THE PRISONER FREE
On a beautiful May afternoon, two years after Mr. Davis' capture, the
"John Sylvester" swung to the wharf at Rocketts and the prisoner walked
forth, smiling quietly upon the people who, on the other side of the blue
cordon of sentinels, watched the gangway, crying, "It is he! it is he!"
Always slender, he was shadowy now, worn and thin to emaciation. He did
not carry himself like a martyr. Only his attenuation, the sharpness of
his features, the care-worn, haggard appearance of the face, the hair
nearly all gray, the general indications of having aged ten years in two,
made any appeal for sympathy. With him were his wife, Judge Ould, and Mr.
James Lyons, Dr. Cooper, Mr. Burton Harrison, and General Burton, General
Miles' successor, whose prisoner he yet was, but whose attitude was more
that of friend than custodian.
A reserved and dignified city is the Capital on the James, taking joys
sedately; but that day she wore her heart on her sleeve; she cheered and
wept. The green hills, streets, sidewalks, were alive with people;
porches, windows, balconies, roofs, were thronged; Main Street was a lane
of uncovered heads as two carriages rolled swiftly towards the Spotswood,
one holding Mr. Davis, General Burton, Dr. Cooper and Mr. Harrison; the
other, Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Lyons, Mr. Lyons and Judge Ould; an escort of
Federal cavalry bringing up the rear with clattering hoofs and clanging
sabres. It was more like a victor's home-returning than the bringing of a
prisoner to trial. Yet through popular joy there throbbed the tragic note
that marks the difference between the huzzas of a conquering people for
their leader, and the welcoming "God bless you!" of a people subdued.
This difference was noticeable at the Spotswood, which famous hostelry
entertained many Northern guests. A double line of policemen, dividing the
crowd, formed an avenue from sidewalk to ladies' entrance. This crowd, it
seems, had its hat on. Among our own people may have been some who thought
it not wise in their own or the prisoner's interests to show him too much
honour. But as the emaciated, careworn man with the lofty bearing, stepped
from the carriage, a voice, quiet but distinct, broke the impressive
stillness: "Hats off, Virginians!" Instantly every man stood uncovered.
Monday he went to trial. The Court Room in the old Custom House was
packed. In the persons of representative men, North and South were there
for his vindication of the charge of high treason. Were he guilty, then
were we all of the South, and should be sentenced with him.
Reporters for Northern papers were present with their Southern brethren of
scratch-pad and pencil. The jury-box was a novelty to Northerners. In it
sat a motley crew of negroes and whites. For portrait in part of the
presiding judge, I refer to the case of McVeigh vs. Underwood, as reported
in Twenty-third Grattan, decided in favour of McVeigh. When the Federal
Army occupied Alexandria, John C. Underwood used his position as United
States District Judge to acquire the homestead, fully furnished, of Dr.
McVeigh, then in Richmond. He confiscated it to the United States, denied
McVeigh a hearing, sold it, bought it in his wife's name for $2,850
when it was worth not less than $20,000, and had her deed it to himself.
The first time thereafter that Dr. McVeigh met the able jurist face to
face on a street in Richmond, the good doctor, one of the most amiable of
men, before he knew what he was doing, slapped the able jurist over and
went about his business; whereupon, the Honourable the United States
Circuit Court picked himself up and went about his, which was sitting in
judgment on cases in equity. In 1873, Dr. McVeigh's home was restored to
him by law, the United States Supreme Court pronouncing Underwood's course
"a blot upon our jurisprudence and civilisation." Underwood was in
possession when he presided at the trial of Jefferson Davis.
[Illustration: AN HISTORICAL PETIT JURY
This is the Petit Jury impaneled to try President Jefferson Davis, being
the first mixed Petit Jury ever impaneled in the United States. Judge
Underwood, not Chief Justice Chase, presided.]
His personal appearance has been described as "repellant; his head
drooping; his hair long; his eyes shifty and unpleasing, and like a
basilisk's; his clothes ill-fitting;" he "came into court, fawning,
creeping, shuffling; ascended the bench in a manner awkward and ungainly;
lifted his head like a turtle." "Hear ye! hear ye! Silence is commanded
while the Honourable the United States Circuit Court is in session!" calls
the crier on this May morning.
General Burton, with soldierly simplicity, transfers the prisoner from the
military to the civil power; Underwood embarrasses the officer and shames
every lawyer present by a fatuous response abasing the bench before the
bayonet. Erect, serene, undefiant, surrounded by mighty men of the
Northern and Southern bar--O'Conor, Reed, Shea, Randolph Tucker,
Ould--Jefferson Davis faces his judge, his own clear, fearless glance
meeting squarely the "basilisk eye."
The like of Underwood's charge to the jury was never heard before in this
land. It caused one long blush from Maine to Texas, Massachusetts to
California; and resembled the Spanish War that came years after in that it
gave Americans a common grievance. This poor, political bigot thought to
please his Northern hearers by describing Richmond as "comely and spacious
as a goodly apple on a gilded sepulchre where bloody treason flourished
its whips of scorpions" and a "place where licentiousness has ruled until
a majority of the births are illegitimate," and "the pulpit prostituted by
full-fed gay Lotharios." But the thing is too loathsome to quote! Northern
reporters said it was not a charge, took no cognisance of the matter
before the Court, was a "vulgar, inflammatory stump speech." The "New York
Herald" pronounced it "The strangest mixture of drivel and nonsense that
ever disgraced a bench," and "without a parallel, with its foul-mouthed
abuse of Richmond." "A disgrace to the American bench," declared the "New
York World." "He has brought shame upon the entire bench of the country,
for to the people of other countries he is a representative of American
judges."
There was no trial. Motion was made and granted for a continuance of the
case to November, and bail given in bond for $100,000, which Horace
Greeley signed first, the crowd cheering him as he went up to write his
name, which was followed by signatures of other well-known men of both
sections. "The Marshal will discharge the prisoner!" a noble sentence in
the judge's mouth at last! Applause shakes the Court Room. Men surge
forward; Mr. Davis is surrounded; his friends, his lawyers, his sureties,
crowd about him; the North and the South are shaking hands; a love-feast
is on. Human nature is at its best. The prisoner is free. When he appears
on the portico the crowd grows wild with joy. Somebody wrote North that
they heard the old "Rebel yell" once more, and that something or other
unpleasant ought to be done to us because we would "holler" like that
whenever we got excited.
It looks as if his carriage will never get back to the Spotswood, people
press about him so, laughing, crying, congratulating, cheering. Negroes
climb upon the carriage steps, shaking his hand, kissing it, shouting:
"God bless Mars Davis!" No man was ever more beloved by negroes he owned
or knew.
The South was unchained. The South was set free. No! That fall the first
election at which negroes voted and whites--the majority disqualified by
test-oath provision--did not vote, was held to send delegates to a
convention presided over by John C. Underwood. This convention--the Black
and Tan--made a new Constitution for the Old Dominion.
"If black men will riot, I will fear that emancipation is a failure." So
spoke the great abolitionist, Gerrit Smith, from the pulpit of the Old
African Church Tuesday night after the Davis trial. "Riots in Richmond,
Charleston, and New Orleans have made me sick at heart." On the platform
with him were Horace Greeley, Governor Pierpont, Colonel Lewis and Judge
Underwood. His audience consisted of negroes, prominent white citizens of
Richmond, Federal officers and their wives. The negroes, as ready to be
swayed by good advice as bad, listened attentively to the wisest, most
conservative addresses they had heard from civilians of the North, or than
they were again to hear for a long time. Gerrit Smith, who was pouring out
his money like water for their education, told them:
"I do not consider the white people of the South traitors. The South is
not alone responsible for slavery. Northern as well as Southern ships
brought negroes to this shore. When Northern States passed laws abolishing
slavery in their borders, Northern people brought their negroes down here
and sold them before those laws could take effect. I have been chased in
the North by a pro-slavery mob--never in the South." Referring to the
South's impoverished condition, he said he wished the Federal Government
would give the section six years' exemption from the Federal tax to make
rapid rehabilitation possible. He plead for harmony between races; urged
whites to encourage blacks by selling lands to them cheap; urged blacks to
frugality, industry, sobriety; plead with them not to drink. "Why cannot
you love the whites among whom you have been born and raised?" he asked.
"We do! we do!" cried the poor darkeys who had yelled, "We will! we will!"
when Hayward was inciting them to mischief.
Horace Greeley said: "I have heard in Richmond that coloured people would
not buy homes or lands because they are expecting these through
confiscation. Believe me, friends, you can much sooner earn a home.
Confiscation is a slow, legal process. (Underwood had not found it so.)
Thaddeus Stevens, the great man who leads the movement--and perhaps one of
the greatest men who ever sat in Congress--is the only advocate of such a
course, among all our representatives and senators. If it has not taken
place in the two years since the war, we may not hope for it now. Famine,
disaster, and deadly feuds would follow confiscation." His voice, too, was
raised against calling Southern whites "traitors." "This seems to me," he
said, "to brand with the crime of treason--of felony--millions of our
fellow-countrymen."
It is to be said in reference to one part of Gerrit Smith's advice, that
Southerners were only too ready to sell their lands at any price or on
any terms to whoever would buy. Had the negroes applied the industrial
education which they then possessed they might have become owners of half
the territory of the South. Politicians and theorists who diverted negroid
energies into other channels were unconsciously serving Nature's purpose,
the preservation of the Anglo-Saxon race. Upon every measure that might
thwart that purpose, Nature seems to smile serenely, turning it to reverse
account.
* * * * *
A lively account of the seating of the first negro in the Congress of the
United States was contained in a letter of February, 1870, from my friend,
Miss Winfield, stopping in Washington. "Revels," she wrote, "occupies the
seat of Jefferson Davis. The Republicans made as much of the ceremony as
possible. To me it was infinitely sad, and infinitely absurd. We run
everything in the ground in America. Here, away from the South, where the
tragedy of it all is not so oppressively before me and where I see only
the political clap-trap of the whole African business, I am prone to lose
sight of the graver side and find things simply funny."
A lively discussion preceded the seating. Senator Wilson said something
very handsome about the "Swan Song of Slavery" and God's hand in the
present state of affairs; as he was soaring above the impious Democrats,
Mr. Casserly, one of the last-named sinners, bounced up and asked: "I
would like to know when and where the Senator from Massachusetts obtained
a commission to represent the Almighty in the Senate? I have not heard of
such authorisation, and if such person has been selected for that office,
it is only another illustration of the truism that the ways of Providence
are mysterious and past finding out." Laughter put the "Swan Song" off
key; Casserly said something about senators being made now, not by the
voice of God and the people, but by the power of the bayonet, when
somebody flung back at him, "You use the shelalah in New York!"
"But the ceremony!" Miss Winfield wrote. "Nothing has so impressed me
since the ball to Prince Arthur, nor has anything so amused me unless it
be the pipe-stem pantaloons our gentlemen wear in imitation of His Royal
Highness. Senator Wilson conducted Revels to the Speaker's desk with a
fine air that said: 'Massachusetts has done it all!' Vice-President Colfax
administered the oath with such unction as you never saw, then shook hands
with great warmth with Revels--nobody ever before saw him greet a
novitiate so cordially! But then, those others were only white men! With
pomp and circumstance the sergeant-at-arms led the hero of the hour to his
exalted position. 'Some day,' said my companion, 'history will record this
as showing how far the race-madness of a people can go under political
spurs.' Republican Senators fell over each other to shake Revels' hand and
congratulate him. Poor Mississippi! And Revels is not even a native.
General Ames, of Maine, is her other senator. Poor Mississippi!"
A LITTLE PLAIN HISTORY