of the world several dreadful accounts of the murder and violence in
which masters suffered at the hands of their slaves. There is something
suspicious in the constant, never-ending statement, that “We are not
afraid of our slaves.” The curfew and the night patrol in the streets,
the prisons and watch-houses, and the police regulations prove that
strict supervision, at all events, is needed and necessary. My host is a
kind man and a good master. If slaves are happy anywhere, they should be
so with him.
These people are fed by their master. They have upward of half a pound
per diem of fat pork, and corn in abundance. They rear poultry, and sell
their chickens and eggs to the house. They are clothed by their master.
He keeps them in sickness as in health. Now and then there are gifts of
tobacco and molasses for the deserving. There was little labor going on
in the fields, for the rice has been just exerting itself to get its
head above water. These fields yield plentifully, for the waters of the
river are fat, and they are let in, whenever the planters require it, by
means of floodgates and small canals, through which the flats can carry
their loads of grain to the river for loading the steamers.
LETTER VIII.
FACTS AND OPINIONS AT THE CONFEDERATE CAPITAL.
MONTGOMERY, CAPITAL OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES }
OF AMERICA, May 8, 1861. }
IN my last letter I gave an account of such matters as passed under my
notice on my way to this city, which I reached, as you are aware, on the
night of Saturday, May 4. I am on difficult ground, the land is on fire,
the earth is shaking with the tramp of armed men, and the very air is
hot with passion. My communications are cut off, or are at best
accidental, and in order to re-open them I must get further away from
them, paradoxical as the statement may appear to be. It is impossible to
know what is going on in the North, and it is almost the same to learn
what is doing in the South out of eyeshot; it is useless to inquire what
news is sent to you to England. Events hurry on with tremendous
rapidity, and even the lightning lags behind them. The people of the
South at last are aware that the “Yankees” are preparing to support the
Government of the United States, and that the Secession can only be
maintained by victory in the field. There has been a change in their war
policy. They now aver that “they only want to be let alone,” and they
declare that they do not intend to take Washington, and that it was
merely as a feint they spoke about it. The fact is, there are even in
the compact and united South men of moderate and men of extreme views,
and the general tone of the whole is regulated by the preponderance of
one or other at the moment. I have no doubt on my mind that the
Government here intended to attack and occupy Washington--not the least
that they had it much at heart to reduce Fort Pickens as soon as
possible. Now some of their friends say that it will be a mere matter of
convenience whether they attack Washington or not, and that, as for Fort
Pickens, they will certainly let it alone, at all events for the
present, inasmuch as the menacing attitude of General Bragg obliges the
enemy to keep a squadron of their best ships there, and to retain a
force of regulars they can ill spare, in a position where they must lose
enormously from diseases incidental to the climate. They have
discovered, too, that the position is of little value so long as the
United States hold Tortugas and Key West. But the Confederates are
preparing for the conflict, and when they have organized their forces,
they will make, I am satisfied, a very resolute advance all along the
line. They are at present strong enough, they suppose, in their domestic
resources, and in the difficulties presented to a hostile force by the
nature of the country, to bid defiance to invasion, or, at all events,
to inflict a very severe chastisement on the invaders, and their excited
manner of speech so acts upon the minds that they begin to think they
can defy, not merely the United States, but the world. Thus it is that
they declare they never can be conquered, that they will die to a man,
woman, and child first, and that if fifty thousand, or any number of
thousands of Black Republicans get one hundred miles into Virginia, not
one man of them shall ever get out alive. Behind all this talk, however,
there is immense energy, great resolution, and fixed principles of
action. Their strategy consists in keeping quiet till they have their
troops well in hand, in such numbers and discipline as shall give them
fair grounds for expecting success in any campaign with the United
States troops. They are preparing with vigor to render the descent of
the Mississippi impossible, by erecting batteries on the commanding
levees or embankments which hem in its waters for upward of eight
hundred miles of bank, and they are occupying, as far as they can, all
the strategical points of attack or defence within their borders. When
everything is ready, it is not improbable that Mr. Jefferson Davis will
take command of the army, for he is reported to have a high ambition to
acquire reputation as a general, and in virtue of his office he is
Generalissimo of the Armies of the Confederate States. It will be
remarked that this plan rests on the assumption that the United States
cannot or will not wage an offensive war, or obtain any success in their
attempts to recover the forts and other property of the Federal
Government. They firmly believe the war will not last a year, and that
1862 will behold a victorious, compact, slave-holding Confederate power
of fifteen States under a strong government, prepared to hold its own
against the world, or that portion of it which may attack it. I now but
repeat the sentiments and expectations of those around me. They believe
in the irresistible power of cotton, in the natural alliance between
manufacturing England and France and the cotton producing Slave States,
in the force of their simple tariff, and in the interest which arise out
of a system of free-trade, which, however, by a rigorous legislation
they will interdict to their neighbors in the Free States, and only open
for the benefit of their foreign customers. Commercially, and
politically, and militarily, they have made up their minds, and never
was there such confidence exhibited by any people in the future as they
have, or pretended to have, in their destiny. Listen to their programme.
It is intended to buy up all the cotton crop which can be brought into
the market at an average price, and to give bonds of the Confederate
States for the amount, these bonds being, as we know, secured by the
export duty on cotton. The Government, with this cotton crop in its own
hands, will use it as a formidable machine of war, for cotton can do
anything, from the establishment of an empire to the securing of a shirt
button. It is at once king and subject, master and servant, captain and
soldier, artilleryman and gun. Not one bale of cotton will be permitted
to enter the Northern States. It will be made an offence punishable with
tremendous penalties, among which confiscation of property, enormous
fines, and even the penalty of death, are enumerated, to send cotton
into the Free States. Thus Lowell and its kindred factories will be
reduced to ruin, it is said, and the North to the direst distress. If
Manchester can get cotton and Lowell cannot, there are good times coming
for the mill-owners.
The planters have agreed among themselves to hold over one-half of their
cotton crop for their own purposes and for the culture of their fields,
and to sell the other to the Government. For each bale of cotton, as I
hear, a bond will be issued on the fair average price of cotton in the
market, and this bond must be taken at par as a circulating medium
within the limits of the Slave States. This forced circulation will be
secured by the act of the Legislature. The bonds will bear interest at
10 per cent., and they will be issued on the faith and security of the
proceeds of the duty of one-eighth of a cent on every pound of cotton
exported. All vessels loading with cotton will be obliged to enter into
bonds, or give security that they will not carry their cargoes to
Northern ports, or let it reach Northern markets to their knowledge. The
Government will sell the cotton for cash to foreign buyers, and will
thus raise funds amply sufficient, they contend, for all purposes. I
make these bare statements, and I leave to political economists the
discussion of the question which may and will arise out of the acts of
the Confederate States. The Southerners argue that by breaking from
their unnatural alliance with the North they will save upward of
$47,000,000, or nearly £10,000,000 sterling annually. The estimated
value of the annual cotton crop is $200,000,000. On this the North
formerly made at least $10,000,000, by advance, interest and exchanges,
which in all came to fully 5 per cent. on the whole of the crop. Again,
the tariff to raise revenue sufficient for the maintenance of the
Government of the Southern Confederacy is far less than that which is
required by the Government of the United States. The Confederate States
propose to have a tariff which will be about 12½ per cent. on imports,
which will yield $25,000,000. The Northern tariff is 30 per cent., and
as the South took from the North $70,000,000 worth of manufactured goods
and produce, they contribute, they assert, to the maintenance of the
North to the extent of the difference between the tax sufficient for the
support of their Government, and that which is required for the support
of the Federal Government. Now they will save the difference between 30
per cent, and 12½ per cent. (17½ per cent), which amounts to
$37,000,000, which, added to the saving on commissions, exchanges,
advances, &c., makes up the good round sum which I have put down higher
up. The Southerners are firmly convinced that they have “kept the North
going” by the prices they have paid for the protected articles of their
manufacture, and they hold out to Sheffield, to Manchester, to Leeds, to
Wolverhampton, to Dudley, to Paris, to Lyons, to Bordeaux, to all the
centres of English manufacturing life, as of French taste and luxury,
the tempting baits of new and eager and hungry markets. If their facts
and statistics are accurate, there can be no doubt of the justice of
their deductions on many points; but they can scarcely be correct in
assuming that they will bring the United States to destruction by
cutting off from Lowell the 600,000 bales of cotton which she usually
consumes. One great fact, however, is unquestionable--the Government has
in its hands the souls, the wealth, and the hearts of the people. They
will give anything--money, labor, life itself--to carry out their
theories. “Sir,” said an ex-Governor of this State to me to-day, “sooner
than submit to the North, we will all become subject to Great Britain
again.” The same gentleman is one of the many who have given to the
Government a large portion of their cotton crop every year as a
free-will offering. In his instance his gift is one of 500 bales of
cotton, or £5,000 per annum, and the papers teem with accounts of
similar “patriotism” and devotion. The ladies are all making sand-bags,
cartridges, and uniforms, and, if possible, they are more fierce than
the men. The time for mediation is past, if it ever were at hand or
present at all; and it is scarcely possible now to prevent the processes
of phlebotomization which are supposed to secure peace and repose.
There was no intelligence of much interest on Sunday, but there is a
general belief that Arkansas and Missouri will send in their adhesion to
the Confederacy this week, and the Commissioners from Virginia are
hourly expected. The attitude of that State, however, gives rise to
apprehensions lest there may be a division of her strength; and any
aggression on her territories by the Federal Government, such as that
contemplated in taking possession of Alexandria, would be hailed by the
Montgomery Government with sincere joy, as it would, they think, move
the State to more rapid action and decision.
Montgomery is on an undulating plain, and covers ground large enough for
a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants, but its population is only
twelve thousand. Indeed, the politicians here appear to dislike large
cities, but the city designers certainly prepare to take them if they
come. There is a large negro population, and a considerable number of a
color which forces me to doubt the evidences of my senses rather than
the statements made to me by some of my friends, that the planters
affect the character of parent in their moral relations merely with the
negro race. A waiter at the hotel--a tall, handsome young fellow, with
the least tinge of color in his cheek, not as dark as the majority of
Spaniards or Italians--astonished me in my ignorance to-day when, in
reply to a question asked by one of our party, in consequence of a
discussion on the point, he informed me he “was a slave.” The man, as he
said so, looked confused; his manner altered. He had been talking
familiarly to us, but the moment he replied, “I am a slave, Sir,” his
loquacity disappeared, and he walked hurriedly and in silence out of the
room. The river Alabama, on which the city rests, is a wide, deep
stream, now a quarter of a mile in breadth, with a current of four miles
an hour. It is navigable to Mobile, upward of four hundred miles, and
steamers ascend its waters for many miles beyond this into the interior.
The country around is well wooded, and is richly cultivated in broad
fields of cotton and Indian corn, but the neighborhood is not healthy,
and deadly fevers are said to prevail at certain seasons of the year.
There is not much animation in the streets, except when “there is a
difficulty among the citizens,” or in the eternal noise of the hotel
steps and bars. I was told this morning by the hotel keeper that I was
probably the only person in the house, or about it, who had not loaded
revolvers in his pockets, and one is aware occasionally of an unnatural
rigidity scarcely attributable to the osseous structure in the persons
of those who pass one in the crowded passages.
MONDAY, May 6.--To-day I visited the Capitol, where the Provisional
Congress is sitting. On leaving the hotel, which is like a small
Willard’s, so far as the crowd in the hall is concerned, my attention
was attracted to a group of people to whom a man was holding forth in
energetic sentences. The day was hot, but I pushed near to the spot, for
I like to hear a stump speech, or to pick up a stray morsel of divinity
in the _via sacra_ of strange cities, and it appeared as though the
speaker was delivering an oration or a sermon. The crowd was small.
Three or four idle men in rough, homespun, makeshift uniforms, leaned
against the iron rails inclosing a small pond of foul, green-looking
water, surrounded by brick-work, which decorates the space in front of
the Exchange Hotel. The speaker stood on an empty deal packing case. A
man in a cart was listening with a lack-lustre eye to the address. Some
three or four others, in a sort of vehicle, which might either be a
hearse or a piano-van, had also drawn up for the benefit of the address.
Five or six other men, in long black coats and high hats, some whittling
sticks, and chewing tobacco, and discharging streams of discolored
saliva, completed the group. “Nine h’hun’nerd and fifty dollars! Only
nine h-hun’nerd and fifty dollars offered for him,” exclaimed the man,
in the tone of injured dignity, remonstrance, and surprise, which can be
insinuated by all true auctioneers into the dryest numerical statements.
“Will _no one_ make any advance on nine hundred and fifty dollars?” A
man near me opened his mouth, spat, and said, “Twenty-five.” “Only nine
hundred and seventy-five dollars offered for him. Why, at’s
radaklous--only nine hundred and seventy-five dollars! Will no one,” &c.
Beside the orator auctioneer stood a stout young man of five-and-twenty
years of age, with a bundle in his hand. He was a muscular fellow,
broad-shouldered, narrow-flanked, but rather small in stature; he had on
a broad, greasy, old wide-awake, a blue jacket, a coarse cotton shirt,
loose and rather ragged trowsers, and broken shoes. The expression of
his face was heavy and sad, but it was by no means disagreeable, in
spite of his thick lips, broad nostrils, and high cheek-bones. On his
head was wool instead of hair. I am neither sentimentalist, nor Black
Republican, nor negro-worshiper, but I confess the sight caused a
strange thrill through my heart. I tried in vain to make myself familiar
with the fact that I could, for the sum of nine hundred and seventy-five
dollars, become as absolutely the owner of that mass of blood, bones,
sinew, flesh, and brains, as of the horse which stood by my side. There
was no sophistry which could persuade me the man was not a man--he was,
indeed, by no means my brother, but assuredly he was a fellow creature.
I have seen slave markets in the East, but somehow or other the
Orientalism of the scene cast a coloring over the nature of the sales
there which deprived them of the disagreeable harshness and
matter-of-fact character of the transaction before me. For Turk, or
Smyrniote, or Egyptian, to buy and sell slaves, seemed rather suited to
the eternal fitness of things than otherwise. The turbaned, shawled,
loose-trowsered, pipe-smoking merchants, speaking an unknown tongue,
looked as if they were engaged in a legitimate business. One knew that
their slaves would not be condemned to any very hard labor, and that
they would be in some sort the inmates of the family and members of it.
Here it grated on my ear to listen to the familiar tones of the English
tongue as the medium by which the transfer was effected, and it was
painful to see decent-looking men in European garb engaged in the work
before me. Perchance these impressions may wear off, for I meet many
English people who are the most strenuous advocates of the slave system,
although it is true that their perceptions may be quickened to recognize
its beauties by their participation in the profits. The negro was sold
to one of the bystanders, and walked off with his bundle, God knows
where. “Niggers is cheap,” was the only remark of the bystanders. I
continued my walk up a long, wide, straight street, or, more properly,
an unpaved sandy road, lined with wooden houses on each side, and with
trees by the side of the footpath. The lower of the two stories is
generally used as a shop, mostly of the miscellaneous store kind, in
which all sorts of articles are to be had, if there is any money to pay
for them; and, in the present case, if any faith is to be attached to
the conspicuous notices in the windows, credit is of no credit, and the
only thing that can be accepted in exchange for the goods is “cash.” At
the end of this long street, on a moderate eminence, stands a
whitewashed or painted edifice, with a gaunt, lean portico, supported on
lofty, lanky pillars, and surmounted by a subdued and dejected-looking
little cupola. Passing an unkempt lawn, through a very shabby little
gateway in a brick frame, and we ascend a flight of steps into a hall,
from which a double staircase conducts us to the vestibule of the
Chamber. Anything much more offensive to the eye cannot well be imagined
than the floor and stairs. They are stained deeply by tobacco juice,
which have left its marks on the white stone steps, and on the base of
the pillars outside. In the hall which we have entered there are two
tables, covered with hams, oranges, bread and fruits, for the
refreshment of members and visitors, over which two sable goddesses, in
portentous crinoline, preside. The door of the chamber is open, and we
are introduced into a lofty, well-lighted and commodious apartment, in
which the Congress of the Confederate States hold its deliberations. A
gallery runs half round the room, and is half filled with
visitors--country cousins, and farmers of cotton and maize, and, haply,
seekers of places, great or small. A light and low semi-circular screen
separates the body of the house, where the members sit, from the space
under the gallery, which is appropriated to ladies and visitors. The
clerk sits at a desk above this table, and on a platform behind him are
the desk and chair of the presiding officer or Speaker of the Congress.
Over his head hangs the unfailing portrait of Washington, and a small
engraving, in a black frame, of a gentleman unknown to me. Seated in the
midst of them, at a Senator’s desk, I was permitted to “assist,” in the
French sense, at the deliberations of the Congress. Mr. Howell Cobb took
the chair, and a white-headed clergyman was called upon to say prayers,
which he did, upstanding, with outstretched hands and closed eyes, by
the side of the Speaker. The prayer was long and sulphureous. One more
pregnant with gunpowder I never heard, nor could aught like it have been
heard since
“Pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,
Was beat with fist instead of a stick.”
The Rev. gentleman prayed that the Almighty might be pleased to inflict
on the arms of the United States such a defeat, that it might be the
example of signal punishment forever; that this President might be
blessed, and that the other President might be the other thing; that the
gallant, devoted young soldiers, who were fighting for their country,
might not suffer from exposure to the weather or from the bullets of
their enemies; and that the base mercenaries who were fighting on the
other side might come to sure and swift destruction; and so on.
Are right and wrong mere geographical expressions? The prayer was over
at last, and the House proceeded to business. Although each State has
several delegates in Congress, it is only entitled to one vote on a
strict division. In this way some curious decisions may be arrived at,
as the smallest State is equal to the largest, and a majority of the
Florida representatives may neutralize a vote of all the Georgia
representatives. For example, Georgia has ten delegates; Florida has
only three. The vote of Florida, however, is determined by the action of
any two of its three representatives, and these two may, on a division,
throw the one State vote into the scale against that of Georgia, for
which ten members are agreed. The Congress transacts all its business in
secret session, and finds it a very agreeable and commendable way of
doing it. Thus, to-day, for example, after the presentation of a few
unimportant motions and papers, the Speaker rapped his desk, and
announced that the House would go into secret session, and that all who
were not members should leave.
As I was returning to the hotel there was another small crowd at the
fountain. Another auctioneer, a fat, flabby, perspiring, puffy man, was
trying to sell a negro girl who stood on the deal-box beside him. She
was dressed pretty much like a London servant girl of the lower order
out of place, except that her shoes were mere shreds of leather patches,
and her bonnet would have scarce passed muster in the New Cut. She, too,
had a little bundle in her hand, and looked out at the buyers from a
pair of large sad eyes. “Niggers were cheap;” still here was this young
woman going for an upset price of $610, but no one would bid, and the
auctioneer, after vain attempts to raise the price and excite
competition, said, “Not sold to-day, Sally; you may get down.”
TUESDAY, May 7.--The newspapers contain the text of the declaration of
the state of war on the part of President Davis, and of the issue of
letters of marque and reprisal, &c. But it may be asked, who will take
these letters of marque? Where is the Government of Montgomery to find
ships? The answer is to be found in the fact that already numerous
applications have been received from the shipowners of New England, from
the whalers of New Bedford, and from others in the Northern States, for
these very letters of marque, accompanied by the highest securities and
guaranties! This statement I make on the very highest authority. I leave
it to you to deal with the facts.