FROM BOSTON TO WASHINGTON.
From Boston, on the 27th of November, my wife returned to England,
leaving me to prosecute my journey southward to Washington by myself.
I shall never forget the political feeling which prevailed in Boston
at that time, or the discussions on the subject of Slidell and Mason,
in which I felt myself bound to take a part. Up to that period I
confess that my sympathies had been strongly with the northern side
in the general question; and so they were still, as far as I could
divest the matter of its English bearings. I had always thought, and
do think, that a war for the suppression of the southern rebellion
could not have been avoided by the North without an absolute loss
of its political prestige. Mr. Lincoln was elected President of the
United States in the autumn of 1860, and any steps taken by him or
his party towards a peaceable solution of the difficulties which
broke out immediately on his election, must have been taken before he
entered upon his office. South Carolina threatened secession as soon
as Mr. Lincoln's election was known, while yet there were four months
left of Mr. Buchanan's Government. That Mr. Buchanan might, during
those four months, have prevented secession, few men, I think, will
doubt when the history of the time shall be written. But instead of
doing so he consummated secession. Mr. Buchanan is a northern man,
a Pennsylvanian; but he was opposed to the party which had brought
in Mr. Lincoln, having thriven as a politician by his adherence
to southern principles. Now, when the struggle came, he could not
forget his party in his duty as President. General Jackson's position
was much the same when Mr. Calhoun, on the question of the tariff,
endeavoured to produce secession in South Carolina thirty years ago,
in 1832,--excepting in this, that Jackson was himself a southern man.
But Jackson had a strong conception of the position which he held
as President of the United States. He put his foot on secession and
crushed it, forcing Mr. Calhoun, as senator from South Carolina, to
vote for that compromise as to the tariff which the Government of
the day proposed. South Carolina was as eager in 1832 for secession
as she was in 1859-1860; but the Government was in the hands of a
strong man and an honest one. Mr. Calhoun would have been hung had
he carried out his threats. But Mr. Buchanan had neither the power
nor the honesty of General Jackson, and thus secession was in fact
consummated during his Presidency.
But Mr. Lincoln's party, it is said--and I believe truly said--might
have prevented secession by making overtures to the South, or
accepting overtures from the South, before Mr. Lincoln himself had
been inaugurated. That is to say,--if Mr. Lincoln and the band of
politicians who with him had pushed their way to the top of their
party, and were about to fill the offices of State, chose to throw
overboard the political convictions which had bound them together and
insured their success,--if they could bring themselves to adopt on
the subject of slavery the ideas of their opponents,--then the war
might have been avoided, and secession also avoided. I do believe
that had Mr. Lincoln at that time submitted himself to a compromise
in favour of the Democrats, promising the support of the Government
to certain acts which would in fact have been in favour of slavery,
South Carolina would again have been foiled for the time. For it must
be understood, that though South Carolina and the Gulf States might
have accepted certain compromises, they would not have been satisfied
in so accepting them. They desired secession, and nothing short of
secession would, in truth, have been acceptable to them. But in doing
so Mr. Lincoln would have been the most dishonest politician even in
America. The North would have been in arms against him; and any true
spirit of agreement between the cotton-growing slave States and the
manufacturing States of the North, or the agricultural States of the
West, would have been as far off and as improbable as it is now. Mr.
Crittenden, who proffered his compromise to the Senate in December,
1860, was at that time one of the two senators from Kentucky, a slave
State. He now sits in the Lower House of Congress as a member from
the same State. Kentucky is one of those border States which has
found it impossible to secede, and almost equally impossible to
remain in the Union. It is one of the States into which it was most
probable that the war would be carried;--Virginia, Kentucky, and
Missouri being the three States which have suffered the most in this
way. Of Mr. Crittenden's own family, some have gone with secession
and some with the Union. His name had been honourably connected with
American politics for nearly forty years, and it is not surprising
that he should have desired a compromise. His terms were in fact
these,--a return to the Missouri compromise, under which the Union
pledged itself that no slavery should exist north of 36.30 degrees
N. lat. unless where it had so existed prior to the date of that
compromise; a pledge that Congress would not interfere with slavery
in the individual States,--which under the constitution it cannot do;
and a pledge that the Fugitive Slave Law should be carried out by
the northern States. Such a compromise might seem to make very small
demand on the forbearance of the Republican party, which was now
dominant. The repeal of the Missouri compromise had been to them a
loss, and it might be said that its re-enactment would be a gain.
But since that compromise had been repealed, vast territories
south of the line in question had been added to the Union, and the
re-enactment of that compromise would hand those vast regions over
to absolute slavery, as had been done with Texas. This might be all
very well for Mr. Crittenden in the slave State of Kentucky--for Mr.
Crittenden, although a slave-owner, desired to perpetuate the Union;
but it would not have been well for New England or for the West. As
for the second proposition, it is well understood that under the
constitution Congress cannot interfere in any way in the question of
slavery in the individual States. Congress has no more constitutional
power to abolish slavery in Maryland than she has to introduce it
into Massachusetts. No such pledge, therefore, was necessary on
either side. But such a pledge given by the North and West would have
acted as an additional tie upon them, binding them to the finality
of a constitutional enactment to which, as was of course well known,
they strongly object. There was no question of Congress interfering
with slavery, with the purport of extending its area by special
enactment, and therefore by such a pledge the North and West could
gain nothing; but the South would in prestige have gained much.
But that third proposition as to the Fugitive Slave Law and the
faithful execution of that law by the northern and western States
would, if acceded to by Mr. Lincoln's party, have amounted to an
unconditional surrender of everything. What! Massachusetts and
Connecticut carry out the Fugitive Slave Law! Ohio carry out the
Fugitive Slave Law after the "Dred Scot" decision and all its
consequences! Mr. Crittenden might as well have asked Connecticut,
Massachusetts, and Ohio to introduce slavery within their own lands.
The Fugitive Slave Law was then, as it is now, the law of the land;
it was the law of the United States as voted by Congress and passed
by the President, and acted on by the Supreme Judge of the United
States' Court. But it was a law to which no free State had submitted
itself, or would submit itself. "What!" the English reader will
say,--"sundry States in the Union refuse to obey the laws of the
Union,--refuse to submit to the constitutional action of their own
Congress!" Yes. Such has been the position of this country! To such
a dead lock has it been brought by the attempted but impossible
amalgamation of North and South. Mr. Crittenden's compromise was
moonshine. It was utterly out of the question that the free States
should bind themselves to the rendition of escaped slaves,--or that
Mr. Lincoln, who had just been brought in by their voices, should
agree to any compromise which should attempt so to bind them. Lord
Palmerston might as well attempt to re-enact the Corn Laws.
Then comes the question whether Mr. Lincoln or his Government could
have prevented the war after he had entered upon his office in March,
1861? I do not suppose that any one thinks that he could have avoided
secession and avoided the war also;--that by any ordinary effort of
Government he could have secured the adhesion of the Gulf States to
the Union after the first shot had been fired at Fort Sumter. The
general opinion in England is, I take it, this,--that secession then
was manifestly necessary, and that all the bloodshed and money-shed,
and all this destruction of commerce and of agriculture might have
been prevented by a graceful adhesion to an indisputable fact. But
there are some facts, even some indisputable facts, to which a
graceful adherence is not possible. Could King Bomba have welcomed
Garibaldi to Naples? Can the Pope shake hands with Victor Emmanuel?
Could the English have surrendered to their rebel colonists peaceable
possession of the colonies? The indisputability of a fact is not very
easily settled while the circumstances are in course of action by
which the fact is to be decided. The men of the northern States have
not believed in the necessity of secession, but have believed it to
be their duty to enforce the adherence of these States to the Union.
The American Governments have been much given to compromises, but had
Mr. Lincoln attempted any compromise by which any one southern State
could have been let out of the Union, he would have been impeached.
In all probability the whole constitution would have gone to ruin,
and the presidency would have been at an end. At any rate, his
presidency would have been at an end. When secession, or in other
words rebellion, was once commenced, he had no alternative but the
use of coercive measures for putting it down;--that is, he had no
alternative but war. It is not to be supposed that he or his ministry
contemplated such a war as has existed,--with 600,000 men in arms on
one side, each man with his whole belongings maintained at a cost of
£150 per annum, or ninety millions sterling per annum for the army.
Nor did we, when we resolved to put down the French revolution, think
of such a national debt as we now owe. These things grow by degrees,
and the mind also grows in becoming used to them; but I cannot see
that there was any moment at which Mr. Lincoln could have stayed his
hand and cried Peace! It is easy to say now that acquiescence in
secession would have been better than war, but there has been no
moment when he could have said so with any avail. It was incumbent on
him to put down rebellion, or to be put down by it. So it was with us
in America in 1776.
I do not think that we in England have quite sufficiently taken all
this into consideration. We have been in the habit of exclaiming very
loudly against the war, execrating its cruelty and anathematizing its
results, as though the cruelty were all superfluous and the results
unnecessary. But I do not remember to have seen any statement as to
what the northern States should have done,--what they should have
done, that is, as regards the South, or when they should have done
it. It seems to me that we have decided as regards them that civil
war is a very bad thing, and that therefore civil war should be
avoided. But bad things cannot always be avoided. It is this feeling
on our part that has produced so much irritation in them against
us,--reproducing, of course, irritation on our part against them.
They cannot understand that we should not wish them to be successful
in putting down a rebellion; nor can we understand why they should be
outrageous against us for standing aloof, and keeping our hands, if
it be only possible, out of the fire.
When Slidell and Mason were arrested, my opinions were not changed,
but my feelings were altered. I seemed to acknowledge to myself that
the treatment to which England had been subjected, and the manner in
which that treatment was discussed, made it necessary that I should
regard the question as it existed between England and the States,
rather than in its reference to the North and South. I had always
felt that as regarded the action of our Government we had been sans
reproche; that in arranging our conduct we had thought neither of
money nor political influence, but simply of the justice of the
case,--promising to abstain from all interference and keeping that
promise faithfully. It had been quite clear to me that the men of the
North, and the women also, had failed to appreciate this, looking, as
men in a quarrel always do look, for special favour on their side.
Everything that England did was wrong. If a private merchant, at his
own risk, took a cargo of rifles to some southern port, that act to
northern eyes was an act of English interference,--of favour shown to
the South by England as a nation; but twenty shiploads of rifles sent
from England to the North merely signified a brisk trade and a desire
for profit. The "James Adger," a northern man-of-war, was refitted
at Southampton as a matter of course. There was no blame to England
for that. But the "Nashville," belonging to the Confederates, should
not have been allowed into English waters! It was useless to speak
of neutrality. No Northerner would understand that a rebel could
have any mutual right. The South had no claim in his eyes as a
belligerent, though the North claimed all those rights which he could
only enjoy by the fact of there being a recognized war between him
and his enemy the South. The North was learning to hate England,
and day by day the feeling grew upon me that, much as I wished to
espouse the cause of the North, I should have to espouse the cause
of my own country. Then Slidell and Mason were arrested, and I began
to calculate how long I might remain in the country. "There is no
danger. We are quite right," the lawyers said. "There are Vattel
and Puffendorff and Stowell and Phillimore and Wheaton," said the
ladies. "Ambassadors are contraband all the world over,--more so than
gunpowder; and if taken in a neutral bottom, &c." I wonder why ships
are always called bottoms when spoken of with legal technicality? But
neither the lawyers nor the ladies convinced me. I know that there
are matters which will be read not in accordance with any written
law, but in accordance with the bias of the reader's mind. Such laws
are made to be strained any way. I knew how it would be. All the
legal acumen of New England declared the seizure of Slidell and Mason
to be right. The legal acumen of Old England has declared it to be
wrong; and I have no doubt that the ladies of Old England can prove
it to be wrong out of Vattel, Puffendorff, Stowell, Phillimore, and
Wheaton.
"But there's Grotius," I said, to an elderly female at New York,
who had quoted to me some half-dozen writers on international law,
thinking thereby that I should trump her last card. "I've looked into
Grotius too," said she, "and as far as I can see," &c. &c. &c. So
I had to fall back again on the convictions to which instinct and
common sense had brought me. I never doubted for a moment that those
convictions would be supported by English lawyers.
I left Boston with a sad feeling at my heart that a quarrel was
imminent between England and the States, and that any such quarrel
must be destructive to the cause of the North. I had never believed
that the States of New England and the Gulf States would again become
parts of one nation, but I had thought that the terms of separation
would be dictated by the North, and not by the South. I had felt
assured that South Carolina and the Gulf States, across from
the Atlantic to Texas, would succeed in forming themselves into
a separate confederation; but I had still hoped that Maryland,
Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri might be saved to the grander empire
of the North, and that thus a great blow to slavery might be the
consequence of this civil war. But such ascendancy could only fall to
the North by reason of their command of the sea. The northern ports
were all open, and the southern ports were all closed. But if this
should be reversed. If by England's action the southern ports should
be opened, and the northern ports closed, the North could have no
fair expectation of success. The ascendancy in that case would all be
with the South. Up to that moment,--the Christmas of 1861,--Maryland
was kept in subjection by the guns which General Dix had planted
over the city of Baltimore. Two-thirds of Virginia were in active
rebellion, coerced originally into that position by her dependence
for the sale of her slaves on the cotton States. Kentucky was
doubtful, and divided. When the federal troops prevailed, Kentucky
was loyal; when the Confederate troops prevailed, Kentucky was
rebellious. The condition in Missouri was much the same. Those four
States, by two of which the capital, with its district of Columbia,
is surrounded, might be gained, or might be lost. And these four
States are susceptible of white labour,--as much so as Ohio and
Illinois,--are rich in fertility, and rich also in all associations
which must be dear to Americans. Without Virginia, Maryland, and
Kentucky, without the Potomac, the Chesapeake, and Mount Vernon,
the North would indeed be shorn of its glory! But it seemed to be
in the power of the North to say under what terms secession should
take place, and where should be the line. A senator from South
Carolina could never again sit in the same chamber with one from
Massachusetts; but there need be no such bar against the border
States. So much might at any rate be gained, and might stand
hereafter as the product of all that money spent on 600,000 soldiers.
But if the Northerners should now elect to throw themselves into
a quarrel with England, if in the gratification of a shameless
braggadocio they should insist on doing what they liked, not only
with their own, but with the property of all others also, it
certainly did seem as though utter ruin must await their cause. With
England, or one might say with Europe, against them, secession must
be accomplished, not on northern terms, but on terms dictated by the
South. The choice was then for them to make; and just at that time it
seemed as though they were resolved to throw away every good card out
of their hand. Such had been the ministerial wisdom of Mr. Seward.
I remember hearing the matter discussed in easy terms by one of the
United States senators. "Remember, Mr. Trollope," he said to me, "we
don't want a war with England. If the choice is given to us, we had
rather not fight England. Fighting is a bad thing. But remember this
also, Mr. Trollope--that if the matter is pressed on us, we have
no great objection. We had rather not, but we don't care much one
way or the other." What one individual may say to another is not of
much moment, but this senator was expressing the feelings of his
constituents, who were the legislature of the State from whence he
came. He was expressing the general idea on the subject of a large
body of Americans. It was not that he and his State had really no
objection to the war. Such a war loomed terribly large before the
minds of them all. They knew it to be fraught with the saddest
consequences. It was so regarded in the mind of that senator. But the
braggadocio could not be omitted. Had he omitted it, he would have
been untrue to his constituency.
When I left Boston for Washington nothing was as yet known of what
the English Government or the English lawyers might say. This was in
the first week in December, and the expected voice from England could
not be heard till the end of the second week. It was a period of
great suspense, and of great sorrow also to the more sober-minded
Americans. To me the idea of such a war was terrible. It seemed that
in these days all the hopes of our youth were being shattered. That
poetic turning of the sword into a sickle, which gladdened our hearts
ten or twelve years since, had been clean banished from men's minds.
To belong to a peace-party was to be either a fanatic, an idiot, or
a driveller. The arts of war had become everything. Armstrong guns,
themselves indestructible, but capable of destroying everything
within sight, and most things out of sight, were the only recognized
results of man's inventive faculties. To build bigger, stronger, and
more ships than the French was England's glory. To hit a speck with
a rifle bullet at 800 yards' distance was an Englishman's first duty.
The proper use for a young man's leisure hours was the practice of
drilling. All this had come upon us with very quick steps, since the
beginning of the Russian war. But if fighting must needs be done, one
did not feel special grief at fighting a Russian. That the Indian
mutiny should be put down was a matter of course. That those Chinese
rascals should be forced into the harness of civilization was a good
thing. That England should be as strong as France,--or perhaps, if
possible, a little stronger,--recommended itself to an Englishman's
mind as a State necessity. But a war with the States of America! In
thinking of it I began to believe that the world was going backwards.
Over sixty millions sterling of stock--railway stock and such
like--are held in America by Englishmen, and the chances would be
that before such a war could be finished the whole of that would be
confiscated. Family connections between the States and the British
isles are almost as close as between one of those islands and
another. The commercial intercourse between the two countries has
given bread to millions of Englishmen, and a break in it would rob
millions of their bread. These people speak our language, use our
prayers, read our books, are ruled by our laws, dress themselves in
our image, are warm with our blood. They have all our virtues; and
their vices are our own too, loudly as we call out against them. They
are our sons and our daughters, the source of our greatest pride, and
as we grow old they should be the staff of our age. Such a war as we
should now wage with the States would be an unloosing of hell upon
all that is best upon the world's surface. If in such a war we beat
the Americans, they with their proud stomachs would never forgive
us. If they should be victors, we should never forgive ourselves. I
certainly could not bring myself to speak of it with the equanimity
of my friend the senator.
I went through New York to Philadelphia and made a short visit to the
latter town. Philadelphia seems to me to have thrown off its Quaker
garb, and to present itself to the world in the garments ordinarily
assumed by large cities; by which I intend to express my opinion
that the Philadelphians are not in these latter days any better than
their neighbours. I am not sure whether in some respects they may not
perhaps be worse. Quakers,--Quakers absolutely in the very flesh of
close bonnets and brown knee-breeches,--are still to be seen there;
but they are not numerous, and would not strike the eye if one did
not specially look for a Quaker at Philadelphia. It is a large town,
with a very large hotel,--there are no doubt half-a-dozen large
hotels, but one of them is specially great,--with long straight
streets, good shops and markets, and decent comfortable-looking
houses. The houses of Philadelphia generally are not so large as
those of other great cities in the States. They are more modest than
those of New York, and less commodious than those of Boston. Their
most striking appendage is the marble steps at the front doors. Two
doors as a rule enjoy one set of steps, on the outer edges of which
there is generally no parapet or raised curb-stone. This, to my eye,
gave the houses an unfinished appearance,--as though the marble ran
short, and no further expenditure could be made. The frost came when
I was there, and then all these steps were covered up in wooden
cases.
The city of Philadelphia lies between the two rivers, the Delaware
and the Schuylkill. Eight chief streets run from river to river, and
twenty-four cross-streets bisect the eight at right angles. The long
streets are, with the exception of Market Street, called by the names
of trees,--chesnut, walnut, pine, spruce, mulberry, vine, and so
on. The cross-streets are all called by their numbers. In the long
streets the numbers of the houses are not consecutive, but follow
the numbers of the cross streets; so that a person living in Chesnut
Street between Tenth Street and Eleventh Street, and ten doors from
Tenth Street, would live at No. 1010. The opposite house would be
No. 1011. It thus follows that the number of the house indicates the
exact block of houses in which it is situated. I do not like the
right-angled building of these towns, nor do I like the sound of
Twentieth Street and Thirtieth Street; but I must acknowledge that
the arrangement in Philadelphia has its convenience. In New York I
found it by no means an easy thing to arrive at the desired locality.
They boast in Philadelphia that they have half a million inhabitants.
If this be taken as a true calculation, Philadelphia is in size the
fourth city in the world,--putting out of the question the cities of
China, as to which we have heard so much and believe so little. But
in making this calculation the citizens include the population of a
district on some sides ten miles distant from Philadelphia. It takes
in other towns connected with it by railway but separated by large
spaces of open country. American cities are very proud of their
population, but if they all counted in this way, there would soon
be no rural population left at all. There is a very fine bank at
Philadelphia,--and Philadelphia is a town somewhat celebrated in
its banking history. My remarks here, however, apply simply to the
external building, and not to its internal honesty and wisdom, or to
its commercial credit.
In Philadelphia also stands the old house of Congress,--the house in
which the Congress of the United States was held previous to 1800,
when the Government, and the Congress with it, were moved to the
new city of Washington. I believe, however, that the first Congress,
properly so called, was assembled at New York in 1789, the date of
the inauguration of the first President. It was, however, here, in
this building at Philadelphia, that the independence of the Union was
declared in 1776, and that the constitution of the United States was
framed.
Pennsylvania, with Philadelphia for its capital, was once the leading
State of the Union,--leading by a long distance. At the end of the
last century it beat all the other States in population, but has
since been surpassed by New York in all respects,--in population,
commerce, wealth, and general activity. Of course it is known that
Pennsylvania was granted to William Penn, the Quaker, by Charles
II. I cannot completely understand what was the meaning of such
grants,--how far they implied absolute possession in the territory,
or how far they confirmed simply the power of settling and governing
a colony. In this case a very considerable property was confirmed, as
the claim made by Penn's children after Penn's death was bought up by
the commonwealth of Pennsylvania for £130,000; which in those days
was a large price for almost any landed estate on the other side of
the Atlantic.
Pennsylvania lies directly on the borders of slave land, being
immediately north of Maryland. Mason and Dixon's line, of which
we hear so often, and which was first established as the division
between slave soil and free soil, runs between Pennsylvania and
Maryland. The little State of Delaware, which lies between Maryland
and the Atlantic, is also tainted with slavery; but the stain is not
heavy nor indelible. In a population of a hundred and twelve thousand
there are not two thousand slaves, and of these the owners generally
would willingly rid themselves if they could. It is, however, a point
of honour with these owners, as it is also in Maryland, not to sell
their slaves; and a man who cannot sell his slaves must keep them.
Were he to enfranchise them and send them about their business, they
would come back upon his hands. Were he to enfranchise them and pay
them wages for work, they would get the wages but he would not get
the work. They would get the wages, but at the end of three months
they would still fall back upon his hands in debt and distress,
looking to him for aid and comfort as a child looks for it. It is
not easy to get rid of a slave in a slave State. That question of
enfranchising slaves is not one to be very readily solved.
In Pennsylvania the right of voting is confined to free white men. In
New York the coloured free men have the right to vote, providing they
have a certain small property qualification, and have been citizens
for three years in the State;--whereas a white man need have been a
citizen but for ten days, and need have no property qualification;
from which it is seen that the position of the negro becomes worse,
or less like that of a white man, as the border of slave land is more
nearly reached. But in the teeth of this embargo on coloured men, the
constitution of Pennsylvania asserts broadly that all men are born
equally free and independent. One cannot conceive how two clauses
can have found their way into the same document so absolutely
contradictory to each other. The first clause says that white men
shall vote, and that black men shall not, which means that all
political action shall be confined to white men. The second clause
says that all men are born equally free and independent!
In Philadelphia I for the first time came across live
secessionists,--secessionists who pronounced themselves to be such. I
will not say that I had met in other cities men who falsely declared
themselves true to the Union; but I had fancied, in regard to some,
that their words were a little stronger than their feelings. When
a man's bread,--and much more, when the bread of his wife and
children,--depends on his professing a certain line of political
conviction, it is very hard for him to deny his assent to the truth
of the argument. One feels that a man under such circumstances is
bound to be convinced, unless he be in a position which may make
a stanch adherence to opposite politics a matter of grave public
importance. In the North I had fancied that I could sometimes read a
secessionist tendency under a cloud of unionist protestations. But in
Philadelphia men did not seem to think it necessary to have recourse
to such a cloud. I generally found in mixed society, even there, that
the discussion of secession was not permitted; but in society that
was not mixed, I heard very strong opinions expressed on each side.
With the unionists nothing was so strong as the necessity of keeping
Slidell and Mason. When I suggested that the English Government would
probably require their surrender, I was talked down and ridiculed.
"Never that; come what may." Then, within half an hour, I would be
told by a secessionist that England must demand reparation if she
meant to retain any place among the great nations of the world;
but he also would declare that the men would not be surrendered.
"She must make the demand," the secessionist would say, "and then
there will be war; and after that we shall see whose ports will be
blockaded!" The Southerner has ever looked to England for some breach
of the blockade, quite as strongly as the North has looked to England
for sympathy and aid in keeping it.
The railway from Philadelphia to Baltimore passes along the top of
Chesapeake Bay and across the Susquehanna river; at least the railway
cars do so. On one side of that river they are run on to a huge
ferryboat, and are again run off at the other side. Such an operation
would seem to be one of difficulty to us under any circumstances;
but as the Susquehanna is a tidal river, rising and falling a
considerable number of feet, the natural impediment in the way of
such an enterprise would, I think, have staggered us. We should have
built a bridge costing two or three millions sterling, on which no
conceivable amount of traffic would pay a fair dividend. Here, in
crossing the Susquehanna, the boat is so constructed that its deck
shall be level with the line of the railway at half tide, so that the
inclined plane from the shore down to the boat, or from the shore up
to the boat, shall never exceed half the amount of the rise or fall.
One would suppose that the most intricate machinery would have been
necessary for such an arrangement; but it was all rough and simple,
and apparently managed by two negroes. We should employ a small corps
of engineers to conduct such an operation, and men and women would
be detained in their carriages under all manner of threats as to the
peril of life and limb; but here everybody was expected to look out
for himself. The cars were dragged up the inclined plane by a hawser
attached to an engine, which hawser, had the stress broken it, as I
could not but fancy probable, would have flown back and cut to pieces
a lot of us who were standing in front of the car. But I do not
think that any such accident would have caused very much attention.
Life and limbs are not held to be so precious here as they are in
England. It may be a question whether with us they are not almost too
precious. Regarding railways in America generally, as to the relative
safety of which, when compared with our own, we have not in England a
high opinion, I must say that I never saw any accident or in any way
became conversant with one. It is said that large numbers of men and
women are slaughtered from time to time on different lines; but if it
be so, the newspapers make very light of such cases. I myself have
seen no such slaughter, nor have I even found myself in the vicinity
of a broken bone. Beyond the Susquehanna we passed over a creek of
Chesapeake Bay on a long bridge. The whole scenery here is very
pretty, and the view up the Susquehanna is fine. This is the bay
which divides the State of Maryland into two parts, and which is
blessed beyond all other bays by the possession of canvas-back ducks.
Nature has done a great deal for the State of Maryland, but in
nothing more than in sending thither these web-footed birds of
Paradise.
Nature has done a great deal for Maryland; and Fortune also has
done much for it in these latter days in directing the war from
its territory. But for the peculiar position of Washington as the
capital, all that is now being done in Virginia would have been done
in Maryland, and I must say that the Marylanders did their best to
bring about such a result. Had the presence of the war been regarded
by the men of Baltimore as an unalloyed benefit, they could not have
made a greater struggle to bring it close to them. Nevertheless fate
has so far spared them.
As the position of Maryland and the course of events as they took
place in Baltimore on the commencement of secession had considerable
influence both in the North and in the South, I will endeavour
to explain how that State was affected, and how the question was
affected by that State. Maryland, as I have said before, is a slave
State lying immediately south of Mason and Dixon's line. Small
portions both of Virginia and of Delaware do run north of Maryland,
but practically Maryland is the frontier State of the slave States.
It was therefore of much importance to know which way Maryland would
go in the event of secession among the slave States becoming general;
and of much also to ascertain whether it could secede if desirous of
doing so. I am inclined to think that as a State it was desirous of
following Virginia, though there are many in Maryland who deny this
very stoutly. But it was at once evident that if loyalty to the North
could not be had in Maryland of its own free will, adherence to
the North must be enforced upon Maryland. Otherwise the city of
Washington could not be maintained as the existing capital of the
nation.
The question of the fidelity of the State to the Union was first
tried by the arrival at Baltimore of a certain Commissioner from
the State of Mississippi, who visited that city with the object of
inducing secession. It must be understood that Baltimore is the
commercial capital of Maryland, whereas Annapolis is the seat of
Government and the legislature--or is, in other terms, the political
capital. Baltimore is a city containing 230,000 inhabitants, and is
considered to have as strong and perhaps as violent a mob as any
city in the Union. Of the above number 30,000 are negroes and 2000
are slaves. The Commissioner made his appeal, telling his tale of
southern grievances, declaring, among other things, that secession
was not intended to break up the Government but to perpetuate it,
and asked for the assistance and sympathy of Maryland. This was in
December, 1860. The Commissioner was answered by Governor Hicks, who
was placed in a somewhat difficult position. The existing legislature
of the State was presumed to be secessionist, but the legislature
was not sitting, nor in the ordinary course of things would that
legislature have been called on to sit again. The legislature of
Maryland is elected every other year, and in the ordinary course
sits only once in the two years. That session had been held, and the
existing legislature was therefore exempt from further work,--unless
specially summoned for an extraordinary session. To do this is within
the power of the Governor. But Governor Hicks, who seems to have been
mainly anxious to keep things quiet, and whose individual politics
did not come out strongly, was not inclined to issue the summons.
"Let us show moderation as well as firmness," he said; and that
was about all he did say to the Commissioner from Mississippi.
The Governor after that was directly called on to convene the
legislature; but this he refused to do, alleging that it would not
be safe to trust the discussion of such a subject as secession
to--"excited politicians, many of whom having nothing to lose from
the destruction of the Government, may hope to derive some gain
from the ruin of the State!" I quote these words, coming from the
head of the executive of the State and spoken with reference to the
legislature of the State, with the object of showing in what light
the political leaders of a State may be held in that very State to
which they belong! If we are to judge of these legislators from the
opinion expressed by Governor Hicks, they could hardly have been
fit for their places. That plan of governing by the little men has
certainly not answered. It need hardly be said that Governor Hicks,
having expressed such an opinion of his State's legislature, refused
to call them to an extraordinary session.
On the 18th of April, 1860, Governor Hicks issued a proclamation to
the people of Maryland, begging them to be quiet, the chief object
of which, however, was that of promising that no troops should be
sent out from their State, unless with the object of guarding the
neighbouring city of Washington,--a promise which he had no means
of fulfilling, seeing that the President of the United States is
the Commander-in-Chief of the army of the nation and can summon the
militia of the several States. This proclamation by the Governor
to the State was immediately backed up by one from the Mayor of
Baltimore to the city, in which he congratulates the citizens on
the Governor's promise that none of their troops are to be sent to
another State; and then he tells them that they shall be preserved
from the horrors of civil war.
But on the very next day the horrors of civil war began in Baltimore.
By this time President Lincoln was collecting troops at Washington
for the protection of the capital; and that army of the Potomac,
which has ever since occupied the Virginian side of the river,
was in course of construction. To join this, certain troops from
Massachusetts were sent down by the usual route, viâ New York,
Philadelphia, and Baltimore; but on their reaching Baltimore
by railway, the mob of that town refused to allow them to pass
through,--and a fight began. Nine citizens were killed and two
soldiers, and as many more were wounded. This, I think, was the first
blood spilt in the civil war; and the attack was first made by the
mob of the first slave city reached by the northern soldiers. This
goes far to show, not that the border States desired secession, but
that, when compelled to choose between secession and union,--when not
allowed by circumstances to remain neutral,--their sympathies were
with their sister slave States rather than with the North.
Then there was a great running about of official men between
Baltimore and Washington, and the President was besieged with
entreaties that no troops should be sent through Baltimore. Now this
was hard enough upon President Lincoln, seeing that he was bound to
defend his capital, that he could get no troops from the South, and
that Baltimore is on the high road from Washington, both to the West
and to the North; but, nevertheless, he gave way. Had he not done
so, all Baltimore would have been in a blaze of rebellion, and the
scene of the coming contest must have been removed from Virginia to
Maryland, and Congress and the Government must have travelled from
Washington north to Philadelphia. "They shall not come through
Baltimore," said Mr. Lincoln. "But they shall come through the State
of Maryland. They shall be passed over Chesapeake Bay by water to
Annapolis, and shall come up by rail from thence." This arrangement
was as distasteful to the State of Maryland as the other; but
Annapolis is a small town without a mob, and the Marylanders had no
means of preventing the passage of the troops. Attempts were made to
refuse the use of the Annapolis branch railway, but General Butler
had the arranging of that. General Butler was a lawyer from Boston,
and by no means inclined to indulge the scruples of the Marylanders
who had so roughly treated his fellow-citizens from Massachusetts.
The troops did therefore pass through Annapolis, much to the disgust
of the State. On the 27th of April Governor Hicks, having now had a
sufficiency of individual responsibility, summoned the legislature
of which he had expressed so bad an opinion; but on this occasion
he omitted to repeat that opinion, and submitted his views in very
proper terms to the wisdom of the senators and representatives. He
entertained, as he said, an honest conviction that the safety of
Maryland lay in preserving a neutral position between the North and
the South. Certainly, Governor Hicks, if it were only possible! The
legislature again went to work to prevent, if it might be prevented,
the passage of troops through their State; but luckily for them,
they failed. The President was bound to defend Washington, and the
Marylanders were denied their wish of having their own fields made
the fighting ground of the civil war.
That which appears to me to be the most remarkable feature in all
this is the antagonism between United States law and individual State
feeling. Through the whole proceeding the Governor and the State of
Maryland seemed to have considered it legal and reasonable to oppose
the constitutional power of the President and his Government. It is
argued in all the speeches and written documents that were produced
in Maryland at the time, that Maryland was true to the Union; and yet
she put herself in opposition to the constitutional military power of
the President! Certain commissioners went from the State legislature
to Washington, in May, and from their report, it appears that the
President had expressed himself of opinion that Maryland might do
this or that, as long "as she had not taken and was not about to take
a hostile attitude to the Federal Government!" From which we are to
gather that a denial of that military power given to the President
by the constitution was not considered as an attitude hostile to
the Federal Government. At any rate, it was direct disobedience
of federal law. I cannot but revert from this to the condition
of the fugitive slave law. Federal law, and indeed the original
constitution, plainly declare that fugitive slaves shall be given
up by the free-soil States. Massachusetts proclaims herself to be
specially a federal, law-loving State. But every man in Massachusetts
knows that no judge, no sheriff, no magistrate, no policeman in that
State would at this time, or then, when that civil war was beginning,
have lent a hand in any way to the rendition of a fugitive slave. The
Federal law requires the State to give up the fugitive, but the State
law does not require judge, sheriff, magistrate, or policeman to
engage in such work, and no judge, sheriff, or magistrate will do so;
consequently that Federal law is dead in Massachusetts, as it is also
in every free-soil State,--dead, except inasmuch as there was life
in it to create ill-blood as long as the North and South remained
together, and would be life in it for the same effect if they should
again be brought under the same flag.
On the 10th May the Maryland legislature, having received the
report of their Commissioners above-mentioned, passed the following
resolution:--
"Whereas the war against the Confederate States is unconstitutional
and repugnant to civilization, and will result in a bloody and
shameful overthrow of our constitution, and whilst recognizing the
obligations of Maryland to the Union, we sympathize with the South in
the struggle for their rights; for the sake of humanity we are for
peace and reconciliation, and solemnly protest against this war, and
will take no part in it.
"Resolved,--That Maryland implores the President, in the name of
God, to cease this unholy war, at least until Congress assembles"--a
period of above six months. "That Maryland desires and consents to
the recognition of the independence of the Confederate States. The
military occupation of Maryland is unconstitutional, and she protests
against it, though the violent interference with the transit of the
Federal troops is discountenanced. That the vindication of her rights
be left to time and reason, and that a convention under existing
circumstances is inexpedient."
From which it is plain that Maryland would have seceded as
effectually as Georgia seceded, had she not been prevented by
the interposition of Washington between her and the Confederate
States,--the happy intervention, seeing that she has thus been saved
from becoming the battle-ground of the contest. But the legislature
had to pay for its rashness. On the 13th of September thirteen of
its members were arrested, as were also two editors of newspapers
presumed to be secessionists. A member of Congress was also arrested
at the same time, and a candidate for Governor Hicks's place, who
belonged to the secessionist party. Previously, in the last days of
June and beginning of July, the chief of the police at Baltimore
and the members of the Board of Police had been arrested by General
Banks, who then held Baltimore in his power.
I should be sorry to be construed as saying that republican
institutions, or what may more properly be called democratic
institutions, have been broken down in the States of America. I am
far from thinking that they have broken down. Taking them and their
work as a whole, I think that they have shown, and still show,
vitality of the best order. But the written constitution of the
United States and of the several States, as bearing upon each other,
are not equal to the requirements made upon them. That, I think,
is the conclusion to which a spectator should come. It is in that
doctrine of finality that our friends have broken down,--a doctrine
not expressed in their constitutions, and indeed expressly denied in
the constitution of the United States, which provides the mode in
which amendments shall be made--but appearing plainly enough in every
word of self-gratulation which comes from them. Political finality
has ever proved a delusion,--as has the idea of finality in all
human institutions. I do not doubt but that the republican form of
government will remain and make progress in North America; but such
prolonged existence and progress must be based on an acknowledgment
of the necessity for change, and must in part depend on the
facilities for change which shall be afforded.
I have described the condition of Baltimore as it was early in May,
1861. I reached that city just seven months later, and its condition
was considerably altered. There was no question then whether troops
should pass through Baltimore, or by an awkward round through
Annapolis, or not pass at all through Maryland. General Dix, who
had succeeded General Banks, was holding the city in his grip, and
martial law prevailed. In such times as those, it was bootless to
inquire as to that promise that no troops should pass southward
through Baltimore. What have such assurances ever been worth in such
days! Baltimore was now a military depot in the hands of the northern
army, and General Dix was not a man to stand any trifling. He did me
the honour to take me to the top of Federal Hill, a suburb of the
city, on which he had raised great earthworks and planted mighty
cannons, and built tents and barracks for his soldiery, and to show
me how instantaneously he could destroy the town from his exalted
position. "This hill was made for the very purpose," said General
Dix; and no doubt he thought so. Generals, when they have fine
positions and big guns and prostrate people lying under their thumbs,
are inclined to think that God's providence has specially ordained
them and their points of vantage. It is a good thing in the mind of
a general so circumstanced that 200,000 men should be made subject
to a dozen big guns. I confess that to me, having had no military
education, the matter appeared in a different light, and I could
not work up my enthusiasm to a pitch which would have been suitable
to the General's courtesy. That hill, on which many of the poor of
Baltimore had lived, was desecrated in my eyes by those columbiads.
The neat earthworks were ugly, as looked upon by me; and though I
regarded General Dix as energetic, and no doubt skilful in the work
assigned to him, I could not sympathize with his exultation.
Previously to the days of secession Baltimore had been guarded by
Fort MacHenry, which lies on a spit of land running out into the bay
just below the town. Hither I went with General Dix, and he explained
to me how the cannon had heretofore been pointed solely towards the
sea; that, however, now was all changed, and the mouths of his bombs
and great artillery were turned all the other way. The commandant of
the fort was with us, and other officers, and they all spoke of this
martial tenure as a great blessing. Hearing them, one could hardly
fail to suppose that they had lived their forty, fifty, or sixty
years of life in full reliance on the powers of a military despotism.
But not the less were they American republicans, who, twelve months
since, would have dilated on the all-sufficiency of their republican
institutions, and on the absence of any military restraint in their
country, with that peculiar pride which characterizes the citizens
of the States. There are, however, some lessons which may be learned
with singular rapidity!
Such was the state of Baltimore when I visited that city. I found,
nevertheless, that cakes and ale still prevailed there. I am inclined
to think that cakes and ale prevail most freely in times that are
perilous, and when sources of sorrow abound. I have seen more
reckless joviality in a town stricken by pestilence than I ever
encountered elsewhere. There was General Dix seated on Federal Hill
with his cannon; and there, beneath his artillery, were gentlemen
hotly professing themselves to be secessionists, men whose sons and
brothers were in the southern army, and women--alas! whose brothers
would be in one army, and their sons in another. That was the part of
it which was most heart-rending in this border land. In New England
and New York men's minds at any rate were bent all in the same
direction,--as doubtless they were also in Georgia and Alabama. But
here fathers were divided from sons, and mothers from daughters.
Terrible tales were told of threats uttered by one member of a family
against another. Old ties of friendship were broken up. Society had
so divided itself, that one side could hold no terms of courtesy with
the other. "When this is over," one gentleman said to me, "every man
in Baltimore will have a quarrel to the death on his hands with some
friend whom he used to love." The complaints made on both sides were
eager and open-mouthed against the other.
Late in the autumn an election for a new legislature of the State
had taken place, and the members returned were all supposed to be
unionist. That they were prepared to support the Government is
certain. But no known or presumed secessionist was allowed to vote
without first taking the oath of allegiance. The election therefore,
even if the numbers were true, cannot be looked upon as a free
election. Voters were stopped at the poll and not allowed to
vote unless they would take an oath which would, on their parts,
undoubtedly have been false. It was also declared in Baltimore that
men engaged to promote the northern party were permitted to vote five
or six times over, and the enormous number of votes polled on the
Government side gave some colouring to the statement. At any rate an
election carried under General Dix's guns cannot be regarded as an
open election. It was out of the question that any election taken
under such circumstances should be worth anything as expressing
the minds of the people. Red and white had been declared to be the
colours of the Confederates, and red and white had of course become
the favourite colours of the Baltimore ladies. Then it was given
out that red and white would not be allowed in the streets. Ladies
wearing red and white were requested to return home. Children
decorated with red and white ribbons were stripped of their bits of
finery,--much to their infantine disgust and dismay. Ladies would put
red and white ornaments in their windows, and the police would insist
on the withdrawal of the colours. Such was the condition of Baltimore
during the past winter. Nevertheless cakes and ale abounded; and
though there was deep grief in the city, and wailing in the recesses
of many houses, and a feeling that the good times were gone, never
to return within the days of many of them, still there existed an
excitement and a consciousness of the importance of the crisis which
was not altogether unsatisfactory. Men and women can endure to
be ruined, to be torn from their friends, to be overwhelmed with
avalanches of misfortune, better than they can endure to be dull.
Baltimore is, or at any rate was, an aspiring city, proud of its
commerce and proud of its society. It has regarded itself as the New
York of the South, and to some extent has forced others so to regard
it also. In many respects it is more like an English town than most
of its transatlantic brethren, and the ways of its inhabitants are
English. In old days a pack of fox-hounds was kept here,--or indeed
in days that are not yet very old, for I was told of their doings by
a gentleman who had long been a member of the hunt. The country looks
as a hunting country should look, whereas no man that ever crossed a
field after a pack of hounds would feel the slightest wish to attempt
that process in New England or New York. There is in Baltimore
an old inn with an old sign, standing at the corner of Eutaw and
Franklin Streets, just such as may still be seen in the towns of
Somersetshire, and before it are to be seen old wagons, covered and
soiled and battered, about to return from the city to the country,
just as the wagons do in our own agricultural counties. I have found
nothing so thoroughly English in any other part of the Union.
But canvas-back ducks and terrapins are the great glories of
Baltimore. Of the nature of the former bird I believe all the world
knows something. It is a wild duck which obtains the peculiarity of
its flavour from the wild celery on which it feeds. This celery grows
on the Chesapeake Bay, and I believe on the Chesapeake Bay only. At
any rate Baltimore is the head-quarters of the canvas-backs, and it
is on the Chesapeake Bay that they are shot. I was kindly invited to
go down on a shooting-party; but when I learned that I should have to
ensconce myself alone for hours in a wet wooden box on the water's
edge, waiting there for the chance of a duck to come to me, I
declined. The fact of my never having as yet been successful in
shooting a bird of any kind conduced somewhat perhaps to my decision.
I must acknowledge that the canvas-back duck fully deserves all the
reputation it has acquired. As to the terrapin, I have not so much to
say. The terrapin is a small turtle, found on the shores of Maryland
and Virginia, out of which a very rich soup is made. It is cooked
with wines and spices, and is served in the shape of a hash, with
heaps of little bones mixed through it. It is held in great repute,
and the guest is expected as a matter of course to be helped twice.
The man who did not eat twice of terrapin would be held in small
repute, as the Londoner is held who at a city banquet does not
partake of both thick and thin turtle. I must, however, confess that
the terrapin for me had no surpassing charms.
Maryland was so called from Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles
I., by which king in 1632 the territory was conceded to the Roman
Catholic Lord Baltimore. It was chiefly peopled by Roman Catholics,
but I do not think that there is now any such speciality attaching to
the State. There are in it two or three old Roman Catholic families,
but the people have come down from the North, and have no peculiar
religious tendencies. Some of Lord Baltimore's descendants remained
in the State up to the time of the revolution. From Baltimore I went
on to Washington.
END OF VOL. I.