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Historic Papers
ON THE
Causes
OF THE
Civil War
BY
Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
OF THE
Lexington, Ky., Chapter U.D.C.
ASHLAND
PRINTING CO.
LEXINGTON KENTUCKY.
The Old South
Read Before the Lexington Chapter U.D.C., February 14, 1909,
By Eugenia Dunlap Potts, Historian.
No pen or brush can picture life in the old Southern States in the
ante-bellum days. The period comprehends two hundred and fifty years
of history without a parallel. A separate and distinct civilization was
there represented, the like of which can never be reproduced. Socially,
intellectually, politically and religiously, she stood pre-eminent,
among nations. It was the spirit of the cavalier that created and
sustained our greatness. Give the Puritan his due, and still the fact
remains. The impetus that led to freedom from Great Britain, came from
the South. A Southern General led the ragged Continentals on to victory.
Southern jurists and Southern statesmanship guided the councils of
wisdom. The genius of war pervaded her people. She gave presidents,
cabinet officers, commanders, tacticians and strategists. Her legislation
extended the country's territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
A writer aptly says: "For more than fifty formative years of our history
the Old South was the dominating power in the nation, as it had been in
the foundation of the colonies out of which came the Republic, and later
in fighting its battles of independence and in forming its policies of
government. * * * Whatever of strength or symmetry the republic had
acquired at home, or reputation it had achieved abroad, in those earlier
crucial days of its history, was largely due to the patriotism and
ability of Southern statesmanship. Why that scepter of leadership has
passed from its keeping, or why the New South is no longer at the front
of national leadership, is a question that might well give pause to one
who recalls the brave days when the Old South sat at the head of the
table and directed the affairs of the nation."
There was the manor and there was the cabin. Each head of the house was
a potentate in his own domain--an absolute ruler of a principality as
marked as in feudal times, without the despotism of the feudal system.
The plantation of the old regime was tastefully laid out for beauty and
productiveness. Flower gardens and kitchen gardens stretched away into
the magnificence of orange trees, shady avenues and fruitful plants.
Unbroken retreats of myrtle and laurel and tropical foliage, bantered
the sun to do his worst. Flowers perfumed the air; magnolia bloom and
other rich tree flora regaled the senses; extensive orchards yielded
fruit of all kinds adapted to the soil and climate; vineyards were heavy
with much bearing. Fields were carefully cultivated, till such a thing
as the failure of crops was almost unknown. It was largely supplied
with sheep and their wool, with geese, ducks, turkeys, guinea fowls,
and every variety of poultry without stint. Eggs were gathered by the
bushel, myriads of birds clouded the sun, and daily intoxicated their
little brains with the juice of the black cherry. Herds of cattle were
luxuriously pastured by Pompey and his sable mates.
There were quantities of rich cheese, fresh butter, milk and cream.
Vast barns were gorged with corn, rice and hay; hives were bursting
with honey; vegetables were luscious and exhaustless; melons sprinkled
and dotted many acres of patches; shrimp and fish filled the waters;
crawfish wriggled in the ditches; raccoons and opossums formed the theme
of many a negro ditty. Carriages and horses filled the stables, and
splendid mules were well-fed and curried at the barns. High up on the
cypress trees hung the grey moss with which the upholsterer at yon
market place replenished his furniture vans. The farm produce alone
yielded six or seven thousands a year, while the plantation crops of
cotton, sugar, and rice were clear profit. Rows of white cabins were the
homes of the colored citizens of the community. An infirmary stood apart
for the sick. The old grandams cared for the children. Up yonder at the
mansion house Black Mammy held sway in the nursery; Aunt Dinah was the
cook; Aunt Rachel carried the housekeeper's keys; while Jane and Ann,
the mulatto ladies' maids, flitted about on duty, and Jim and Jack
"'tended on young marster and de gemman." Such hospitality as was made
possible by that style of living can never repeat itself in changed
conditions. Grant that these conditions are improved. Grant that the
lifted incubus of slavery has opened the doors for the march of
intellectual and industrial progress; the fact remains that the highest
order of social enjoyment, and of the exercise of the charming amenities
of life, was blotted out when the old plantation of Dixie land was
divided up by the spoils of war.
It is interesting to read of the first attempt at a sugar crop in
Louisiana by a Frenchman named Bore in 1794. His indigo plant, once so
profitable, had been attacked and destroyed by a worm, and dire poverty
threatened. He conceived the project of planting sugar cane. The great
question was would the syrup granulate; and hundreds gathered to watch
the experiment. It did granulate, and the first product sold for twelve
thousand dollars--a large sum at that time.
The maker of the cotton gin worked another revolution in commerce, and
rice proved to be an unfailing staple. Armies of negroes tilled the
soil, and were happy in their circumscribed sphere, humanely cared for
by the whites.
Enter the home and lo! a palace greets you. Massive mahogany furniture,
now, alas! in scattered remnants, meets the eye at every turn. Treasures
and elegant trifles of many lands attest the artistic taste of the
owners. Gorgeous china, plate and glass are there in everyday use.
Fruits of the loom in rarest silk and linen, embellish the chambers
and luxury sits enthroned. The chatelaine, gracious and cultured, is
to the manner born: and from season to season she fills her house with
congenial people who are invited to come, but not, as with present house
parties, told when to go. As long as they found it comfortable and
convenient the latchstring was out. A guest was never permitted to pay
for anything; expressage, laundry and all incidentals were as free as
air. The question of money, nowadays impertinently thrust forth, was
never hinted at in the olden time. It was considered bad form, and the
luckless boaster of "how poor he was" would have been properly stared
at as a boor as well as a bore.
For pastimes men had fishing and hunting, and for women there were lawn
games and indoor diversions. Speaking of the women of the South a writer
aptly said: "They dwell in a land goodly and pleasant to the eye; a land
of fine resources, both agricultural and mineral; where may be found
fertile cotton fields, vast rice tracts, large sugar plantations, bright
skies and balmy breezes. The whole land is plowed by mighty rivers, is
ribbed by long mountain chains, and washed by the sea."
Fitting environment, we add, for the gorgeous residences, notably
in Georgia and South Carolina, built by the nobility and gentry of
the republic, and inherited by the descendants of the old colonial
aristocracy. What wonder, that they held themselves aloof from the
manual laborer, black or white, and that they were uncontaminated by
the attrition of commercial competition. In the summer the family sought
the cooler climate of old Kentucky or Virginia, or farther north to
Saratoga, Long Branch, or some one of the then attractive resorts. They
travelled in state, frequently bringing the family coach, and never
without a retinue of servants. What a sensation they made! And money
flowed like water. The young men, rich and idle, paid court to pretty
girls, sure of a welcome from both parents and daughters, for to marry a
Southern planter was to achieve a social victory for all time to come.
The mechanical and athletic age had not yet dawned. The accepted escort
must be a professional man, or else lord of a domain such as I have
described. Pride and prejudice blinded judgment, and the aristocracy
of merit alone was unappreciated.
And yet the Southern woman, even of great wealth, could not afford
to be idle. She was not, save in exceptional cases, the useless,
half-educated, irresponsible creature she has been represented. Some
there are always and everywhere whose lives are given over to fads,
fancies and frivolities. But the true mothers were priestesses at the
home altar, and kept the sacred fires bright and burning. Their duty
was to keep others busy, and to direct and oversee the vast domestic
machinery of the home.
Their views were somewhat narrow, for as yet the bright sun of woman's
emancipation was barely peeping over the horizon. Their minds did not
grasp the vexed questions of theology, politics, or economics. They
accepted the faith of their fathers, and shifted all burdens to stronger
shoulders. They were eminently religious and charitable. Ways and
means were at hand, and they did not bother their brains with isms and
ologies. Regular attendance upon the nearest church, and reverence for
the clergy, were prominent in their creed.
Education for the masses was not provided, as it is now; but the
majority of the better class were finely educated, either at Northern
schools, or by the governess, and tutor at home. In many cases where the
wife was widowed, she nobly and intelligently arose to the management of
business affairs. If misfortune came, and the woman felt obliged to earn
a livelihood, it did not occur to her to seek it behind a counter or in
a workshop as we do in this generation. She was inclined to walk in the
old paths, and follow old customs. They believed their own skies were
bluest, their own cornfields greenest, their tobacco finest, their
cotton the whitest on earth. They were devoted to old friends, to old
manners and customs, and gloried in their birthright.
In the line of literary productions the South was backward. Augusta
Evans Wilson's remarkable novels, Beulah, St, Elmo, and others, were
read and re-read, not for any lasting good, but for passing interest,
and largely for the glamour that invested a Southern writer. Madame Le
Vert produced "Souvenirs of Travel," among the very earliest of books
on European scenes. Marion Harland's works were read, and possessed the
selling quality notwithstanding the bitter taste left by her humiliated
heroines. Caroline Lee Hentz, Mrs. Holmes, Mrs. Southworth, and a small
army of essayists in the field, clamored for recognition; but time was
when to see the Southern woman in print was an innovation displeasing to
the household gods. Time came when the slumbering faculties were stirred
into splendid and successful activity. The depth of the natures hitherto
unsounded arose to the new demands right valiantly. We behold its fruits
in the rearing of splendid monuments, the erection of noble charity
institutions, the endowing of colleges, the equipment of missionaries,
the awakening of wide philanthropies, and in the higher lines of
Christian endeavor. The men who shouldered arms, from father to son,
to defend their States rights, were the same who, in times of peace,
knew no burdens of life save those they voluntarily assumed. The women
who sewed night and day upon garments for field and hospital, were the
same who were wont to employ their white hands with fragile china and
heirloom plate, or dally with needlework in the morning room. These were
the mothers who, standing by the slaughtered first-born, gave his sword
to the next son, and bade him go at his country's call. There was the
spirit of heroism not surpassed by the heroes of the sterner sex. They
suffered privations and terrors without a murmur.
To visit one of these ante-bellum homes was a privilege indeed. And
something of the spirit of the canaille of the French revolution must
have animated the foreign hordes, who, not content with confiscating
these captured palaces, ruthlessly cut and destroyed the richness and
elegance they were beholding for the first time in their commonplace
lives. It was not the spirit of conquest, but of vandalism, that
animated them. Wanton destruction and not spoliation, common in war
tactics, was their watchword. A domain fairer than Elysium opened to
their astonished gaze, whenever they penetrated some sylvan grove where
stood the plantation manor house.
Alas! for the old plantation days! Alas! for the easygoing spirit that
marked the times! The long, pitiless, hot sun-days were not inspirers of
extraordinary energy. Yankee thrift was as pigmy play to these owners of
bursting coffers. The hurry and bustle of our Northern neighbors was an
unknown quantity in their economy. It is to the forcible wresting from
the South of their inherited institutions, of the machinery which made
their social order possible, that the land of Dixie owes the prosperity
and thrift of to-day. Evil was done and good came therefrom. Years of
wasted substance and enforced poverty were groped through, till at
last the day-star rose upon new industries. Hands and feet and awakened
faculties spring to the keynote of progress, and "Our days are marching
on."
* * * * *
(Here were inserted in the manuscript twenty pages from the diary of the
Historian, written when, as a school girl, she visited with her parents
some of the sugar plantations of Louisiana. They give the picture by an
eye-witness of the social and commercial life in the South; but while,
perhaps, interesting in the reading of a paper, are not necessary, in
print, to the theme.)
Future generations may hug to themselves the consolation that we were
pulled down only to be built up again in greater prosperity, under a
different order of things. The tears and woes of the old South may
change into smiles and good cheer, forgetting the glory that once
encircled us like a radiant halo. But many there are who feel that "Such
things were, and were most dear to us!" These look back with brimming
eyes, and force down the rising sob, as they sorrowfully murmur.
"My native land, good night."
Slavery
Read March 14, 1909.
In my first paper I endeavored to present a picture of the sunny
Southland in the ante-bellum days, when wealth and culture and
hospitality were the watchwords of the hour--before the invasion of
hostile hordes had vandalized the sacred old traditions, and crumbled
the household gods in the dust.
But long before the tocsin of civil war had sounded there were
mutterings of thunder in the halls of Congress, and the cloud, at first
no bigger than a man's hand, was yearly gathering force, till it finally
burst in a cyclone of passion and prejudice and tyranny, and swept all
before it in one besom of destruction. That the question of slavery
lay at the root of the dissension cannot be doubted by any who are
conversant with the political history of the United States. The tariff
rulings had their weight, as did the unfair division of new territory:
but the main issue was negro slavery, which, always a stumbling-block
to the North, had most violently agitated the whole country for eleven
years before the appeal to arms.
Negro laborers were brought to Virginia and sold as slaves, fifty years
after the first cargo landed at Jamestown. In the year 1619, a Dutch
vessel brought over twenty negroes to be thus held in bondage. To the
men who watched the landing of this handful of Africans it was doubtless
an unimportant matter, yet it was the beginning of a system that had
an immense influence upon our country. In those days few persons in
the world opposed slavery. Even kings and queens made money out of the
traffic. But for tobacco slavery would not have taken such a hold on
America. When it was found that the negro made the cheapest laborer
for cultivating the plantation many more were imported.
They were also employed in the New England and Middle States, largely
as household servants, the soil not being favorable to the production
of rice, indigo, cotton and sugar, which were the staples of Southern
agriculture. Moreover, the African is not physically adapted to the
northern climate. He was especially liable to tubercular disease--hence
he was sold to the Southern planters, except in a few cases where the
Puritan spirit caused his emancipation.
In the year that Harvard College was erected, 1636, the first slave ship
built in America was launched at Marblehead, Mass. It brought a large
cargo of slaves to be sold to the settlers. During the one hundred years
preceding 1776, millions of slaves had been imported to the States. King
George III favored the institution, and forbade any interference with
the colonies in this matter. The horrors of slavery in Massachusetts,
as recorded by reliable documents of the period, far exceed all that
has been charged against the South, by Uncle Tom's Cabin, or any other
records of fact or romance. The Encyclopedia of Political Economy and
United States History, Vol. 3, page 733, has the following taken from
the New York Evening Post:
"During the eighteen months of the years 1859-60 eighty-five slave
ships (giving their names) belonging to New York merchants, brought
in cargoes annually of between 30,000 and 60,000 African slaves, who
were sold in Brazil, there being great demand for them in that country,
owing to new industries. Old Peter Faneuil built Faneuil Hall with
slave money, and many other fortunes were thus made."
Thomas Jefferson says in his autobiography that though the Northern
people owned very few slaves themselves, at the time of the writing of
the Declaration of Independence, yet they had been pretty considerable
carriers of slaves to others. In 1761 Virginia and South Carolina,
alarmed at the rapid increase of slaves, passed an act restricting
their importation, but as many persons in England were growing rich
from the trade the act was negatived, or vetoed. While providing in the
Constitution of the United States for the Southern planters to hold
slaves, the North thought that the laws that were in the course of
events to be passed for prohibiting their foreign importation, would so
work out so that the institution would die a natural death. They little
dreamed that economical and political conditions were destined to fasten
it upon the South. At the framing of the Constitution slaves were held
in all the States except Massachusetts, and she had only very lately
abolished the institution. The South owned twice as many, by reason
of her special agricultural products, and even at this early day the
slavery question became sectional. Mason's and Dixon's line, which was
an imaginary boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland, was recognized
as the division line between the free and slave states.
* * * * *
(Here are omitted several pages illustrating the utter absence of
affinity between the two sections of the country, introduced in the
manuscript as social, not historical, matter.)
During the Revolutionary war it was deemed expedient to enlist the
colored race as soldiers. In Rhode Island they were made free by law,
on condition that they enlisted in the army, and this measure met with
Gen'l Washington's approval. After the Declaration of Independence, in
1777, Vermont, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts freed their slaves and
permitted them to vote, "provided they had the requisite age, property
and residence." The 15th Amendment of a later day was an outrageous
document, framed regardless of any such qualifications, but giving
the ignorant black man rights even above the white citizens.
In order to induce the Southern States to accept the Federal
constitution in the beginning and have the country become a Union of
States, the opposers of slavery had to compromise the use of terms, and
take measures that seemed expedient. They fondly hoped as time rolled
on, to legislate the freedom of slaves. But the invention of the cotton
gin by Eli Whitney, in 1793, immensely increased the value of slave
labor, and forever fastened the institution upon the southern planters,
so far as future legislation was concerned. It had been so difficult to
separate the cotton fiber by hand, requiring a whole day to one pound,
that it was only a minor product; but now the wonderful source of
revenue made possible by the new invention, caused the importation of
many more slaves, and cotton growing in a million acres became king of
the marts. The planter would not willingly give up his property honestly
acquired, and plainly permitted by the constitution.
Slavery was a constant obstacle to the perfect Union of States.
In 1790 during the second session of the first congress, the Quakers
and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, through Benjamin Franklin, its
President, prayed Congress to restore to liberty those held in bondage.
The question was debated in the House in a warm, excited manner. Members
from South Carolina and Georgia argued that slavery, being commended by
the Bible, could not be wrong; that the Southern States would not have
entered into the Confederacy unless their property had been guaranteed
them, and any action of the general government looking to the
emancipation of slavery would not be submitted to. They said that South
Carolina and Georgia could only be cultivated by negro slaves, for the
climate, the nature of the soil, and ancient habits, precluded the
whites from performing the labor. If the negro were freed he would not
remain in those States; hence all the fertile rice and indigo swamps
must be deserted and would become a wilderness. Furthermore the
prohibiting of the slave trade was at that time unconstitutional. James
Madison poured oil on the troubled waters by stating that Congress
could not interfere according to constitutional restrictions, "Yet,"
he said, "there are a variety of ways by which it could countenance the
abolition; and regulations might be made to introduce the freed slaves
into the new states to be formed out of the Western territory." (In
parenthesis I remark that if Madison could have looked down the years,
he would have found that even though emancipated, the negro will not
leave the white settlements. Take our own little city of Lexington where
some 17,000 of them are congregated, living in discomfort and poverty in
most cases; yet their nature is to depend in some fashion upon their
white neighbors and employers.)
It was finally decided in the House that Congress could not prohibit
the slave trade until the year 1808--that Congress had no authority
to interfere in the emancipation of slaves, or in the treatment of
them within any of the States. This last resolution which is of great
historic importance, may be found on page 1523 of the II Vol. of Annals
of Congress.
Washington wrote to David Stuart in June 1790: "The introduction of the
Quaker memorial respecting slavery was, to be sure, not only ill-timed,
but occasioned a great waste of time."
In 1793 the Fugitive Slave law was passed, whereby a runaway slave
captured in a free State, must be returned to his owner. As the new
States were admitted into the Union they came in for the most part
alternately free and slave States. This was done to preserve the balance
of power in Congress.
The great aggressive Abolition movement that led eventually to the Civil
War, had its birth in 1831. Fanatics like John Brown, and Mrs. Harriet
Beecher Stowe, fanned into flame the sparks that had so long-smouldered,
till the helpless negro was dragged from his havens of peace and
comfort. If he felt bitterness towards the whites, what was to prevent
his rising in insurrection and slaying them all? There were plantations
where 600 or 700 slaves were governed by two or three white owners. They
occupied little villages and had no care upon earth. They had their
pastimes and religious worships. "The courtly old planter, highbred and
gentle, the plantation "uncle" who copied the master's manners; and the
broad-bosomed black mammy, with vari-colored turban, spotless apron, and
beaming face, the friend and helper of every living thing in cabin or
mansion, formed a trio we love to remember." The black woman cared more
for her white nursling than her own child. This seems unnatural, but it
was true; and many of us recall the times that the mistress of the house
had to interfere to prevent the kitchen mother from cruelly whipping
her naughty offspring. Some relic of ancient African barbarism still
lingered in their untutored minds. We loved our colored playmates, and
their sable mothers and fathers. Many a winning story of "way down upon
de ole plantation" has been truthfully told. Will S. Hays has
immortalized it in song.
A Southern writer has thus portrayed the Xmas time: "For weeks
beforehand everything was full of stir and preparation. Holly and
mistletoe and cedar were being put about the rooms of the big house to
welcome home the boys and girls from school. Secret councils were held
as to the Xmas gifts to be given to everyone, white and black. The
woodpile was loaded with oak and hickory logs to make bright and warm
the Christmas nights. The negro seamstresses were busy making: new suits
for all the servants." The King was in the parlor counting out his
money--to pay out for gifts of the season--and the queen was in the
kitchen dealing bread and honey--to paraphrase Mother Goose. Into the
stately plantation home, with its lofty white columns, its big rooms,
and its great fireplaces, poured the sons and daughters, grandchildren,
uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces. Assembled around the groaning
board, the patriarch asked the divine blessing and the twin spirits of
christianity were rife in the land. There was only a fitful sleep for
the small boys and girls, who were up at peep of day, stealing: from
room to room crying "Christmas Gift!" Out on the back porches waited the
negroes in grinning rows to follow the example. All week the cabin fires
burned brightly and constant was the rejoicing over their treasures, not
forgetting the grand eatables and the big bowl of egg-nogg.
Negroes are a religious as well as a superstitious race. At midnight
Saturday it was their custom to ring the great plantation bell, and
spend the next several hours in exhorting, praying and singing their
curious, doleful hymns. The whites gave them instruction and training
along these lines. Heart and conscious were alike cultivated--not alone
the sounding brass and tinkling cymbal. Statistics show that there were
466,000 slaves belonging to churches in the South: Methodist, Baptist,
Presbyterian, Episcopalian, and other sects. So the owners of these
christianized people thought that they were doing missionary work
in saving them from the cannibalism of heathen Africa. Both men and
women were taught trades and useful occupations. There were tanners,
shoemakers, blacksmiths, farmers, gardeners, horticulturists and
carpenters among the men. The women could sew, cook, card, spin, weave,
knit, wash, iron, in fact what they produced in this way would put to
shame the acquirements and accomplishments of free labor. Many of the
older negroes refused to be freed, when the mighty proclamation came.
They would not withdraw from the protection of "Old Marster." Look at
the product of these two generations of freedom. What is he? Well we
know the painful answer.
But while the buying of slaves for domestic, or field service, was
legitimate, the man who pursued the traffic as a business, and purchased
merely to sell again, was despised. He was termed a "nigger-buyer," and
was a pariah in the lowest sense of ostracism. It was claimed that there
was a distinction with a very great difference. Three or four servants
for ordinary household duties were deemed sufficient. On a farm more
hands were needed, and the plantations further south required several
hundred. The refractory slave of Kentucky and the border states, was
sold "down the river" in commercial parlance, where the discipline
of the rice, sugar, and cotton plantations kept in check his evil
inclinations. There might have been cases of cruel punishment, but the
rule was kindness--if for no other reason, the master would not injure
that which stood for money, for property. The expense of keeping slaves
was enormous. Where is the laborer of to-day who is furnished his house,
clothing, doctors, medicine, and not a little pocket money on occasions?
The South employed her laborers to produce the great staple of cotton,
which was to clothe mankind. They were properly clothed, fed and made
comfortable. In addition, they were cared for when sick, and there
existed the warmest affection for the majority of them. The world can
nowhere show human beings as care-free in bondage as were the negroes of
the ante-bellum days. Judge the Southern owner by the rule and not the
exception. As well judge a town by its halt, maimed, blind, diseased and
lawless citizens, as the slave owners by occasional acts of oppression
to be found on the plantations. But it was the "Down east" Yankee
overseer who was cruel--not the master. It was the African in New
England who was denied religious teaching, and even baptism. There
was no sympathy there, to quote from a writer, for the poor creatures
transplanted from their native sunny clime, dying by hundreds from
disease on the bleak Northern shores. It was merely a question of profit
and loss. They were sold to the South as fast as they could be shipped.
Even when the great hue and cry for freedom led the Northern Senators
to legislate for the cessation of foreign slavery in 1808, these great
philanthropists rushed over some 5,000 slaves to sell to the South
before the limited date could come around. Many prominent rich men of
New England made their money by this traffic, then pulled a long face
of condemnation for the Southern planter, whose money had been paid over
to swell the Northern coffers.
IT IS WORTHY OF NOTE THAT THE SOUTH NEVER OWNED OR SAILED A SLAVE SHIP.
In 1861 Mr. C.C. Glay, of Alabama, made a bitter speech in the United
States Senate. Part of his arraignment was that not a decade had passed
that the North had not persecuted the South on account of her slaves.
"You denied us Christian communion because you could not endure
slave-holding. You refused us permission to sojourn, or even pass
through the North with our property. You refused us any share of
the lands acquired mainly by our diplomacy and blood and treasure.
You robbed us of our property and refused to restore it."
The speaker went minutely into the outrages perpetrated by the Abolition
party. The list of oppressions had reach a crisis. Meanwhile the cotton
and the cane went on in Dixie land, to the weird ditties and the quaint
folk-lore of the happy-go-lucky race. So the outbreak of the war found
the American slave in the height of his prosperity, unmindful of
so-called wrongs, and utterly unfit for the boasted freedom that was
thrust upon him. The cruel decree was carried out, and millions of
helpless beings were turned adrift without rudder or compass, to bemoan
the loss of the good old times when they were provided with the comforts
of life they were nevermore to know. With the moral question of slavery
this paper has nothing to do. Facts, and facts alone, dictate the
record. But who has been, and who is now, the friend of the erstwhile
slave? The Northerner or the Southerner? Says one: "We have freed you,
but we don't want you." Says the other: "We did not free you, but we
will take you and make you comfortable. We love your people--you, who
have rocked us on your faithful breasts--who have interlarded our very
speech with your dialect, and who were our playmates in the joyous
days of youth. We have laid your hoary heads in honored graves, and
will treasure your memory till the final hour when death shall make all
men equal."
Secession
Read April 11, 1909
We seem not to have been a happy family during our first one hundred
years as a Union of States. We quarrelled frequently among ourselves,
and like the dissatisfied children of the household there was
oft-threatened disruption. If you do not treat me fairly I will leave
home, said the stubborn Northern child, no less than the warm-hearted
Southern offspring. And they stood alike in the attitude of going out
the door the moment the provocation became unbearable. The right of
secession and the thought of secession was frequently in the mind all
along the infant years of the Republic. But the word "Secession" did not
become a familiar term until the early sixties. Then the greeting was
"Hello! old Secesh!" or "Are you secesh?" One might have thought that
this awful thing the South had done was heard of for the first time,
and had birth alone in the brains of the fiery aristocrats who tore
themselves away from their plebean cousins; whereas history shows, as
I have said, that every State believed it had a right to secede from
the general government by the wording of our constitution, so when the
pressure grew too close the terms, "Southern Rights," and "Secession,"
became the slogan of battle and sounded the tocsin of war.
Let us begin at the beginning and get at the actual situation. The
thirteen original colonies were as follows: Virginia settled by the
English, called the cavaliers, in 1607, became a royal colony in 1624.
Massachusetts, settled by the Puritans in 1620, became a royal colony
in 1629; New York, called Amsterdam, settled by the Dutch in 1623,
became a royal colony in 1688; the English were in New York in 1664.
New Hampshire, settled by Puritans in 1729, became a royal colony in
1679; Maryland, settled by Catholics from England, in 1632, became a
royal colony in 1691; Connecticut, settled by Dutch and English in 1633,
became a royal colony in 1662; Rhode Island was settled in 1638, and
never became a royal colony. She was excluded from the New England
federation because she harbored all kinds of religions. She especially
reserved to herself a State government alone, and a right to secede in
any case. So this terrible crime of secession had birth in that pious,
patriotic north that so bitterly condemned the states of Dixie Land for
clamoring for a future right.
Delaware, settled by Swedes in 1638, became a separate colony, owned
by William Penn, in 1703. North Carolina, settled by Virginians and
Quakers in 1653, became a royal colony in 1729; New Jersey settled by
the English in 1665, became a royal colony in 1702. Pennsylvania,
settled by Germans, Dutch and Scotch-Irish in 1681, was given by King
Charles II of England, to Wm. Penn in 1770. South Carolina, settled by
French Huguenots and Germans in 1691, became a royal colony in 1729.
Georgia, the last English colony, was settled by the English in 1732
and had her royal charter in 1762.
I have given the colonial dates in regular order of chronology. A more
convenient division may be made thus: the New England colonies were
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island, all
belonging to England except Rhode Island.
The middle colonies were New York, Delaware, New Jersey and
Pennsylvania, two belonging to England, and two to Wm. Penn. The
Southern colonies were Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina
and Virginia, all belonging to England. Brought together by common cause
were English, French, Germans, Dutch, Swedes, Quakers, Episcopalians,
Catholics and all desired forms of religious worship. Wise legislation
indeed was needed to harmonize these conflicting elements and
dispositions merely on general principles. But when grave questions came
then trouble began. What was to the commercial interest of one section
seemed to militate against the prosperity of the other, and the glorious
ending of the war for independence was soon clouded by the acts of
Congress concerning the polity of the United States.
The African Slave Trade, begun by the North for purposes of profit,
became a bone of contention till the year 1808, when the law was
passed against the further importation of foreign slaves. Those already
owned and employed must on no account be disturbed. They might increase
and multiply adlibitum on their own plantations, but they were the
legitimate property of their owners. Even when Abraham Lincoln signed
the Emancipation Act, he said that he had not the right as President
to do it, but that it must be done as a war measure. By depriving the
southern soldier of his laborers, the homes must go to waste and the
strife most cease.
Politically each of the original colonies was independent had its own
assembly and its own governor. From the very first this idea of State
sovereignty was inherent, and consequently it was granted. The royal
colonies sent all legislative acts to England to be approved or vetoed
by the king. It must have required patience to await the going and
returning of the documents across the "vasty deep" in that day. These
royal colonies so governed by the king, were New York, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, Virginia and Georgia. In the proprietary colonies, or those
granted by royalty to individuals, the owner appointed the governor, but
the king exercised the right of veto in Pennsylvania and Delaware, but
not in Maryland. The charter colonies were Massachusetts, Connecticut
and Rhode Island. These held charters from the king permitting a
complete government by themselves. At this time black slaves were in
all the states. Even after the New England States had grown rich by
the selling of the negroes to the south, where the climate suited their
natures, they kept up the traffic in white slaves who, too poor to
pay their passage to the new land flowing with milk and honey, sold
themselves, hoping to buy back their freedom in the, perhaps near
future.
When the constitution of the United States was framed many
compromises were made. The framers had to select words with extreme
care lest some State might refuse to join the federation. A notable
compromise, and the very first quarrel, was the one just quoted in
reference to placing the limitation of the slave trade as far ahead as
1808. The next disagreement was about the war debt. This was called the
Assumption. The general government had contracted a debt of $54,000,000
and the States, about $25,000,000. This was in 1790. Alexander Hamilton
proposed that the government assume the whole debt. Hence the word
"assumption." The south argued that each state should pay its own debt.
That if the general government assumed the State debts it would be
taking away the sovereign rights that had been guaranteed them, viz:
the right to do as they pleased with what was their own, and that
national legislation had nothing to do with the question. About this
time they were looking about for a site upon which to build the national
capital. Sectional spirit ran high. New England declared that _her
states would secede_ if the South succeeded in defeating assumption
and in getting the capital, too. So a compromise was effected. The
Assumption bill passed, and the south got the capital, after the seat
of government was established at Philadelphia during ten years. In this
year, too, many petitions to abolish slavery were forced upon Congress.
After a heated debate the fiat went forth that Congress could not take
action till 1808.
Next came the adding of ten amendments to the constitution, all for the
purpose of protecting State rights. Thomas Jefferson became the leader
of the Republican party, afterwards known as Democrats, and not to be
confounded with the Republican party of to-day. There was a most bitter
wrangle over the wording of the Constitution, during which even President
Washington received abuse. _Threats of breaking up the Union were heard
on all sides_.
Then there was a quarrel over the National Bank question. The first one
was established at Philadelphia in 1791, and the United States became a
stockholder. The purpose was to furnish a safe currency, and one that
would be uniform throughout the States.
In 1791 Vermont, a part of New York, was admitted, a free state.
In 1792 Kentucky, cut off from Virginia, entered as a slave state, and
in 1796 Tennessee, given up by North Carolina, came in as a slave State.
Our government was involved in trouble with other countries in regard
to territory, but this sketch has chiefly to do with our disputes as
a family.
While John Adams was President, the successor of Washington, the Alien
and Sedition Laws created a stir in the country. The Federalists gave
the President power to send out of the country all foreigners whom he
considered dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States. They
feared that these foreign citizens, by their free speech and writings
might involve us in a war with Great Britain. This was the Alien
Law. The Democrats contended that they had a right to bring over all
the foreigners they pleased and make them citizens. The Sedition Law
condemned to fine or imprisonment any writer of false, scandalous, or
malicious statement against the government, Congress, or the President.
The Democrats urged that this law took away freedom of speech and
liberty of the press. Virginia, by James Madison, and Kentucky, by
Thomas Jefferson, passed resolutions which have become famous in
political history. Each set of resolutions proclaimed the Union to
be only a compact between the States. They declared the Alien and
Sedition laws to be unconstitutional, null and void. Virginia actually
strengthened her military forces, and made ready for secession as far
back as this date, 1799. The laws were not passed.
In 1803 Ohio, the 17th State, was ceded by Virginia, and was
admitted--the first state carved from the Northwest Territory, and
employed free labor.
The purchase of Louisiana from Napoleon in 1803 caused much discussion
and interest. It comprised a vast area equal to the whole United States.
Exploring expeditions were sent out to find what the unknown territory
was like. Whenever there was a question of an acquisition to the Union
the slave question was also in agitation. We next hear of secession when
the Embargo Act was passed. In 1807 congress, in order to avoid the war
with Great Britain which was fated to come five years later, enacted
that no American vessel should leave the country for foreign ports. New
England, where commerce was still the chief industry, suffered most. She
threatened to secede, and both Massachusetts and Connecticut proclaimed
the right to nullify the law. Two years later the act was repealed
and again the Union was saved. Truly Uncle Sam had restive children who
could not be driven, but who might at times be coaxed into a good humor.
Now came the quarrel between the State Banks and the National Bank. The
National Bank charter expired in 1811 and congress refusing to grant
another, it had to go out of business. In 1812 Louisiana, a slave state,
came in to make the eighteenth addition.
When war with England was declared in order to protect our commerce,
again the _New England States wanted to secede_. Bells were tolled,
business was suspended, flags were at half-mast, and the war was
condemned in town meetings--from the press and the pulpit. They believed
it would ruin rather than protect commerce. So they wanted to run away
by themselves. When the administration called for militia these states
refused to obey.
The Hartford Convention, just after our successful war with Great
Britain, proposed some amendments to the Constitution, and justified
secession as a remedy for an uncongenial union, but one that "should not
be resorted to except when absolutely necessary." They confirmed the
Virginia and Kentucky resolutions. The Democrats openly charged that
the object of the convention was disunion. The Federalist party went to
pieces. A new National Bank was established--in 1816--to continue twenty
years. In 1817 Indiana, the second State from the Northwest Territory,
became a member of the Union, with free labor. She was the 19th State,
and asked permission to hold slaves, but Congress prohibited slavery
north of the Ohio river. The North had ere this freed or sold her
slaves, but the institution was legalized in the Southern States.
There were now nineteen States and five territories, viz: Mississippi,
Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, and Alabama. Emigration poured into the
West. Each section of the young republic watched its own prosperity with
jealous interest. The Tariff question caused excited sectional feeling.
A tax on foreign goods for the sake of revenue only had satisfied
everybody; but a protective tariff was unpopular with the South. The
North, having manufactories, was glad to protect her infant industries.
The South had no manufactories--only agricultural products, and her
representatives combatted the measure with zeal (Explain). This tariff
bill has always caused opposition, and a glance at the daily doings at
Washington shows that it is still a bone of contention.
Mississippi was admitted as a state in 1817 with slaves; Illinois in
1818, free; and Alabama, in 1819, slave, making twenty-two states,
eleven free, and eleven slave states--an equal division. In 1819 Florida
was bought from Spain.
The greatest quarrel came when Missouri was talked of as a State. The
South wanted her left free to choose slave labor; the North feared that
this would give the Southern legislators control of the Senate. There
were numerous slaves in Missouri Territory, and she wanted to retain
them as a State. So angry were the debaters, and so heated the feeling,
that it was feared the country would go to pieces. This was as far back
as 1819. Maine, cut off from Massachusetts, now wanted to come into the
Union. As she would be a free labor State, the Southerners would not
vote for her admission unless Missouri could have slaves; hence the
Missouri Compromise Bill, of which we have all heard. Senator Jesse B.
Thomas, of Illinois, proposed this compromise. The terms of it admitted
Missouri with slaves, but prohibited slavery in any other portion of the
Louisiana Purchase north of a certain specified latitude, which was the
Southern boundary of Missouri. This quelled the matter for many years,
but most of us have seen the celebrated steel engraving, where Henry
Clay stands speaking on this question, and pouring oil on the troubled
waters. His powerful oratory so often saved the country from dissension
that he was termed the Great Pacificator. The gifted triumver, Henry
Clay from Kentucky, Daniel Webster from Massachusetts, and John C.
Calhoun from South Carolina, had labored through years to reconcile
the national vexed questions. All three died in the early fifties, and
remembering the results of their mighty genius, there were many to say,
ten years after that if they had lived there would have been no war,
save perhaps another war of words in Congress. But their patriotic heads
were laid low, and there were none to take their places. The two sources
of dissension, slavery and the tariff, were always on hand to make a
stormy session, so that a detailed history of the wrangling among the
North, South and West would be a tedious transcription. What suited
one section was adverse to the best interests of the others. The South
abided strictly by the wording of the Constitution. The North was ever
ready to put a liberal construction on its meaning, and naturally they
took issue.