will form, upon the great conflict between the sections, will depend,
mainly, upon the answers which we may be able to give to two questions:
First, Had the South the right to dissolve the compact of government,
under which it had lived with the North? and secondly, Was there
sufficient ground for this dissolution? Having answered the first
question--imperfectly, I fear, but yet as fully, as was consistent, with
the design of these pages--I propose now to consider, very briefly, the
second. I would gladly have left all this preliminary work to other, and
abler pens, but I do not consider that the memoirs of any actor in the
late war, who, like myself, was an officer in the old service, and who
withdrew from that service, because of the breaking out of the war--or
rather because of the secession of his State--would be complete without,
at least, a brief reference to the reasons, which controlled his judgment.
The American Constitution died of a disease, that was inherent in it. It
was framed on false principles, inasmuch as the attempt was made, through
its means, of binding together, in a republican form of government, two
dissimilar peoples, with widely dissimilar interests. Monarchial
governments may accomplish this, since they are founded on force, but
republican governments never. Austria, and Russia, pin together, in our
day, with their bayonets, many dissimilar peoples, but if a republic
should make the attempt, that moment it must, of necessity, cease to be a
republic, since the very foundation of such a government is the consent of
the governed. The secession of the Southern States was a mere corollary of
the American proposition of government; and the Northern States stultified
themselves, the moment they attempted to resist it. The consent of the
Southern States being wanted, there should have been an end of the
question.
If the Northern States were not satisfied to let them go, but entertained,
on the contrary, a desire to restrain them by force, this was a proof,
that those States had become tired of the republican form, and desired to
change it. But they should have been honest about it; they should have
avowed their intentions from the beginning, and not have waged the war, as
so many republics, endeavoring to coerce other republics, into a forced
union with them. To have been logical, they should have obliterated the
State boundaries, and have declared all the States--as well the Northern
States, as the Southern--so many counties of a consolidated government.
But even then, they could not have made war upon any considerable number
of those counties, without violating the fundamental American idea of a
government--the consent of the governed. The right of self-government was
vindicated in the Declaration of Independence, in favor of three millions
of the subjects of Great Britain. In the States of the Southern
Confederacy, there were eight millions.
The American Republic, as has been said, was a failure, because of the
antagonism of the two peoples, attempted to be bound together, in the same
government. If there is to be but a single government in these States, in
the future, it cannot be a republic. De Toqueville saw this, thirty years
ago. In his "Democracy in America" he described these States, as "more
like hostile nations, than rival parties, under one government."
This distinguished Frenchman saw, as with the eye of intuition, the canker
which lay at the heart of the federal compact. He saw looming up, in the
dim distance, the ominous, and hideous form of that unbridled, and
antagonistic Majority, which has since rent the country in twain--a
majority based on the views, and interests of one section, arrayed against
the views, and interests of the other section. "The majority," said he,
"in that country, exercises a prodigious, actual authority, and a moral
influence which is scarcely less preponderant; no obstacles exist, which
can impede, or so much as retard its progress, or which can induce it to
heed the complaints of those whom it crushes upon its path. * * * This
state of things is fatal, in itself, and dangerous for the future. * * *
If the free institutions of America are ever destroyed, that event may be
attributed to the unlimited authority of the majority. * * * Anarchy will
then be the result, but it will have been brought about by despotism."
Precisely so; liberty is always destroyed by the multitude, in the name of
liberty. Majorities within the limits of constitutional restraints are
harmless, but the moment they lose sight of these restraints, the
many-headed monster becomes more tyrannical, than the tyrant with a single
head; numbers harden its conscience, and embolden it, in the perpetration
of crime. And when this majority, in a free government, becomes a faction,
or, in other words, represents certain classes and interests to the
detriment of other classes, and interests, farewell to public liberty; the
people must either become enslaved, or there must be a disruption of the
government. This result would follow, even if the people lived under a
consolidated government, and were homogenous: much more, then, must it
follow, when the government is federal in form, and the States are, in the
words of De Toqueville, "more like hostile nations, than rival parties,
under one government." These States are, and indeed always have been rival
nations.
The dissimilarity between the people of the Northern, and the people of
the Southern States has always been remarked upon, by observant
foreigners, and it has not escaped the attention of our own historians.
Indeed it could not be otherwise, for the origin of the two sections has
been diverse. Virginia and Massachusetts were the two original germs,
from which the great majority of the American populations has sprung; and
no two peoples, speaking the same language, and coming from the same
country, could have been more dissimilar, in education, taste, and habits,
and even in natural instincts, than were the adventurers who settled these
two colonies. Those who sought a new field of adventure for themselves,
and affluence for their posterity, in the more congenial climate of the
Chesapeake, were the gay, and dashing cavaliers, who, as a class,
afterward adhered to the fortunes of the Charleses, whilst the first
settlers of Massachusetts were composed of the same materials, that formed
the "Praise-God-Barebones" parliament of Cromwell.
These two peoples, seem to have had an instinctive repugnance, the one to
the other. To use a botanical phrase, the Puritan was a seedling of the
English race, which had been unknown to it before. It had few, or none of
the characteristics of the original stock. Gloomy, saturnine, and
fanatical, in disposition, it seemed to repel all the more kindly, and
generous impulses of our nature, and to take a pleasure in pulling down
everything, that other men had built up; not so much, as its subsequent
history would seem to show, because the work was faulty, as because it had
been done by other hands than their own. They hated tyranny, for instance,
but it was only because they were not, themselves, the tyrants; they hated
religious intolerance, but it was only when not practised by themselves.
Natural affinities attracted like unto like. The Cavalier sought refuge
with the Cavalier, and the Puritan with the Puritan, for a century, and
more. When the fortunes of the Charleses waned, the Cavaliers fled to
Virginia; when the fortunes of Cromwell waned, the Puritans fled to
Massachusetts. Trade occasionally drew the two peoples together, but they
were repelled at all other points. Thus these germs grew, step by step,
into two distinct nations. A different civilization was naturally
developed in each. The two countries were different in climate, and
physical features--the climate of the one being cold and inhospitable, and
its soil rugged, and sterile, whilst the climate of the other was soft,
and genial, and its soil generous, and fruitful. As a result of these
differences of climate, and soil, the pursuits of the two peoples became
different, the one being driven to the ocean, and to the mechanic arts,
for subsistence, and the other betaking itself to agriculture.
Another important element soon presented itself, to widen the social, and
economical breach, which had taken place between the two peoples--African
slavery. All the Colonies, at first, became slaveholding, but it was soon
found, that slave labor was unprofitable in the North, where the soil was
so niggard, in its productions, and where, besides, the white man could
labor. One, by one, the Northern States got rid of their slaves, as soon
as they made this discovery. In the South, the case was different. The
superior fertility of the soil, and the greater geniality of the climate
enabled the planter to employ the African to advantage; and thus slave
labor was engrafted on our system of civilization, as one of its permanent
features.
The effect was, as before remarked, a still greater divergence between the
two peoples. The wealth of the South soon began to outstrip that of the
North. Education and refinement followed wealth. Whilst the civilization
of the North was coarse, and practical, that of the South was more
intellectual, and refined. This is said in no spirit of disparagement of
our Northern brethren; it was the natural, and inevitable result of the
different situations of the two peoples. In the North, almost every young
man was under the necessity, during our colonial existence, of laboring
with his own hands, for the means of subsistence. There was neither the
requisite leisure, nor the requisite wealth to bring about a very refined
system of civilization. The life of a Southern planter on the other hand
with his large estates, and hundreds of vassals, with his profuse
hospitality, and luxurious style of living, resembled more that of the
feudatories of the middle ages, than that of any modern gentleman out of
the Southern States.
It is not my object to express a preference for either of these modes of
civilization--each, no doubt, had its advantages, and disadvantages--but
to glance at them, merely, for the purpose of showing the dissimilarity of
the two peoples; their uncongeniality, and want of adaptation, socially,
the one to the other. With social institutions as wide asunder as the
poles, and with their every material interest antagonistic, the separation
of the two peoples, sooner or later, was a logical sequence.
As had been anticipated by Patrick Henry, and others, the moment the new
government went into operation, parties began to be formed, on sectional
interests and sectional prejudices. The North wanted protection for her
shipping, in the way of discriminating tonnage dues, and the South was
opposed to such protection. The North wanted a bank, to facilitate their
commercial operations; the South was opposed to it. The North wanted
protection for their manufactures, the South was opposed to it. There was
no warrant, of course, for any of these schemes of protection in the
Federal Constitution; they were, on the contrary, subversive of the
original design of that instrument. The South has been called aggressive.
She was thrown on the defensive, in the first Congress, and has remained
so, from that day to this. She never had the means to be aggressive,
having been always in a minority, in both branches of the Legislature. It
is not consistent with the scope of these memoirs, to enter, at large,
into the political disputes which culminated in secession. They are many,
and various, and would fill volumes. It will be sufficient to sketch the
history of one or two of the more important of them.
The "American System," of which Mr. Clay, of Kentucky, became the
champion, and to which allusion has already been made, became the chief
instrument of oppression of the Southern States, through a long series of
years. I prefer to let a late distinguished Senator, from the State of
Missouri, Mr. Benton, tell this tale of spoliation. On the slavery
question, Mr. Benton was with the North, he cannot, therefore, be accused
of being a witness unduly favorable to the South. In a speech in the
Senate, in 1828, he declared himself, as follows: "I feel for the sad
changes, which have taken place in the South, during the last fifty years.
Before the Revolution, it was the seat of wealth, as well as hospitality.
Money, and all it commanded, abounded there. But how is it now? All this
is reversed. Wealth has fled from the South, and settled in regions north
of the Potomac; and this in the face of the fact, that the South, in four
staples alone, has exported produce, since the Revolution, to the value of
eight hundred millions of dollars; and the North has exported
comparatively nothing. Such an export would indicate unparalleled wealth,
but what is the fact? In the place of wealth, a universal pressure for
money was felt--not enough for current expenses--the price of all property
down--the country drooping, and languishing--towns and cities
decaying--and the frugal habits of the people pushed to the verge of
universal self-denial, for the preservation of their family estates. Such
a result is a strange, and wonderful phenomenon. It calls upon statesmen
to inquire into the cause. Under Federal legislation, the exports of the
South have been the basis of the Federal revenue. * * * _Virginia, the two
Carolinas, and Georgia, may be said to defray three-fourths, of the annual
expense of supporting the Federal Government_; and of this great sum,
annually furnished by them, nothing, or next to nothing is returned to
them, in the shape of Government expenditures. That expenditure flows in
an opposite direction--it flows northwardly, in one uniform,
uninterrupted, and perennial stream. _This is the reason why wealth
disappears from the South and rises up in the North. Federal legislation
does all this._ It does it by the simple process of eternally taking from
the South, and returning nothing to it. If it returned to the South the
whole, or even a good part, of what it exacted, the four States south of
the Potomac might stand the action of the system, but the South must be
exhausted of its money, and its property, by a course of legislation,
which is forever taking away, and never returning anything. Every new
tariff increases the force of this action. No tariff has ever yet included
Virginia, the two Carolinas, and Georgia, except to increase the burdens
imposed upon them."
This picture is not overdrawn; it is the literal truth. Before the war the
Northern States, and especially the New England States, exported next to
nothing, and yet they "blossomed as the rose." The picturesque hills of
New England were dotted with costly mansions, erected with money, of which
the Southern planters had been despoiled, by means of the tariffs of which
Mr. Benton spoke. Her harbors frowned with fortifications, constructed by
the same means. Every cove and inlet had its lighthouse, for the benefit
of New England shipping, three fourths of the expense of erecting which
had been paid by the South, and even the cod, and mackerel fisheries of
New England were _bountied_, on the bald pretext, that they were nurseries
for manning the navy.
The South resisted this wholesale robbery, to the best of her ability.
Some few of the more generous of the Northern representatives in Congress
came to her aid, but still she was overborne; and the curious reader, who
will take the pains to consult the "Statutes at Large," of the American
Congress, will find on an average, a tariff for every five years recorded
on their pages; the cormorants increasing in rapacity, the more they
devoured. No wonder that Mr. Lincoln when asked, "why not let the South
go?" replied, "Let the South go! _where then shall we get our revenue?_"
This system of spoliation was commenced in 1816. The doctrine of
protection was not, at first, boldly avowed. A heavy debt had been
contracted during the war of 1812, with Great Britain, just then
terminated. It became necessary to raise revenue to pay this debt, as well
as to defray the current expenses of the government, and for these
laudable purposes, the tariff of 1816 was enacted. The North had not yet
become the overshadowing power, which it has become in our day. It was
comparatively modest, and only asked, that, in adjusting the duties under
the tariff, such _incidental_ protection, as might not be inconsistent
with the main object of the bill, to wit, the raising of revenue, should
be given to Northern manufactures. It was claimed that these manufactures
had sprung up, _sua sponte_, during the war, and had materially aided the
country in prosecuting the war, and that they would languish, and die,
unless protected, in this incidental manner. This seemed but just and
reasonable, and some of the ablest of our Southern men gave their assent
to the proposition; among others, Mr. Calhoun of South Carolina, and Mr.
Clay of Kentucky.
The latter, in particular, then a young member of the House of
Representatives, espoused the Northern side of the controversy, and
subsequently became known, as we have seen, as the father of the system.
Much undeserved obloquy has been thrown upon Mr. Clay, for this supposed
abandonment of his section. The most that he claimed, was that a temporary
protection, of a few years' duration only, should be given to these infant
manufactures, until they should become self-sustaining. In later life,
when he saw the extent to which the measure was pushed, he did, indeed
recoil from it, as Mr. Calhoun, with keener intellect, had done, years
before. The wedge, being thus entered, was driven home by the insatiable
North.
In less than twenty years, or during the early part of General Jackson's
administration, the public debt was paid off, and it became necessary to
reduce the tariffs, to prevent a plethora in the public treasury; but the
North, by this time, had "waxed fat," and like the ox in the scriptures,
began to kick. From incidental protection, it advanced, boldly, to the
doctrine of "_protection, for the sake of protection_"--thus avowing the
unjust doctrine, that it was right to rob one section, for the benefit of
the other; the pretence being the general good--the "general welfare"
clause of the Constitution as well as the expression "We, the people," in
the Preamble, being invoked to cover the enormity. Under the wholesale
system of spoliation, which was now practised, the South was becoming
poorer, and poorer. Whilst her abundant cotton crops supplied all the
exchanges of the country, and put in motion, throughout the North, every
species of manufacturing industry, from the cut-nail, which the planter
put in the weather-boarding of his house, to the coach in which his wife,
and daughters took an airing, it was found, that, from year to year,
mortgages were increasing on her plantations, and that the planter was
fast becoming little better, than the overseer of the Northern
manufacturer, and the Northern merchant. A statesman of England once
declared, that "not so much as a hob-nail should be manufactured, in
America." The colonial dependence, and vassalage meant to be proclaimed by
this expression, was now strictly true, as between the North, and the
South. The South was compelled to purchase her hob-nails, in the North,
being excluded by the Northern tariffs, from all other markets.
South Carolina, taking the alarm at this state of things, resorted as we
have seen, to nullification, in 1832. The quarrel was compromised in 1833,
by the passage of a more moderate tariff, but the North still growing, in
strength, and wealth, disregarded the compromise, in 1842, and enacted a
more oppressive tariff than ever. From this time onward, no attempt was
made to conciliate the South, by the practice of forbearance, and justice,
and the latter sank, hopelessly, into the condition of a tributary
province to her more powerful rival.
All this was done under a federal compact, formed by sovereign States, for
their common benefit! Thus was the prophecy of Patrick Henry verified,
when he said: "But I am sure, that the dangers of this system [the Federal
Constitution] are real, when those who have no similar interest with the
people of this country [the South] are to legislate for us--when our
dearest rights are to be left, in the hands of those, whose advantage it
will be to infringe them." And thus also, was verified the declaration of
Charles Cotesworth Pinkney, of South Carolina: "If they [the Southern
States] are to form so considerable a minority, and the regulation of
trade is to be given to the general Government, they will be nothing more
than overseers of the Northern States."
CHAPTER VI.
THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY, AS IT AFFECTED SECESSION.
Great pains have been taken, by the North, to make it appear to the world,
that the war was a sort of moral, and religious crusade against slavery.
Such was not the fact. The people of the North were, indeed, opposed to
slavery, but merely because they thought it stood in the way of their
struggle for empire. I think it safe to affirm, that if the question had
stood upon moral, and religious grounds alone, the institution would never
have been interfered with.
The Republican party, which finally brought on the war, took its rise, as
is well known, on the question of extending slavery to the
Territories--those inchoate States, which were finally to decide the vexed
question of the balance of power, between the two sections. It did not
propose to disturb the institution in the States; in fact, the institution
could do no harm there, for the States, in which it existed, were already
in a hopeless minority. The fat, Southern goose could not resist being
plucked, as things stood, but it was feared that if slavery was permitted
to go into the Territories, the goose might become strong enough to resist
being plucked. If proof were wanted of this, we have it, in the resolution
passed by the Federal Congress, after the first battle of Manassas, in the
first year of the war, as follows: "_Resolved_, That the war is not waged
on our part, in any spirit of oppression, or for any purpose of conquest,
or for interfering with the rights, or _established institutions of these
States_, but to defend, and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution,
and to preserve the Union, _with all the dignity and rights of the several
States unimpaired_."
In 1820, in the admission of Missouri into the Union, the North and the
South had entered into a compromise, which provided, that slavery should
not be carried into any of the Territories, north of a given geographical
line. This compromise was clearly violative of the rights of the South,
for the Territories were common property, which had been acquired, by the
blood, and treasure, of the North and the South alike, and no
discrimination could justly be made between the sections, as to emigration
to those Territories; but discrimination would be made, if the Northern
man could emigrate to all of them, and the Southern man to those of them
only that lay South of the given line. By the passage of the
Kansas-Nebraska bill, introduced into the House of Representatives, in
1854 by Mr. Stephen A. Douglas, this unjust compromise was repealed; the
repealing clause declaring, that the Missouri Compromise "being
inconsistent with the principles of non-intervention, by Congress, with
slavery in the States, and Territories, as recognized by the legislation
of 1850, commonly called the Compromise Measures, is hereby declared
inoperative, and void; it being the true intent, and meaning of this act,
not to legislate slavery into any Territory, or State, nor to exclude it
therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form, and
regulate their domestic institutions, subject only to the Constitution of
the United States."
Nothing would seem more just, than the passage of this act, which removed
the restriction which had been put upon a portion of the States, threw
open the Territories to immigration from all the States, alike, and left
the question of local government, the question of slavery included, to be
decided by the inhabitants of the Territories themselves. But this act of
justice, which Mr. Douglas had had the address and ability to cause to be
passed, was highly distasteful to the Northern people. It was not
consistent with their views of empire that there should be any more
Southern Slave States admitted into the Union. The Republican party,
which, up to that time, had made but little headway, now suddenly sprang
into importance, and at the next elections in the North, swept every thing
before it. The Northern Democratic members of Congress who had voted for
the hated measure, were beaten by overwhelming majorities, and Republicans
sent in their places; and the Republican Convention which assembled at
Chicago in 1860, to nominate a candidate for the Presidency, adopted as
one of the "planks of its platform"--to use a slang political phrase of
the day--the principle that slavery should thereafter be excluded from the
Territories; not only from the Territories North of the geographical line,
of the Missouri Compromise, but from all the Territories! The gauntlet of
defiance was thus boldly thrown at the feet of the Southern States.
From 1816 to 1860, these States had been plundered by tariffs, which had
enriched the North, and now they were told without any circumlocution,
that they should no longer have any share in the Territories. I have said
that this controversy, on the subject of slavery, did not rest, in the
North, on any question of morals or religion. The end aimed at, in
restricting slavery to the States, was purely political; but this end was
to be accomplished by means, and the Northern leaders had the sagacity to
see, that it was all-important to mix up the controversy, _as a means_,
with moral, and religious questions. Hence they enlisted the clergy in
their crusade against the South; the pulpit becoming a rostrum, from which
to inflame the Northern mind against the un-Godly slave-holder; religious
papers were established, which fulminated their weekly diatribes against
the institution; magazine literature, fiction, lectures, by paid
itinerants, were all employed, with powerful effect, in a community where
every man sets himself up as a teacher, and considers himself responsible
for the morals of his neighbor. The contumely and insult thus heaped upon
the South were, of themselves, almost past endurance, to say nothing of
the wrongs, under which she suffered. The sectional animosity which was
engendered by these means, in the North, soon became intense, and hurried
on the catastrophe with railroad speed.
Whilst the dispute about slavery in the Territories was drawing to a
focus, another, and if possible, a still more exciting question, had been
occupying the public mind--the rendition of fugitive slaves to their
owners. Our ancestors, in the Convention of 1787, foreseeing the
difficulty that was likely to arise on this subject, insisted that the
following positive provision, for their protection, should be inserted in
the Constitution: "No person held to service, or labor, in one State,
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of
any law, or regulation therein, be discharged from such service, or labor;
but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service, or
labor may be due."
In 1793, a law, called the fugitive slave law, had been passed, for the
purpose of carrying out this provision of the Constitution. This law was
re-enacted, with some alterations, the better to secure the object in
question, in 1850. Neither of those laws was ever properly executed in the
North. It soon became unsafe, indeed, for a Southern man to venture into
the North, in pursuit of his fugitive slave. Mr. Webster sought, in vain,
in the latter part of his life, when he seemed to be actuated by a sense
of returning justice to the South, to induce his countrymen to execute
those laws, and he lost much of his popularity, in consequence. The laws
were not only positively disobeyed, but they were formally nullified by
the Legislatures of fourteen of the Northern States; and penalties were
annexed to any attempt to execute them. Mr. Webster, in speaking on this
subject, says: "These States passed acts defeating the law of Congress, as
far as it was in their power to defeat it. Those of them to whom I refer,
not all, but several, nullified the law of 1793. They said in effect, 'We
will not execute it. No runaway slave shall be restored.' Thus the law
became a dead letter. But here was the Constitution, and compact still
binding; here was the stipulation, as solemn as words could form it, and
which every member of Congress, every officer of the General Government,
every officer of the State government, from governors down to constables,
is sworn to support. It has been said in the States of New York,
Massachusetts, and Ohio, over and over again, that the law shall not be
executed. That was the language in conventions, in Worcester,
Massachusetts; in Syracuse, New York, and elsewhere. And for this they
pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honors. Now,
gentlemen, these proceedings, I say it upon my professional reputation,
are distinctly treasonable. And the act of taking Shadrick [a fugitive
slave] from the public authorities, in Boston, and sending him off, was an
act of clear treason." Great outcry was raised against South Carolina when
she nullified the tariff law of 1830, passed in clear violation of the
spirit of the Constitution; here we see fourteen States nullifying an
act, passed to carry out an express provision of the same instrument,
about which there was not, and could not be any dispute.
Let us again put Mr. Webster on the witness stand, and hear what he says,
was the effect of this wholesale nullification by the Northern States of
this provision of the Constitution. "I do not hesitate," says he, "to say,
and repeat, that if the Northern States refuse wilfully, and deliberately
to carry into effect that part of the Constitution, which respects the
restoration of fugitive slaves, the South would be no longer bound to keep
the compact. _A bargain broken on one side is broken on all sides._" That
was spoken like Daniel Webster, the able jurist, and just man, and not
like the Daniel Webster, whom I have before quoted, in these pages, as the
casuist, and the sophist. The reader cannot fail to see what a full
recantation we have here, of Mr. Webster's heresy, of 1833, when he
contended that the Constitution had been "ordained and established," by
the people of the United States, in the aggregate, as one nation.
Mr. Webster now calls the States, the parties to the instrument, and
claims that the infraction of it, by some of the States, releases the
others from their obligations under it. It is then, after all, it seems, a
_federal compact_; and if it be such, we have the authority of Mr.
Webster, himself, for saying that the States may withdraw from it, at
pleasure, without waiting for an infringement of it, by their co-States.
But the Southern States did not desire to withdraw from it, without
reason. They were sincerely attached to the Union, and were willing to
suffer, and endure much rather than that it should be destroyed. They had
stood, shoulder to shoulder, with the North in two wars against the mother
country, and had freely spent their wealth, and shed their blood in
defence of the common rights. They had rushed to the defence of New
England, in the war of the Revolution, and had equally responded to her
call in 1812, in defence of her shipping interest.
Mr. Madison relied much upon these ties, as a common bond of union. When
Patrick Henry and other Southern patriots were warning their people
against the new alliance, proposed to them in the Federal Constitution,
he spoke the following fervid language in reply to them, in one of the
numbers of the "Federalist." "Hearken not to the unnatural voice, which
tells you, that the people of America, knit together, as they are, by so
many natural cords of affection, can no longer live together as members of
the same family; can no longer continue mutual guardians of their mutual
happiness. * * * No, my countrymen, shut your ears against this unhallowed
language. Shut your hearts against the poison which it conveys. The
kindred blood which flows in the veins of American citizens, the mingled
blood which they have shed in defence of their sacred rights, consecrate
their union, and excite horror at the idea of their becoming aliens,
rivals, enemies." Much of this feeling still lingered in the bosoms of
Southern men. They were slow to awaken from this dream of delusion. A rude
and rough hand had been necessary to disenchant them. But they were
compelled, in spite of themselves, to realize the fact at last, that they
had been deceived, and betrayed into the federal compact, that they might
be made slaves. Like an unhappy bride, upon whose brow the orange-wreath
had been placed, by hands that promised tenderness, and protection, the
South had been rudely scorned, and repelled, and forced, in tears, and
bitter lamentation, to retract the faith which she had plighted. To carry
still further our simile; like the deceived, and betrayed bride, the least
show of relenting, and tenderness was sufficient to induce the South to
forgive, and to endeavor to forget.
The history of our unhappy connection with the North is full of
compromises, and apparent reconciliations--prominent among which was the
compromise of 1833, growing out of the nullification of South Carolina, on
the tariff question; and the compromise of 1850, in which it was promised,
that Congress should not interfere with the question of slavery, either in
the States, or Territories. The South, like the too credulous bride,
accepted these evidences of returning tenderness, in good faith; the
North, like the coarse and brutal husband, whose selfishness was superior
to his sense of justice, withdrew them, almost as soon as made. The
obnoxious laws which had been modified, or repealed, under these
compromises, were re-enacted with additional provocations, and
restrictions.
So loth was the South to abandon the Union, that she made strenuous
efforts to remain in it, even after Mr. Lincoln had been elected
President, in 1860. In this election, that dreaded sectional line against
which President Washington had warned his countrymen, in his Farewell
Address, had at last been drawn; in it,--"the fire-bell of the
night,"--which had so disturbed the last days of Jefferson, had been
sounded. There had, at last, arisen a united North, against a united
South. Mr. Lincoln had been placed by the Chicago Convention on a platform
so purely sectional, that no Southern State voted, or could vote for him.
His election was purely geographical; it was tantamount to a denial of the
co-equality of the Southern States, with the Northern States, in the
Union, since it drove the former out of the common Territories. This had
not been a mere party squabble--the questions involved had been _federal_,
and _fundamental_. Notwithstanding which, some of the Southern States were
not without hope, that the North might be induced to revoke its verdict.
Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky, introduced into the Senate, a series of
resolutions, which he hoped would have the effect of restoring harmony;
the chief feature of which was, the restoration of the Missouri
Compromise, giving the Southern States access to the Territories south of
a geographical line. Although this compromise was a partial abandonment of
the rights of the South, many of the ablest, and most influential
statesmen of that section, gave in their adhesion to it; among others, Mr.
Jefferson Davis. The measure failed.
Various other resolutions, looking to pacification, were introduced into
both houses of Congress; but they failed, in like manner. The border Slave
States aroused to a sense of their danger--for by this time, several of
the Gulf States had seceded--called a Convention in the city of
Washington, to endeavor to allay the storm. A full representation
attended, composed of men, venerable for their years, and renowned for
their patriotic services, but their labors ended also in failure; Congress
scarcely deigned to notice them. In both houses of Congress the Northern
faction, which had so recently triumphed in the election of their
President, was arrayed in a solid phalanx of hostility to the South, and
could not be moved an inch. The Puritan leaven had at last "leavened the
whole loaf," and the descendants of those immigrants who had come over to
America, in the _May Flower_, feeling that they had the power to crush a
race of men, who had dared to differ with them in opinion, and to have
interests separate and apart from them, were resolved to use that power in
a way to do no discredit to their ancestry. Rebels, when in a minority,
they had become tyrants, now that they were in a majority.
Nothing remained to the South, but to raise the gantlet which had been
thrown at her feet. The Federal Government which had been established by
our ancestors had failed of its object. Instead of binding the States
together, in peace, and amity, it had, in the hands of one portion of the
States, become an engine of oppression of the other portion. It so
happened, that the slavery question was the issue which finally tore them
asunder, but, as the reader has seen, this question was a mere means, to
an end. The end was empire, and we were about to repeat, in this
hemisphere, the drama which had so often been enacted in the other, of a
more powerful nation crushing out a weaker.
The war of the American sections was but the prototype of many other wars,
which had occurred among the human race. It had its origin in the
unregenerated nature of man, who is only an intellectual wild beast, whose
rapacity has never yet been restrained, by a sense of justice. The
American people thought, when they framed the Constitution, that they were
to be an exception to mankind, in general. History had instructed them
that all other peoples, who had gone before them, had torn up paper
governments, when paper was the only bulwark that protected such
governments, but then they were the _American_ people, and no such fate
could await them. The events which I have recorded, and am about to
record, have taught them, that they are no better--and perhaps they are no
worse--than other people. It is to be hoped that they will profit by their
dear-bought experience, and that when they shall have come to their
senses, and undertake to lay the foundation of a new government, they
will, if they design to essay another republic, eliminate all discordant
materials. The experiment of trusting to human honesty having failed, they
must next trust to human interests--the great regulator, as all philosophy
teaches, of human nature. They must listen rather to the philosophy of
Patrick Henry, than to that of James Madison, and never attempt again to
bind up in one sheaf, with a withe of straw, materials so discordant as
were the people of the North, and the people of the South.
CHAPTER VII.
THE FORMATION OF THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT, AND THE RESIGNATION OF
OFFICERS OF THE FEDERAL ARMY AND NAVY.
As I am not writing a history of the war, but only of a very small portion
of the war, it cannot be expected that I will follow events in a connected
train. I have detained the reader, so far, as to give him a continuous,
though hasty glance, of the causes of the war, but having brought him down
to the final rupture of the sections, I must leave him to supply for
himself many a link, here and there, in the broken chain, as we proceed.
Let him imagine then that the Southern States have seceded--the gallant
little State of South Carolina setting her larger, and more powerful
sisters, the example, on the 20th December, 1860--and that they have met
at Montgomery, in Alabama, by their delegates in Congress, to form a new
Confederacy; that a Provisional Government has been formed and that Mr.
Jefferson Davis has been elected President, and Mr. Alexander H. Stephens
Vice-President.
The time had now come for the officers of the old Army, and Navy to make
their election, as to which of the two Governments they would give their
adhesion. There were no such questions then, as rebellion, and treason in
the public mind. This was a Federal after-thought, when that Government
began to get the better of us in the war. The Puritan, if he had been
whipped, would have been a capital secessionist, and as meek, and humble
as we could have desired. He would have been the first to make a
"perpetual" alliance with us, and to offer us inducements to give him the
benefits of our trade. After the first drubbing we gave him, at Manassas,
he was disposed to be quite reasonable, and the Federal Congress passed
the conciliatory resolution I have quoted in a previous chapter,
intimating to us, that if we would come back, slavery should be secure in
the States, and our "rights and dignity" remain unimpaired. But as he
gained strength, he gained courage, and as the war progressed, and it
became evident that we should be beaten, he began to talk of traitors, and
treason.
As a general rule, the officers both of the Army, and the Navy sided with
their respective States; especially those of them who were cultivated, and
knew something of the form of government, under which they had been
living. But even the profession of arms is not free from sordid natures,
and many of these had found their way into both branches of the public
service. Men were found capable of drawing their swords against their own
firesides, as it were, and surrendering their neighbors, and friends to
the vengeance of a government, which paid them for their fealty. Some,
with cunning duplicity, even encouraged their former messmates, and
companions who occupied places above them, to resign, and afterward held
back themselves. Some were mere soldiers, and sailors of fortune, and
seemed devoid of all sensibility on the subject, looking only to rank and
pay. They were open to the highest bidder, and the Federal Government was
in a condition to make the highest bids. Some of the Southern men of this
latter class remained with the North, because they could not obtain the
positions they desired in the South; and afterward, as is the fashion with
renegades, became more bitter against their own people than even the
Northern men.
Civil war is a terrible crucible through which to pass character; the
dross drops away from the pure metal at the first touch of the fire. It
must be admitted, indeed, that there was some little nerve required, on
the part of an officer of the regular Army, or Navy, to elect to go with
his State. His profession was his only fortune; he depended upon it, for
the means of subsisting himself and family. If he remained where he was, a
competency for life, and promotion, and honors probably awaited him; if he
went with the South, a dark, and uncertain future was before him; he could
not possibly better his condition, and if the South failed, he would have
thrown away the labor of a life-time. The struggle was hard in other
respects. All professions are clannish. Men naturally cling together, who
have been bred to a common pursuit; and this remark is particularly
applicable to the Army, and the Navy. West Point, and Annapolis were
powerful bonds to knit together the hearts of young men. Friendships were
there formed, which it was difficult to sever, especially when
strengthened by years of after-association, in common toils, common
pleasures, and common dangers. Naval officers, in particular, who had been
rocked together in the same storm, and had escaped perhaps from the same
shipwreck, found it very difficult to draw their swords against each
other. The flag, too, had a charm which it was difficult to resist. It had
long been the emblem of the principle that all just governments are
founded on the consent of the governed, vindicated against our British
ancestors, in the War of the Revolution, and it was difficult to realize
the fact that it no longer represented this principle, but had become the
emblem of its opposite; that of coercing unwilling States, to remain under
a Government, which they deemed unjust and oppressive.
Sentiment had almost as much to do with the matter, as principle, for
there clustered around the "old flag," a great many hallowed memories, of
sacrifices made, and victories won.
The cadet at West Point had marched and countermarched under its folds,
dreaming of future battle-fields, and future honors to be gained in
upholding and defending it; and the midshipman, as he gazed upon it, in
some foreign port, flying proudly from the gaff-end of his ship, had drunk
in new inspiration to do and to dare, for his country. Many bearded men
were affected almost to tears, as they saw this once hallowed emblem
hauled down from the flag-staves, of Southern forts, and arsenals. They
were in the condition of one who had been forced, in spite of himself, to
realize the perfidy of a friend, and to be obliged to give him up, as no
longer worthy of his confidence or affection. General Robert E. Lee has so
happily expressed all these various emotions, in a couple of letters,
which he wrote, contemporaneously, with his resignation from the Federal
Army, that I give them to the reader. One of these letters is addressed to
General Winfield Scott, and the other to General Lee's sister.
ARLINGTON, VA., April 20, 1861.
GENERAL:--Since my interview with you on the 18th instant, I have
felt that I ought not longer to retain my commission in the army. I
therefore tender my resignation, which I request you will recommend
for acceptance. It would have been presented at once, but for the
struggle which it has cost me to separate myself from a service, to
which I have devoted all the best years of my life, and all the
ability I possessed. During the whole of that time--more than a
quarter of a century--I have experienced nothing but kindness from my
superiors, and the most cordial friendship from my comrades. To no
one, General, have I been as much indebted as yourself, for uniform
kindness and consideration, and it has always been my ardent desire
to merit your approbation. I shall carry to the grave the most
grateful recollection of your kind consideration, and your name and
fame will always be dear to me.
Save in defence of my native State, I never desire to draw my sword.
Be pleased to accept my most earnest wishes for the continuance of
your happiness and prosperity, and believe me most truly yours,
R. E. LEE.
_Lieutenant-General_ WINFIELD SCOTT,
_Commanding United States Army_.
ARLINGTON, VA., April 20, 1861.
MY DEAR SISTER:--I am grieved at my inability to see you * * * I have
been waiting "for a more convenient season," which has brought to
many before me deep and lasting regrets. Now we are in a state of war
which will yield to nothing. The whole South is in a state of
revolution, into which Virginia after a long struggle, has been
drawn, and _though I recognize no necessity for this state of
things_, and would have forborne and pleaded to the end, for redress
of grievances, real or supposed, yet in my own person I had to meet
the question, _whether I should take part against my native State_.
With all my devotion to the Union, and the feeling of loyalty, and
duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind
to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have
therefore resigned my commission in the army, and save in defence of
my native State, with the sincere hope that my services may never be
needed, I hope I may never be called on to draw my sword.
I know you will blame me, but you must think as kindly of me as you
can, and believe that I have endeavored to do what I thought right.
To show you the feeling and struggle it has cost me, I send a copy of
my letter to General Scott, which accompanied my letter of
resignation. I have no time for more. * * * May God guard and protect
you, and yours, and shower upon you every blessing is the prayer of
your devoted brother.
R. E. LEE.
In the winter of 1860, I was stationed in the city of Washington, as the
Secretary of the Lighthouse Board, being then a commander in the United
States Navy, and was an observer of many of the events I have described. I
had long abandoned all hope of reconciliation between the sections. The
public mind, North and South, was in an angry mood, and the day of
compromises was evidently at an end. I had made up my mind to retire from
the Federal service, at the proper moment, and was only waiting for that
moment to arrive.
Although I had been born in the State of Maryland, and was reared on the
banks of the Potomac, I had been, for many years, a resident citizen of
Alabama, having removed to this State, in the year 1841, and settled with
my family, on the west bank of the Perdido; removing thence, in a few
years, to Mobile. My intention of retiring from the Federal Navy, and
taking service with the South, in the coming struggle, had been made known
to the delegation in the Federal Congress from Alabama, early in the
session of 1860-1. I did not doubt that Maryland would follow the lead of
her more Southern sisters, as the cause of quarrel was common with all the
Southern States, but whether she did or not, could make no difference with
me now, since my allegiance, and my services had become due to another
State.
The month of February, 1861, found me still at the city of Washington. The
following extract from a letter written by me to a Southern member of the
Federal Congress, temporarily absent from his post, will show the state of
mind in which I was looking upon passing events. "I am still at my post at
the Light-House Board, performing my routine duties, but listening with an
aching ear and beating heart, for the first sounds of the great disruption
which is at hand." On the 14th of that month, whilst sitting quietly with
my family, after the labors of the day, a messenger brought me the
following telegram:--
MONTGOMERY, Feb. 14, 1861.
SIR:--On behalf of the Committee on Naval Affairs, I beg leave to
request that you will repair to this place, at your earliest
convenience.
_Your obedient servant_,
C. M. CONRAD, _Chairman_.
_Commander_ RAPHAEL SEMMES, _Washington, D. C._
Here was the sound for which I had been so anxiously listening. Secession
was now indeed a reality, and the time had come for me to arouse myself to
action. The telegram threw my small family-circle into great commotion. My
wife, with the instincts of a woman, a wife, and a mother, seemed to
realize, as by intuition, all the dangers and difficulties that lay before
me. She had been hoping without hope, that I would not be subjected to the
bitter ordeal, but the die was now cast, and with a few tears, and many
prayers she nerved herself for the sacrifices, and trials that she knew
were before her. Her children were to be withdrawn from school, her
comfortable home broken up, and she was to return, penniless, to her
people, to abide with them the fortunes of a bloody, and a doubtful war.
The heroism of woman! how infinitely it surpasses that of man. With all
her gentleness, and tenderness, and natural timidity, in nine cases in
ten, she has more nerve than the other sex, in times of great emergency.
With a bleeding and bursting heart, she is capable of putting on the
composure, and lovely serenity of an angel, binding up the wounds of a
husband or son, and when he is restored to health and vigor, buckling on
his sword anew, and returning him to the battle-field. Glorious women of
the South! what an ordeal you have passed through, and how heroically you
have stood the trying test. You lost the liberty which your husbands,
sires, and sons struggled for, but only for a period. The blood which you
will have infused into the veins of future generations will yet rise up to
vindicate you, and "call you blessed."
The telegram reached me about four o'clock, P. M., and I responded to it,
on the same evening as follows:
WASHINGTON, Feb. 14, 1861.
Hon. C. M. CONRAD, Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs,
Congress of the Confederate States:--Despatch received; I will be
with you immediately.
Respectfully, &c.,
R. SEMMES.
The next morning, I repaired, as usual, to the office of the Light House
Board, in the Treasury building, General John A. Dix being then the
Secretary of the Treasury, and _ex officio_ President of the Board, and
wrote the following resignation of my commission, as a Commander in the
United States Navy:
WASHINGTON, D. C., Feb. 15, 1861.
SIR:--I respectfully tender through you, to the President of the
United States, this, the resignation of the commission which I have
the honor to hold as a Commander in the Navy of the United States. In
severing my connection with the Government of the United States, and
with the Department over which you preside, I pray you to accept my
thanks for the kindness which has characterized your official
deportment towards me.
I have the honor to be very respectfully your obedient servant,
RAPHAEL SEMMES,
_Commander U. S. Navy_.
_Hon._ ISAAC TOUCEY, _Secretary of the Navy_,
_Washington, D. C._
On the same day, I received the following acceptance of my resignation:--
Navy Department, Feb. 15, 1861.
SIR:--Your resignation as a Commander in the Navy of the United
States, tendered in your letter of this date, is hereby accepted.
I am respectfully your obedient servant,
I. TOUCEY.
RAPHAEL SEMMES, Esq., _late Commander_
_U. S. Navy, Washington_.
A few days previously to my resignation, by the death of a lamented member
of the Light-House Board, I had been promoted from the Secretaryship, to a
Membership of that Board, and it now became necessary for me to inform the
Board officially, of my being no longer a member of it, which I did in the
following communication:--
WASHINGTON, D. C., Feb. 16, 1861.
SIR:--I have the honor to inform you, that I have resigned my
commission, as a Commander in the Navy of the United States, and
that, as a consequence, I am no longer a member of the Light-House
Board. In severing thus my connection with the Board, at which I have
had the honor to hold a seat, since the 17th of November, 1858, I
desire to say to the members, individually, and collectively, that I
shall carry with me to my home in the South, a grateful recollection
of the amenities, and courtesies which have characterized, on their
part, our official intercourse.
I am very respectfully your obedient servant,
RAPHAEL SEMMES.
_Commander_ T. A. JENKINS, _U. S. N._,
_Secretary Light-House Board, Washington_.
I left in the Light-House Board, a South Carolinian, and a Virginian, both
of whom were too loyal to their places, to follow the lead of their
States. The South Carolinian has been rewarded with the commission of a
Rear-Admiral, and the Virginian with that of a Commodore. The presence of
these gentlemen in the Board may account for the fact, that my letter was
not even honored with an acknowledgment of its receipt.
I have said that there was no talk at this time, about traitors, and
treason. The reader will observe how openly, and as a matter of course,
all these transactions were conducted. The seceded States had been several
months in getting their Conventions together, and repealing, with all due
form, and ceremony, the ordinances by which the Federal Constitution had
been accepted. Senators, and members of the House of Representatives of
the Federal Congress had withdrawn from their seats, under circumstances
unusually solemn, and impressive, which had attracted the attention of the
whole country. Mr. Jefferson Davis, in particular, had taken leave of a
full Senate, with crowded galleries, in a speech of great dignity and
power, in the course of which he said: "We will invoke the God of our
Fathers, who delivered them from the power of the Lion, to protect us from
the ravages of the Bear; and thus putting our trust in God, and in our own
firm hearts, and strong arms, we will vindicate the right as best we may."
As the resignation of each officer of the Army, and Navy went in, it was
well understood what his object was, and yet we have seen, that up to this
period, the Government accepted them all, and permitted the officers to
depart to their respective States. It was not known, as yet, to what
extent the disintegration might go, and it was not safe therefore to talk
of treason. "The wayward sisters" might decide to go in a body, in which
event it would not have been _policy_ to attempt to prevent them, or to
discuss questions of treason with them. The Secretary of the Navy did not
think of arresting me, for telegraphing to the Congress of the Confederate
States, that I would be with it, immediately; nor did he, though he knew
my purpose of drawing my sword against the Federal Government, if
necessary, refuse to accept my resignation. Nay, President Buchanan had
decided that he had no power under the Federal Constitution, to coerce a
State; though, like a weak old man as he had now become, he involved
himself afterward in the inconsistency of attempting to hold possession of
the ceded places within the limits of the States which had withdrawn from
the Union. It could not but follow, logically, from the premise, that
there was no power in the Federal Constitution to coerce a State, that the
State had the right to secede; for clearly any one may do that which no
one has the right to prevent him from doing.
It was under such circumstances as these, that I dissolved my connection
with the Federal Government, and returned to the condition of a private
citizen, with no more obligation resting upon me, than upon any other
citizen. The Federal Government, itself, had formally released me from the
contract of service I had entered into with it, and, as a matter of
course, from the binding obligation of any oath I had taken in connection
with that contract. All this was done, as the reader has seen, before I
moved a step from the city of Washington; and yet a subsequent Secretary
of the Navy, Mr. Gideon Welles, has had the hardihood and indecency of
accusing me of having been a "deserter from the service." He has
deliberately put this false accusation on record, in a public document, in
face of the facts I have stated--all of which were recorded upon the rolls
of his office. I do not speak here of the clap-trap he has used about
"treason to the flag," and the other stale nonsense which he has uttered
in connection with my name, for this was common enough among his
countrymen, and was perhaps to have been expected from men smarting under
the castigation I had given them, but of the more definite and explicit
charge, of "_deserting from the service_," when the service, itself, as he
well knew, had released me from all my obligations to it.
Another charge, with as little foundation, has been made against myself,
and other officers of the Army and Navy, who resigned their commissions,
and came South. It has been said that we were in the condition of _eleves_
of the Federal Government, inasmuch as we had received our education at
the military schools, and that we were guilty of ingratitude to that
Government, when we withdrew from its service. This slander has no doubt
had its effect, with the ignorant masses, but it can scarcely have been
entertained by any one who has a just conception of the nature of our
federal system of government. It loses sight of the fact, that the States
are the creators, and the Federal Government the creature; that not only
the military schools, but the Federal Government itself belongs to the
States. Whence came the fund for the establishment of these schools? From
the States. In what proportion did the States contribute it? Mr. Benton
has answered this question, as the reader has seen, when he was discussing
the effect of the tariffs under which the South had so long been depleted.
He has told us, that four States alone, Virginia, the two Carolinas and
Georgia, defrayed three fourths of the expenses of the General Government;
and taking the whole South into view, this proportion had even increased
since his day, up to the breaking out of the war.
Of every appropriation, then, that was made by Congress for the support of
the military schools, three fourths of the money belonged to the Southern
States. Did these States send three fourths of the students to those
schools? Of course not--this would have been something like justice to
them; but justice to the Southern States was no part of the scheme of the
Federal Government. With the exception of a few cadets, and midshipmen "at
large," whom the President was authorized to appoint--the intention being
that he should appoint the sons of deceased officers of the Army and Navy,
but the fact being that he generally gave the appointment to his political
friends--the appointments to these schools were made from the several
States, in proportion to population, and as a matter of course, the North
got the lion's share. But supposing the States to have been equally
represented in those schools, what would have been the result? Why, simply
that the South not only educated her own boys, but educated three fourths
of the Northern boys, to boot. Virginia, for instance, at the same time
that she sent young Robert E. Lee to West Point, to be educated, put in
the public treasury not only money enough to pay for his education, and
maintenance, but for the education and maintenance of three Massachusetts
boys! How ungrateful of Lee, afterward, being thus a charity scholar of
the North, to draw his sword against her.
CHAPTER VIII.
AUTHOR PROCEEDS TO MONTGOMERY, AND REPORTS TO THE NEW GOVERNMENT, AND IS
DISPATCHED NORTHWARD, ON A SPECIAL MISSION.
On the evening of the 16th of February, the day after I had resigned my
commission, I took a sorrowful leave of my family, and departed for
Montgomery, by the way of Fredericksburg and Richmond. Virginia and North
Carolina had not yet seceded, and anxious debates were going on, on the
all-absorbing question, in each town and village in these two States,
through which I passed. It was easy to see, that the great majority of the
people were with the extreme South, in this her hour of need, but there
were some time-servers and trimmers, who still talked of conciliation, and
of guarantees. They inquired eagerly after news from Washington, at all
the stations at which the train stopped, and seemed disappointed when they
found we had nothing more to tell them, than they had already learned
through the telegraph.
On the evening of the 18th, I entered the level tract of pine lands
between West Point, and Montgomery. The air had become soft, and balmy,
though I had left a region of frosts, and snow, only two days before. The
pine woods were on fire as we passed through them, the flames now and then
running up a lightwood tree, and throwing a weird and fitful glare upon
the passing train. The scene was peculiarly Southern, and reminded me that
I was drawing near my home, and my people, and I mechanically repeated to
myself the words of the poet:
"Breathes there a man with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!"
And my heart, which up to that moment, had felt as though a heavy weight
were pressing upon it, began to give more vigorous beats, and send a more
inspiring current through my veins. Under this happy influence I sank, as
the night advanced, and the train thundered on, into the first sound sleep
which had visited my weary eyelids, since I had resigned my commission,
and read at the foot of the letter accepting my resignation, my name
inscribed as plain "Esq." This night-ride, through the burning pine woods
of Alabama, afterward stood as a great gulf in my memory, forming an
impassable barrier, as it were, between my past, and my future life. It
had cost me pain to cross the gulf, but once crossed, I never turned to
look back. When I washed and dressed for breakfast, in Montgomery, the
next morning, I had put off the old man, and put on the new. The labors,
and associations of a lifetime had been inscribed in a volume, which had
been closed, and a new book, whose pages were as yet all blank, had been
opened.
My first duty was to put myself in communication with Mr. Conrad, the
chairman of the Committee of Naval Affairs. Several naval officers had
preceded me to the seat of the new government, and others were arriving.
It was agreed that there should be a special meeting on the next day, in
joint session, of the two committees--on military and naval affairs.
The Confederate Congress was in session in the State Capitol, and about
noon, I repaired thither to witness the spectacle. They did me the honor
to admit me to the floor, and upon casting my eyes over the august
assembly, I recognized a number of familiar faces. General Howell Cobb of
Georgia was the President; Toombs, Crawford, and other distinguished men
were there from the same State. Curry, McRae, Robert H. Smith and other
able men were there from Alabama. In short the Congress was full of the
best talent of the South. It was by far the best Congress that ever
assembled under the new government. It was a convention as well as a
Congress, since it was charged with the establishment of a Provisional
Government. Every one realized the greatness of the crisis that was upon
us, and hence the very best men in the community had been selected to meet
the emergency. The harmony of the body was equal to its ability, for, in
the course of a few weeks, it had put the complicated machinery of a
government in motion, and was already taking active measures for defence,
in case the Federal power should decide upon making war upon us.
Mr. Davis, the Provisional President, had preceded me to the capital, only
a few days, and my next step was to call upon him. I had known him in the
city of Washington. He received me kindly, and almost the first question
which he asked me, was whether I had disembarrassed myself of my Federal
commission. I replied to him that I had done so, as a matter of course,
before leaving Washington, and that my allegiance henceforth belonged to
the new government, and to the Southern people. He seemed gratified at
this declaration, and entered into a free, and frank conversation with me,
on the subject of the want of preparation for defence, in which he found
our States, and the great labor that lay before us, to prepare for
emergencies. Congress, he said, has not yet had time to organize a navy,
but he designed to make immediate use of me, if I had no objection. I told
him that my services were at his command, in any capacity he thought fit
to employ them. He then explained to me his plan of sending me back to the
city of Washington, and thence into the Northern States, to gather
together, with as much haste as possible, such persons, and materials of
war as might be of most pressing necessity.
The persons alluded to, were to be mechanics skilled in the manufacture,
and use of ordnance, and rifle machinery, the preparation of fixed
ammunition, percussion caps, &c. So exclusively had the manufacture of all
these articles for the use of the United States, been confined to the
North, under "the best government the world ever saw," that we had not
even percussion caps enough to enable us to fight a battle, or the
machines with which to make them, although we had captured all the forts,
and arsenals within our limits, except Fort Sumter and Fort McRae. The
President was as calm and unmoved as I had ever seen him, and was living
in a very simple, and unpretending style at the Exchange Hotel. He had not
yet selected all his Cabinet; nor indeed had he so much as a private
secretary at his command, as the letter of instructions which he afterward
presented me, for my guidance, was written with his own hand. This letter
was very full, and precise, frequently descending into detail, and
manifesting an acquaintance with bureau duties, scarcely to have been
expected from one who had occupied his exalted positions.
On the next day, I attended the joint-session of the two committees above
named. These committees were composed, as was to have been expected, of
some of the best men of the Congress. Conrad, Crawford, Curry, and the
brilliant young Bartow of Georgia were present, among others whose names I
do not now recall. But few naval officers of any rank had as yet withdrawn
from the old service; Rousseau, Tattnall, Ingraham, and Randolph were all
the captains; and Farrand, Brent, Semmes, and Hartstone were all the
commanders. Of these there were present before the committees, besides
myself, Rousseau, Ingraham, and Randolph; Major Wm. H. Chase, late of the
engineers of the Federal Army, was also present. Randolph commanded the
Navy Yard at Pensacola, and Chase the military defences. We discussed the
military and naval resources of the country, and devised such means of
defence as were within our reach--which were not many--to enable us to
meet the most pressing exigences of our situation, and separated after a
session of several hours. I can do no more, of course, than briefly glance
at these things, as I am not writing, as before remarked, the history of
the war.
The next morning I called again on the President, received my
instructions, and departed Northward on the mission which had been
assigned me. I will be brief in the description of this mission also. I
stopped a day at Richmond, and examined the State Arsenal, in charge of
Capt. Dimmock, and the Tredegar Iron Works; having been especially
enjoined to report upon the present, and future capacity of these works
for the casting of cannon, shot, shells, &c. The establishment had already
turned its attention in this direction, and I was gratified to find that
it was capable of almost indefinite enlargement, and that it could be made
a most valuable auxiliary to us. The reader will see how confidently we
already reckoned upon the support of Virginia.
Reaching Washington again, I visited the Arsenal, and inspected such of
its machinery as I thought worth my notice, particularly an improved
percussion-cap machine which I found in operation. I also held conferences
with some mechanics, whom I desired to induce to go South. Whilst I was
in Washington Mr. Abraham Lincoln, the newly elected President of the
United States, arrived, for the purpose of being inaugurated. Being purely
a sectional President, and feeling probably that he had no just right to
rule over the South, he had come into the city by night, and in disguise,
afraid to trust himself among a people of whom he claimed to be Chief
Magistrate. Poor old General Winfield Scott was then verging toward
senility, and second childhood, and had contributed no little, perhaps, to
Mr. Lincoln's alarm. He had been gathering together troops for some days,
in the Federal capital, for the purpose of inaugurating, amid bayonets, a
President of the United States. It had been the boast of the American
people, heretofore, that their Presidents did not need guards, but trusted
wholly for their security, to the love, and confidence of their
constituents, but the reign of peace, and good will was at an end, and the
reign of the bayonet was to ensue. The rumbling of artillery through the
streets of Washington, and the ring of grounded arms on the pavements, had
sounded the death-knell of liberty in these States for generations. Swarms
of visitors from far and near, in the North and West, had flocked to
Washington, to see _their_ President inaugurated, and were proud of this
spectacle of arms; too stupid to see its fearful significance.
The auspicious day, the 4th of March, at length arrived, and whilst the
glorious pageant is being prepared; whilst the windows and the house-tops
along Pennsylvania Avenue are being thronged with a motley population of
men and women, come to see the show; whilst the President elect, in a
hollow square of bayonets, is marching toward the Capitol, the writer of
these pages, having again taken leave of his family, was hurrying away
from the desecration of a capital, which had been ceded by a too credulous
Maryland, and Virginia, and which had been laid out by Washington. As I
left the Baltimore depot, extra trains were still pouring their thousands
into the streets of Washington. I arrived in New York, the next day, and
during the next three weeks, visited the West Point Academy, whither I
went to see a son, who was a cadet at the Institution, and who afterward
became a major of light artillery, in the Confederate service; and made a
tour through the principal work-shops of New York, Connecticut, and
Massachusetts.
I found the people everywhere, not only willing, but anxious to contract
with me. I purchased large quantities of percussion caps in the city of
New York, and sent them by express without any disguise, to Montgomery. I
made contracts for batteries of light artillery, powder, and other
munitions, and succeeded in getting large quantities of the powder
shipped. It was agreed between the contractors and myself, that when I
should have occasion to use the telegraph, certain other words were to be
substituted, for those of military import, to avoid suspicion.
I made a contract, conditioned upon the approval of my Government, for the
removal to the Southern States, of a complete set of machinery for rifling
cannon, with the requisite skilled workmen to put it in operation. Some of
these men, who would thus have sold body, and soul to me, for a sufficient
consideration, occupied high social positions, and were men of wealth. I
dined with them, at their comfortable residences near their factories,
where the music of boring out cannon, accompanied the clatter of the
dishes, and the popping of champagne-corks; and I had more than one
business interview with gentlemen, who occupied the most costly suites of
apartments at the Astor House in New York City. Many of these gentlemen,
being unable to carry out their contracts with the Confederate States
because of the prompt breaking out of the war, afterward obtained
lucrative contracts from the Federal Government, and became, in
consequence, intensely _loyal_. It would be a _quasi_ breach of honor to
disclose their names, as they dealt with me, pretty much as conspirators
against their government are wont to deal with the enemies of their
government, secretly, and with an implied confidence that I would keep
their secret. It is accordingly safe.
In the mean time, the great revolution was progressing. Abraham Lincoln
had delivered his inaugural address, with triple rows of bayonets between
him, and the people to whom he was speaking, in which address he had
puzzled his hearers, and was no doubt puzzled himself, as to what he
really meant. He was like President Buchanan; now he saw it, and now he
didn't. He would not coerce the States, but he would hold on to the ceded
places within their limits, and collect the public revenue. Texas, and
Arkansas went out whilst I was in New York. The bulletin-boards at the
different newspaper offices were daily thronged by an unwashed multitude,
in search of some new excitement. The Northern public was evidently
puzzled. It had at first rather treated secession as a joke. They did not
think it possible that the Southern people could be in earnest, in
dissolving their connection with a people, so eminently proper as
themselves; but they now began to waver in this opinion. Still they
forbore any decided demonstration. Like sensible men they preferred
waiting until they could see how large a bull they were required to take
by the horns.
Toward the latter part of my stay in New York I received the following
letter from the Hon. Stephen R. Mallory, who had been appointed Secretary
of the Navy, which branch of the public service had been organized since I
had left Montgomery:
CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA,
NAVY DEPT., MONTGOMERY, ALA., March 13, 1861.
COMMANDER RAPHAEL SEMMES.
SIR:--With the sanction of the President, I am constrained to impose
upon you duties connected with this Department, in addition to the
important trusts with which you are charged; but I do so, upon the
express understanding, that they are not to interfere with the
performance of your special duties. I have received reliable
information, that two, or more steamers, of a class desired for
immediate service, may be purchased at, or near New York; steamers of
speed, light draught, and strength sufficient for at least one heavy
gun. When I say to you, that they are designed to navigate the
waters, and enter the bays, and inlets of the coast, from Charleston
to the St. Mary's, and from Key West, to the Rio Grande, for coast
defence; that their speed should be sufficient to give them, at all
times, the ability to engage, or evade an engagement; and that eight
or ten-inch guns, with perhaps two thirty-twos, or if not, two of
smaller calibre should constitute their battery, your judgment will
need no further guide. Be pleased, should your other important
engagements permit, to make inquiries, in such manner as may not
excite special attention, and give me such details as to cost,
character, &c., as you may deem important.
Under these instructions I made diligent search in the waters of New York,
for such steamers as were wanted, but none could be found. The river, and
Long Island Sound boats were mere shells, entirely unfit for the purposes
of war, and it was difficult to find any of the sea-going steamers, which
combined the requisite lightness of draught, with the other qualities
desired.
March was now drawing to a close, the war-cloud was assuming darker, and
more portentous hues, and it soon became evident that my usefulness in the
North was about to end. Men were becoming more shy of making engagements
with me, and the Federal Government was becoming more watchful. The New
York, and Savannah steamers were still running, curiously enough carrying
the Federal flag at the peak, and the Confederate flag at the fore; and in
the last days of March, I embarked on board one of them, arriving in
Montgomery on the 4th of April, just eight days before fire was opened
upon Fort Sumter. During the short interval that elapsed between my
arrival, and my going afloat, I was put in charge of the Light-House
Bureau; the Confederate Congress having, upon my recommendation,
established a Bureau, with a single naval officer at its head, instead of
the complicated machinery of a Board, which existed in the old Government.
I had barely time to appoint the necessary clerks, and open a set of
books, before Fort Sumter was fired upon, and the tocsin of war was
sounded.
CHAPTER IX.
THE COMMISSIONING OF THE SUMTER, THE FIRST CONFEDERATE STATES' SHIP OF
WAR.
Fort Sumter surrendered on the 13th of April. The next day was a gala day
in Montgomery. We had driven an insolent enemy from one of the strongest
positions in the South, and the people were all agog to hear the news. A
large Confederate flag was displayed from a balcony of the War Office, and
the Hon. L. P. Walker, the Secretary of War, announced in a brief speech,
to the assembled multitude below, amid repeated cheering, and the waving
of hats, and handkerchiefs, the welcome tidings. The Union men, who have
become so numerous since the war, had, if any of them were in the city,
slunk to their holes, and corners, and the air was redolent, alone, of
Southern patriotism, and Southern enthusiasm.
The driving of the enemy from Charleston harbor, decided the fate of
Virginia, which had been trembling in the balance for some days. The grand
old State could no longer resist her generous impulses. Under a
proclamation of President Lincoln the martial hosts of an enraged and
vindictive North were assembling, to make war upon her sisters, and this
was enough--her ordinance of secession was passed, by a very gratifying
majority. Patrick Henry had become a prophet, and the beautiful, and
touching apostrophe of James Madison to the "kindred blood," and the
"mingled blood" of the American people, which was given to the reader a
few pages back, had proved to be the mere chimera of an excited
imagination.
The effect of the surrender of Sumter in the North was beyond conception.
A prominent leader of the public press of that section had said of the
American flag:--
"Tear down that flaunting lie,
Half-mast the starry flag,
Insult no sunny sky
With hate's polluted rag."
Instantly, and as if by the touch of a magician's wand, the polluted rag
became the rallying cry of the whole Northern people, and of none more so,
than of the very men who had thus denounced it. But there was method in
this madness; the rag had only been polluted whilst it was the emblem of
good faith between the North, and the South; whilst, in other words, it
prevented the mad fanatics of the North from violating that slave
property, which _their_ ancestors had promised _our_ ancestors, in the
solemn league and covenant of the Constitution, should forever remain
inviolate.
But now that the rag, instead of being an obstacle, might be made the
means of accomplishing their designs, it was no longer necessary to pull
it down. The moment it was fired upon, it became, in their eyes, a new
flag, and the symbol of a new faith. It was no longer to represent the
federative principle, or to protect the rights of States; it was
henceforth to wave over yelling, and maddened majorities, whose will was
to be both Constitution, and law. Strange that the thinking portion of the
Northern people did not see this; strange that the hitherto conservative
Democratic party did not see it. Or was it that the whole North had been
wearing a mask, and that the mask was now no longer available, or
desirable, to hide their treachery?
Perhaps the future historian, in calmer moments, when the waves of passion
engendered by the late storm shall have sunk to rest, will be better able
to answer this question. For the present it is sufficient to record the
fact, mortifying, it must be confessed, to poor human nature, that all our
quondam friends, without so many as half a dozen exceptions in a whole
nation--I speak, of course, of prominent men--went over to the common
enemy. The very men who had stood, shoulder to shoulder, with us, in
resisting Northern aggression, who had encouraged us with pen, and voice,
to resist, if need be, unto the death, who promised in case of secession,
to stand between us, and the march of Northern armies of invasion,
instantly, and without even the salvo to their consciences of
circumlocution, changed their political faith of a life-time, and became,
if not straight-out Republicans, at least blatant War Democrats.
The reader cannot be at a loss to account for this change. It was caused
by the purest, and most refined selfishness. Next to the love of wealth,
the love of office may be said to be the distinguishing passion of the
American people. In the hands of a skilful office-seeker, patriotism is a
mere word with which to delude the ignorant masses, and not a sentiment,
or a creed, to be really entertained. Our allies in the North were very
patriotic, whilst there were still hopes of preserving the Union, and
along with it the prospect of office, by the aid of the Southern people,
but the moment the Southern States went out, and it became evident that
they would be politically dead, unless they recanted their political
faith, it was seen that they had no intention of becoming martyrs. Their
motto, on the contrary, became _sauve qui peut_, and the d----l take the
hindmost; and the banks of the new political Jordan were at once crowded
with a multitude anxious to be dipped in its regenerating waters!
As the tidings of these doings in the North were flashed to us, over the
wires, in Montgomery, it became evident to me, that the Light-House Bureau
was no longer to be thought of. It had become necessary for every man, who
could wield a sword, to draw it in defence of his country, thus threatened
by the swarming hordes of the North, and to leave the things of peace to
the future.
I had already passed the prime of life, and was going gently down that
declivity, at whose base we all arrive, sooner or later, but _I thanked
God_, that I had still a few years before me, and vigor enough of
constitution left, to strike in defence of the right. I at once sought an
interview with the Secretary of the Navy, and explained to him my desire
to go afloat. We had, as yet, nothing that could be called a navy; not a
ship indeed, if we except a few river steamers, that had been hastily
armed by some of the States, and turned over, by them, to the Navy
Department. The naval officers, who had come South, had brought with them
nothing but their poverty, and their swords; all of them who had been in
command of ships, at the secession of their respective States, having,
from a sense of honor, delivered them back to the Federal Government.
If a sense of justice had presided at the separation of the States, a
large portion of the ships of the Navy would have been turned over to the
South; and this failing to be done, it may be questionable whether the
Southern naval officers, in command, would not have been justified in
bringing their ships with them, which it would have been easy for them to
do. But, on the other hand, they had been personally intrusted with their
commands, by the Federal Government, and it would have been treason to a
military principle, if not to those great principles which guide
revolutions, to deliver those commands to a different government. Perhaps
they decided correctly--at all events, a military, or naval man, cannot go
very far astray, who abides by the point of honor.
Shortly before the war-cloud had arisen so ominously above the political
horizon, I had written a letter to a distinguished member of the Federal
Congress from the South, in reply to one from himself, giving him my views
as to the naval policy of our section, in case things should come to a
crisis. I make no apology to the reader for presenting him with the
following extract from that letter, bearing upon the subject, which we
have now in hand. "You ask me to explain what I mean, by an irregular
naval force. I mean a well-organized system of private armed ships, called
privateers. If you are warred upon at all, it will be by a commercial
people, whose ability to do you harm will consist chiefly in ships, and
shipping. It is at ships and shipping, therefore, that you must strike;
and the most effectual way to do this, is, by means of the irregular force
of which I speak. Private cupidity will always furnish the means for this
description of warfare, and all that will be required of you will be to
put it under sufficient legal restraints, to prevent it from degenerating
into piracy, and becoming an abuse. Even New England ships, and New
England capital would be at your service, in abundance. The system of
privateering would be analogous to the militia system on the land. You
could have a large irregular sea force, to act in aid of the regular naval
force, so long as the war lasted, and which could be disbanded, without
further care or expense, at the end of the war."
Wealth is necessary to the conduct of all modern wars, and I naturally
turned my eyes, as indicated in the above letter, to the enemy's chief
source of wealth. The ingenuity, enterprise, and natural adaptation of the
Northern people to the sea, and seafaring pursuits, had enabled them,
aided by the vast resources, which they had filched, under pretence of
legislation, from the South, to build up, in the course of a very few
years, a commercial marine that was second only to that of Great Britain,
in magnitude and importance.
The first decked vessel that had been built in the United States, was
built by one Adrian Block, a Dutch skipper, on the banks of the Hudson, in
1614, and in 1860, or in less than two centuries and a half, the great
Republic was competing with England, the history of whose maritime
enterprise extended back a thousand years, for the carrying trade of the
world! This trade, if permitted to continue, would be a powerful means of
sustaining the credit of the enemy, and enabling him to carry on the war.
Hence it became an object of the first necessity with the Confederate
States, to strike at his commerce. I enlarged upon this necessity, in the
interview I was now holding with Mr. Mallory, and I was gratified to find
that that able officer agreed with me fully in opinion.
A Board of naval officers was already in session at New Orleans, charged
with the duty of procuring, as speedily as possible, some light and fast
steamers to be let loose against the enemy's commercial marine, but their
reports up to this time, had been but little satisfactory. They had
examined a number of vessels, and found some defects in all of them. The
Secretary, speaking of the discouragement presented by these reports,
handed me one of them, which he had received that morning, from the Board.
I read it, and found that it described a small propeller steamer, of five
hundred tons burden, sea-going, with a low-pressure engine, sound, and
capable of being so strengthened as to be enabled to carry an ordinary
battery of four, or five guns. Her speed was reported to be between nine,
and ten knots, but unfortunately, said the Board, she carries but five
days' fuel, and has no accommodations for the crew of a ship of war. She
was, accordingly, condemned. When I had finished reading the report, I
turned to the Secretary, and said, "Give me that ship; I think I can make
her answer the purpose." My request was at once acceded to, the Secretary
telegraphed to the Board, to receive the ship, and the clerks of the
Department were set at work, to hunt up the necessary officers, to
accompany me, and make out the proper orders. And this is the way in which
the Confederate States' steamer _Sumter_, which was to have the honor of
being the first ship of war to throw the new Confederate flag to the
breeze, was commissioned. I had accepted a stone which had been rejected
of the builders, and which, though, it did not afterward become the "chief
corner-stone of the temple," I endeavored to work into the building which
the Confederates were then rearing, to remind their posterity that they
had struggled, as Patrick Henry and his contemporaries had struggled
before them, "in defence of their liberties."
The next day, the chief clerk of the Navy Department handed me the
following order:
CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA,
NAVY DEPARTMENT, MONTGOMERY, April 18, 1861.
SIR:--You are hereby detached from duty as Chief of the Light-House
Bureau, and will proceed to New Orleans, and take command of the
steamer _Sumter_ (named in honor of our recent victory over Fort
Sumter). The following officers have been ordered to report to you,
for duty: Lieutenants John M. Kell, R. T. Chapman, John M. Stribling,
and Wm. E. Evans; Paymaster Henry Myers; Surgeon Francis L. Galt;
Midshipmen, Wm. A. Hicks, Richard F. Armstrong, Albert G. Hudgins,
John F. Holden, and Jos. D. Wilson. I am respectfully your obedient
servant,
S. R. MALLORY, _Secretary of the Navy_.
_Commander_ RAPHAEL SEMMES.
The reader will observe that I am addressed as a "commander," the rank
which I held in the old service. The Navy Department, in consultation with
the President, had adopted the rule of accepting all the officers who
chose to come to us from the old Navy--as the Federal Navy began now to be
called--without increase of rank; and in arranging them on the Navy-list,
their old _relative_ rank was also preserved. This rule had two good
effects; it did not tempt any officer to come to us, moved by the hope of
immediate promotion, and it put us all on an equal footing, in the future
race for honors.
I had been living in Montgomery as a bachelor, at the house of Mr. Wm.
Knox, an old friend--my family having gone to spend some time with a
beloved brother, in Maryland, until I could see, by the light of events,
what final disposition to make of it. It did not occupy me long,
therefore, to make my preparations for departure, in obedience to my
orders. I took a respectful, and affectionate leave of the officers of the
government, with whom I had been associated, and embarked on the afternoon
of the same day on which I had received my orders, on board the steamer
_Southern Republic_ for Mobile. At Mobile I fell in with Lieutenant
Chapman, one of the officers who had been detailed to report to me, and
he, being a minute-man like myself, took a hasty leave of a young wife,
and we continued our journey together.
I found Mobile, like the rest of the Confederacy, in a great state of
excitement. Always one of the truest of Southern cities, it was boiling
over with enthusiasm; the young merchants had dropped their daybooks and
ledgers, and were forming, and drilling companies, by night and by day,
whilst the older ones were discussing questions of finance, and anxiously
casting about them, to see how the Confederate Treasury could be
supported. The Battle House, at which I stopped for a few hours, previous
to taking the steamer for New Orleans, was thronged with young men in
military costume, and all seemed going "as merrily as a marriage-bell."
Alas! my poor young countrymen, how many of you had disappeared from the
scene, when I next returned among you, near the close of the war, and how
many poor mothers there were, weeping for the sons that were not. But your
gallant and glorious record!--that, at least, remains, and must remain
forever; for you have inscribed your names so high on the scroll of fame,
that the slanderous breath of an ungenerous foe can never reach them.
I arrived in New Orleans, on Monday, the 22d of April, and at once put
myself in communication with the commanding naval officer, the venerable
Lawrence Rousseau, since gone to his long home, full of years, and full of
honors. Like a true son of the South he had obeyed the first call of his
fatherland, the State of Louisiana, and torn off the seal from the
commission of
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