'Don't talk so, Fred. You used to be an even-tempered, comfortable kind

of young man to know. But now you are really teasing.'

'Do I really annoy you?'

'Very much.'

'And you don't believe in me. Sometimes a dumb kind of philosophy

possesses me, and I say to myself, let her think of me as she will. I

cannot be frank, and must take the consequences. Then again----'

Here she rose, and he put both arms around her. Audacious boy!

'Fred!' was uttered in a stifled voice.

'Promise me to send off Christopher,' ejaculated the young man.

The corners of the room seemed to stretch away indefinitely. A heavy

perfume suffocated me. I groaned. In another moment Leonora was beside

me, and the fresh air was blowing in from a window my son had opened.

I made haste to get well. The physicians say my constitution and good

nursing saved me; but it was all resolution. My _will_ was stronger than

the disease. As soon as I could sit up and see him, Denis Christopher

was admitted. I used to hear a dulcet strain on the stairs, formed by

her delicate note and his melodious base, and then he would follow

Leonora in to pay his respects to me; always bringing something to

brighten up my boudoir, and render her imprisonment less unendurable.

Afterward he would never be exiled to the drawing rooms. Fred frowned at

the ease with which he invaded our retirement, but only frowned. He and

I began to wonder if Christopher would win her. Valiantly but cautiously

was he wooing. Fred went off on a boating excursion, and I grew weary. I

wished I had died. The secret of my good looks was confessed. Perfect

health had kept my beauty undimmed. But colorless and hollow-eyed the

fever left me. I could look at myself no more; so I looked at Leonora.

She was pretty, with a charm that did not depend on tint or outline. Her

new friend was penetrated by her real graces and his ideal rendering of

them; but would he conquer? I was sure not. Because separation is sure

alienation at a certain age, I resolved on Fred's speedy withdrawal from

the scene. Why not go abroad immediately after his graduation, which was

to occur in a few weeks? On his return I suggested it. He gloomily

consented.

'Will you come, too, mamma?'

'Not yet; in the course of a year perhaps;' and I looked over to the

corner where Leonora was winding worsted from Mr. Christopher's fingers.

'Come, now,' said he, 'take Leonora, and we will set up housekeeping in

the easy continental style.'

'She has her hands full just now.' Literally as well as figuratively

true, for she had wound two enormous green balls.

'Perhaps she will go over with Mr. Christopher. Would you like a call

from the bride and groom?'

My young Fontevrault looked at me.

'Do you speak as you know, mamma?'

'Look for yourself, my hoodwinked Cupid. Girls are all alike, Fred. He

can ask her to marry him, and has that advantage over you.'

So it was decided that Fred should go to Paris, and be happy. Mrs.

Blanchard gave him a farewell party, and all the young ladies were at

their sweetest. Fred behaved with sullen dignity, as a lion should. He

refused to be comforted by Adelaide and Rose, walking about with one or

another, and looking at Leonora, at whom all mankind were gazing that

night. She was in dashing spirits, a glorious color diffused her cheeks,

her eyes fairly danced. Her dress was of feathery black tulle, and a

broad silver ribbon, like an order, went over her shoulders. In the

shining black braids glistened fern leaves of silver filigree.

Fortunately, Fred and I discovered them--Leonora and her inseparable

cavalier, Denis, I mean--in an alcove of roses and jessamines. She

admiring the flowers, and he talking with a fervor very easy to read.

She listening, as women always listen when the pleader is eloquent. But

in her downcast face I read only pain, while my son translated the deep

blush differently. When we were at home, and I waited to bid him good

night, he took me in his strong arms:

'You love me, mamma, don't you?'

He was all I had in the world, so I told him.

Then followed a week we long remembered--the first week of Denis's

absence. Leonora was gloomy and _distraite_; Fred cool as a peak of the

Andes, and about as unapproachable; I immersed in the hurry and

confusion of my son's departure. He had a suite of rooms over mine,

and, the night before he went away, leaned over the ballusters, and

called, as in old time:

'Leonora!'

She gave a glad start, and ran up to him. So I followed, of course. I

wanted to put some flannels into his trunk, which stood in his bedroom.

The doors were open between us. He had a bundle of her letters tied up

in a bulky packet, and began to talk with great discretion.

'I have been putting my affairs in order,' said the systematic young

man. 'I may never come back, and at any rate, my absence will be long. I

thought it would be better to give you these, lest they fall into alien

hands.'

'Why not burn them?' suggested his listener.

'I could not, Leo.'

'I am not so sentimental,' she returned, taking up the packet. 'They

shall blaze directly. Do you want your own?'

'Oh, Fred, what a bungler you are!' I thought.

'You misunderstand,' he began, in a desperate tone.

'Fred!' I screamed, as if I were twenty rods distant, 'do come and open

this bureau drawer. I can't move it.'

He came, pulling it open, with such needless strength, that all the

toilette bottles garnishing the top were shaken off, and lay in

fragments on the floor. She followed to note the disaster, and I took

her down stairs, and watched over her like a dragon all that evening. I

would not let Leonora go to the steamer with us, but compelled him to

say farewell in my presence, I _like_ a scene. He held her hand long,

uttering some incoherent sentences. Admirable was the self-composure she

showed! The delicate muscles about the mouth were as steady as if she

did not love him. She never raised her eyes until the last. As I saw

their sad beauty, a pang seized me, and I turned away. He came after,

hurried me into the carriage, and off we whirled.

'Are you going to write to her?' I asked.

'She says no,' Fontevrault answered, and looked vigorously out of the

window.

* * * * *

One evening, two years after my son left me, we were sitting round the

library fire. Christoper, now a captain in one of the famous

Massachusetts regiments, sat near me, a little older and a little graver

than when I saw him last. We were talking with flushed cheeks and

beating hearts of the subject nearest our hearts just then--war.

A familiar foot pressed the stair. All the color left Leonora's lips;

she knew who was coming. In another moment I was in my darling's arms.

He shook hands with Leonora, but neither of them spoke a word; then

turned to Cristopher, who welcomed him with the hearty cordiality men

use.

'You have come home to fight, I know, Fontevrault.'

'So I have,' answered my son. 'Every true-hearted American should be

striking his blow. I couldn't travel fast enough. Mother, are you a

Spartan?'

He looked at Leonora. What did she think of this magnificent-mustached

Saxon? Not much like the fair-cheeked student we remembered.

'Let us be army nurses,' said Leonora, when they had gone to Washington.

Indeed we could not stay where we were, nor flit off to Newport to

banish care. I grew sleepless, and a sudden sound would send the blood

to my heart. Leonora maintained an undaunted front, but she grew thin in

spite of her cheerfulness. At last I said:

'We will follow the army; I shall die to live in this way.'

So, just before the battle of Antietam, we were in Washington.

Just after--ah me!--a singular scene occurred. We four had met again,

not as in the happy nights long gone. Denis, the veteran of seven

battles, still stood unscathed; but my boy could fight no more.

Manfully he bore his affliction; I only wept.

This morning of which I write, he was so bright, that we admitted Denis

at once, who came to bid us farewell before leaving to join his

regiment.

'Stop a minute,' said Fred. 'Leonora.' She came toward him with a face

of gentle inquiry.

'To-day is my birthday,' prefaced the soldier. 'I am twenty-six, and a

free man to say I love you.' Denis minced and motioned to withdraw his

hand. (Not so fast, old fellow.) This I say because I have been waiting

years to speak my mind on this day. But now, I have nothing to offer

you. I have no future. I am a cripple; even my love for you has been a

cheat to you; and now is selfishness in me. Here stands a man as true to

you as I; I know how he loves you. Which of us will you marry, Leonora?'

While he was speaking, the lost carnation came back to her cheeks. The

soft eyes kindled to a languid fire. She never looked at Denis, who

stood in his erect strength, his worshipping eyes on her face. She came

to Fred's bedside, and knelt down there. Denis dropped his hand.

'You do not answer,' Fred whispered; 'I cannot bear suspense.'

How did she satisfy him? I do not know. In emotion that almost

overmastered me, I snapped the bracelet--Denis's bracelet; it lay upon

the floor. He passed me without a word, without a look. His heavy heel

ground the enchased seal to rosy dust. I heard the door swung loudly to,

and then the clatter of his horse's hoofs, as he rode rapidly away.

EUROPEAN OPINION.

We are indebted to an accomplished gentleman in Philadelphia for the

following translation from the _Revue Nationale_ of M. Laboulaye. Any

extended comment from our pen would only serve to weaken the effect of

this eloquent and truthful passage. We may, however, express our

gratification to find that some generous spirits in Europe still remain

superior to the jealousies and the malevolence which have so largely

affected the ruling classes there, and led them so generally to hope for

and to predict the downfall of our suffering country. Hitherto we have

indeed recognized the truth that 'the opinion of Europe is a power;' but

we have felt it chiefly in its worst influence, against us, and in favor

of the rebellion. Now, however, in this the darkest hour of our mortal

struggle, it affords real relief to hear the most enlightened men of

that continent proclaiming that 'the arguments of the South are

beginning to fail,' and 'that all the ingenuity in the world cannot lift

up its fallen cause.' Nor is it at all difficult to give entire credence

to these statements, for there is evidently an altered tone even in

those organs of European opinion which have been, and still are

consistently hostile to us. It was perhaps unavoidable that

misunderstanding should prevail in the outset, and that the ear of

Europe should have been complacently open to the representations of the

plausible South, urged as they were by the ablest and most unscrupulous

of her advocates. But truth was destined certainly to make its way in

the end. It was only doubtful whether the triumph of right would take

place soon enough to bring the force of European opinion to bear on the

contest and to deprive the South of that moral support which alone has

enabled her to prolong the hopeless struggle to the present time. But,

according to M. Laboulaye, the 'fatal service' which its advocates have

done the South, is just now about to bear its appropriate fruit; for the

delusive promise of support which has thus far sustained the rebel cause

is utterly gone, and with it, all possibility of ultimate success.

Seldom have we read a nobler passage than that in which this

accomplished writer appeals to the French sentiment of national unity to

justify our Northern people in their mighty struggle to subdue this

'impious revolt.' Americans themselves, though fully imbued with the

instinctive feeling which it defends, could not more forcibly have

presented the point. And, indeed, if we may believe the statements now

prevalent, attributing to eminent statesmen and large parties a

disposition to accede to the separation of the sections, the very

sentiment of nationality has lost it force among us, and we would be

compelled to acknowledge our obligations to this eminent Frenchman for

stimulating our expiring patriotism and awakening us to the vital

importance of our national unity and to the shame and disgrace of

surrendering it. If any American has ever, for a moment, admitted the

idea of consenting to a separation of the Union, let him read the

burning words of this enlightened and disinterested foreigner, and blush

for his want of comprehension of the true interests and glory of his

country. It is not a mere sentimental enthusiasm which leads us to

combat disunion and to cherish the greatness and oneness of our country.

Our dearest rights and our noblest interests are alike involved, and we

would be craven wretches, unworthy of our high destiny, if we did not

risk everything and sacrifice everything to preserve them. 'The North

only defends itself,' says M. Laboulaye. 'It is its very life that it

wishes to save.'

Briefly, but with the hand of a master, does this article point out the

consequences of disunion. The touches by which the sketch is drawn, are

few and rapidly made; but they faithfully portray the great features of

the case, and present a true and living picture to the mind of every

thoughtful man. The jealousies, the rivalries, the antipathies of the

sections; the foreign intrigues and eventual foreign domination among

our fragmentary governments; the large standing armies, and the

competing naval forces; and finally, 'the endless war and numberless

miseries' which will inevitably result--all these mighty evils will not

only afflict our own unhappy country, but 'peace will be exiled from the

world.' The interests of mankind are involved in this tremendous

struggle.

But we no longer keep our readers from the perusal of this interesting

extract. Let it be remembered that it comes from the quarter understood

to be most unfriendly to us, where the wily emperor of the French is

supposed to be plotting for the destruction of our nationality and

power. The appeal to the interests of France against the ambition of

England is striking and powerful. Whatever disposition the emperor may

cherish against us, the French people ought to be our friends; they have

a common interest in maintaining the freedom of the seas, and

we have yet to complain that any port of France has sent out cruisers to

assail our commerce on the ocean.

Let us take courage, even in this hour of disaster. Noble spirits abroad

are still watching us with generous sympathy and praying for the success

of our sacred cause. Let us be true to ourselves and to our country, and

the hour of final triumph will soon be at hand. Though dissensions tend

now to distract and weaken us, and though darkness, more impenetrable

than ever before, seems lately to have gathered around us, we already

discern the first glimmerings of the dawn in the east. The full day will

soon break upon us, and we shall rejoice in the splendor of returning

peace and renewed prosperity.

REASONS WHY THE NORTH CANNOT PERMIT SECESSION.

(_From the French of_ EDOUARD LABOULAYE, _published in the_ 'Revue

Nationale,' _December 10th, 1862._)

The civil war which has been dividing and ruining the United States for

two years also affects us in Europe. The scarcity of cotton causes great

suffering. The workmen of Rouen and Mulhouse are as severely tried as

the spinners and weavers of Lancashire; entire populations are reduced

to beggary, and to exist through the winter they have no resource and no

hope save in special charity or assistance from the government. In so

severe a crisis, and in the midst of such unmerited sufferings, it is

but natural that public opinion should become restless in Europe, and

condemn the ambition of those who prolong a fratricidal war. Peace in

America, peace is a necessity at any price, is the cry of thousands of

men among us who are suffering from hunger, innocent victims of the

passions and madness which steep the United States in blood.

These complaints are only too just. The civilized world is at present,

so bound together, that peace is one great condition of the existence of

modern industrial nations; unhappily, although it is easy to point out

the remedy, it is almost impossible to apply it. Just now it is by war

alone that ending of the war may be looked for. To throw herself armed

between the combatants would be an attempt in which Europe would exhaust

her strength; and to what purpose? As Mr. Cobden has justly said, it

would be less costly to feed the work people who are ruined by the

American crisis _on game and champagne_. To offer to-day our friendly

mediation is not only to expose ourselves to a refusal, and perhaps so

exasperate one of the parties as to push it to more violent measures,

but to diminish the chances of our mediation being accepted at a more

favorable moment. Thus we are forced to remain spectators of a

deplorable war, which is the cause of infinite evil to us; thus forced

to offer up prayers that exhaustion and misery may appease these mortal

enemies and oblige them to accept either reunion or separation. A sad

situation, doubtless, but one which neutrals have always occupied, and

from which they cannot depart without throwing themselves among unknown

dangers.

If we have not the right to interfere, we can at least complain, and try

to discover those who are really wrong in this war, which so affects us.

The opinion of Europe is a power. It can hasten matters and restore

peace better than arms can. Unfortunately, for two years opinion has

wandered from the proper path, and by taking the wrong side of the

question, prolongs instead of stopping resistance. The South has found

many and clever advocates in England and in France, who have presented

her cause as that of justice and liberty. They have proclaimed the right

of secession, and have not feared to apologize for slavery. Their

arguments to-day are beginning to fail. Thanks to those publicists who

do not traffic with humanity; thanks to M. de Gasparin, above all, the

light has made things clear; we know now how things stand as to the

origin and character of the rebellion. To every disinterested observer,

it is evident that the South is wrong in every way. It needs not a

Montesquieu to understand that a party not menaced in the least, which,

through ambition or pride, tears its country to pieces and destroys its

national unity, has no right to the sympathies of the French. As to

declaring slavery sacred, that is a work which must be left to the

preachers of the South. All the ingenuity in the world cannot lift up

this fallen cause. Had the confederates a thousand reasons for complaint

and for revolt, there would always rest on their rebellion an indelible

stain. No Christian, no liberal person will ever interest himself for

men who, in this nineteenth century, insolently proclaim their desire to

perpetuate and extend slavery. Though it is still permitted to the

planters to listen to theories that have infatuated and lost them, such

sophistries will never cross the ocean.

The advocates of the South have done it a fatal service; they have made

it believe that Europe, enlightened or seduced, would range itself on

its side and finally throw into the balance something more than empty

promises. This delusion has and still maintains the resistance of the

South, it prolongs the war, and with it our sufferings. If, as the North

had a right to expect, the friends of liberty had, from the first,

boldly pronounced against the policy of slavery, if the advocates of

peace upon the seas, if the defenders of the rights of neutrals had

spoken in favor of the Union and rejected a separation, which could only

profit England, it is probable that the South would have been less

anxious to start on a journey without visible end. If, in spite of the

courage and devotion of its soldiers; if, in spite of the ability of its

generals, the South fails in an enterprise which, in my opinion, cannot

be too much blamed, let it lay the fault on those who have so poor an

opinion of Europe as to imagine that they will subject _its_ opinion to

a policy against which patriotism protests, and which the gospel and

humanity condemn.

We will grant, they may say, that the South is altogether wrong;

nevertheless it wishes to separate, it can no longer live with the

people of the North. The war alone, whatever may be its origin, is a new

cause of disunion. By what right can twenty millions of men force ten

millions (of those ten millions there are four millions of slaves whose

will is not consulted in the least) of their countrymen to continue a

detested alliance, to respect a contract which they wish to break at any

price? Is it possible to imagine that after two or three years of

fighting and misery, conquerors and conquered can be made to live

harmoniously together? Can a country two or three times the size of

France be subjugated? Would there not always be bloodshed between the

parties? Separation is perhaps a misfortune, but now it is an

irreparable one. Let us grant that the North has law, the letter and

spirit of the Constitution on her side; there always remains an

indisputable point--the South wishes to govern itself. You have no right

to crush a people that defends itself so valiantly. Give it up!

If we were less enervated by the luxury of modern life and by the

idleness of a long peace, if there still lingered in our hearts some

remnant of that patriotism which, in 1792, urged our forefathers to the

banks of the Rhine, the answer would be simple; to-day I fear it will

not be understood. If the south of France should revolt to-morrow and

demand a separation; if Alsace and Lorraine should wish to withdraw,

what would be, I will not say our right only, but our duty? Would we

count voices to see if a third or a half of the French had a right to

destroy our nationality, to annihilate France, to break up the glorious

heritage our sires bought for us with their blood? No! we would shoulder

our muskets and march. Woe to the man who does not feel his country to

be sacred, and that it is a noble act to defend it, even at the price of

extreme misery and every danger!

'America is not like France; it is a confederation, not a nation.' Who

says this? It is the South, and to justify its faults; the North asserts

the contrary, and for two years she has declared, by numberless

sacrifices, that the Americans are one people, and that no one shall

divide their country. This is a grand and noble sentiment, and if

anything astonishes me, it is that France can witness this patriotism

unmoved. Is not love of country the crowning virtue of the Frenchman?

What is this South, and whence does it derive this right of secession it

proclaims so loudly? Is it a conquered nation which resumes its

independence, as Lombardy has done? Is it a distinct race which will not

continue an oppressive alliance? No! it is a number of colonies,

established on the territory of the Union by American hands. Take a map

of the United States. Except Virginia, the two Carolinas and Georgia,

which are old English colonies, all the rest of the South is situated on

lands purchased and paid for by the Union. This proves that the North

has sustained the greatest part of the expense. Ancient Louisiana was

sold to the Americans, in 1804, by the first consul at a price of

fifteen millions of dollars; Florida was bought from Spain, in 1820, for

five millions; and it required the war with Mexico, a payment of ten

millions, and heavy losses besides, to acquire Texas. In a few words, of

all the rich countries which border on the Mississippi and Missouri,

from their sources to their mouths, there is not one inch of ground for

which the Union has not paid, and which does not belong to her. The

Union has driven out or indemnified the Indians. The Union has built

fortifications, constructed shipyards, light-houses, and harbors. It is

the Union that has made all this wilderness valuable and rendered its

settlement possible. It is the men of the North as well as those of the

South who have cleared and planted these lands, and transformed them

from barren solitudes to a flourishing condition. Show us, if you can,

in old Europe, where unity is entirely the result of conquest, a title

to property so sacred, a country which is more the common work of one

people! And shall it now be allowed to a minority to take possession of

a territory which belongs to all, and, moreover, to choose the best

portion of it? Shall a minority be permitted to destroy the Union, and

to imperil those who were its first benefactors, and without whom it

would never have existed? If this does not constitute an impious revolt,

then any whim that seizes a people is just and right. It is not only

political reasons that oppose a separation; geography, the positions of

places force the United States to form a single nation. Strabo,

meditating on this vast country now called France, said, with the

certainty of genius, that, to look at the nature of the territory, and

the course of the waters, it was evident that the forests of Gaul,

inhabited by a thinly scattered people, would become the abode of a

great people. Nature has disposed our territory to be the theatre of a

great civilization. This is also true of America, which is really but a

double valley, whose place of separation is imperceptible, and which

contains two large water courses, the Mississippi, and the St. Lawrence.

There are no high mountains which isolate and separate the people, no

natural barriers like the Alps and Pyrenees. The West cannot live

without the Mississippi; it is a question of life and death to the

Western farmers to hold the mouth of the river. The United States felt

this from the first day of their existence. When the Ohio and

Mississippi were yet but streams lost in the forest, when the first

planters were only a handful of men scattered in the wilderness, the

Americans already knew that New Orleans was _the key of the house_. They

would not leave it either to Spain or France. Napoleon understood this;

he held in his hands the future greatness of the United States; he was

glad to cede this vast territory to America, with the intention, he

said, 'to give to England a maritime rival which sooner or later would

lower the pride of our enemies.' (Here the author refers to his

pamphlet, entitled, _Les Etats Unis et la France_, and to _L'histoire de

la Louisiane_, by Barbé Marbois.) He could have satisfied the United

States by only giving up the left bank of the river, which was all they

asked for then; he did more (and in this I think he was very wrong),

with a stroke of his pen he ceded a country as large as the half of

Europe, and renounced our last rights on this beautiful river which we

had discovered. Sixty years have quickly passed since this cession. The

States which are now called Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa,

Minnesota, Kansas, Oregon, and the territories of Nebraska, Dacotah,

Jefferson and Washington, which will soon become States, have been

established on the immense domain abandoned by Napoleon. Without

counting the slaveholding population which wishes to break up the Union,

there are ten millions of free citizens between Pittsburg and Fort

Union, who claim the course and mouth of the Mississippi as having been

ceded to them by France. It is from us that they hold their title and

their possession. They have a right of sixty years, a right consecrated

by labors and cultivation, a right which they have received from a

contract, and, better still, from nature, and from God.

See what it is they are reproached for defending; they are, forsooth,

usurpers and tyrants, because they wish to hold what is their own,

because they will not place themselves at the mercy of an ambitious

minority. What would we say, if, to-morrow, Normandy, rising, should

pretend to hold for herself alone Rouen and Havre, and yet what is the

interest of the Seine compared to that of the Mississippi, which has a

course of two thousand two hundred and fifty miles, and which receives

all the waters of the West?

To possess New Orleans is to command a valley which embraces two thirds

of the United States.

They say 'we will neutralize the river.' We know what such promises are

worth. We have seen what Russia did at the mouth of the Danube; the war

of the Crimea was necessary to give to Germany the free use of her great

river. If a new war were to break out between Austria and Russia, we

might be sure that the possession of the Danube would be the stake

played for. It could not be otherwise in America, from the day the

Mississippi would flow for more than three hundred miles between two

foreign servile banks: the effect of the war has already been to prevent

the exportation of wheat and corn, the riches of the West. In 1861 it

was necessary to burn useless harvests, to the great prejudice of

Europe, who profited by their exportation. The South itself feels the

strength of its position so well that its ambition is to separate the

valley of the Mississippi from the Eastern States, and to unite itself

to the West, consigning the Yankees of New England to a solitude which

would ruin them. With the Mississippi for a bait, the Confederates hope

to reestablish to their profit, that is, to the profit of slavery, the

Union which they have broken for fear of liberty[6]. We now see what is

to be thought of the pretended tyranny of the North, and if it is true

that it wishes to oppress and to subjugate the South. On the contrary,

the North only defends itself. In maintaining the Union, it defends its

rights, and it is its very life that it wishes to save.

Thus far I have only spoken of the material interests--interests which

are lawful, and which, founded on solemn titles, give sacred rights; but

if we examine moral and political interests which are of a superior

order, we will understand better still that the North cannot give up

without destroying itself. The United States is a republic, the most

free, and at the same time the mildest and most happy form of government

the world has ever seen. Whence comes this prosperity of the Americans?

Because they are alone upon an immense territory; they have never been

obliged to concentrate their power and enfeeble liberty in order to

resist the jealousy and ambition of their neighbors. In the United

States there was no standing army, no naval force; the Americans

employed the immense sums which we expend to avert or to sustain war, in

opening schools, and in giving to all their citizens, poor or rich, that

education and that instruction which form the moral greatness and the

true riches of the people. Their foreign policy was comprised in this

maxim: 'Never to mingle in the quarrels of Europe on the sole condition

that Europe will not interfere with their affairs, and will respect the

liberty of the seas.' Thanks to these wise principles, which Washington

left them in his immortal testament, the United States have enjoyed, for

eighty years, a peace which has only been disturbed by Europe when, in

1812, they were forced to resist England and sustain the rights of

neutrals. We must count by hundreds of millions those sums that we have

used during the last seventy years in the upholding our liberty in

Europe; these hundreds of millions the United States have employed in

improvements of every description. Here is the secret of their

prodigious fortune; it is their perfect independence which makes their

prosperity.

Let us now suppose the separation finally accomplished, and that the new

confederation comprises all the Slave States; the North has at once lost

both its power and the foundations of that power. The Republic has

received a mortal blow. There are in America two nations, side by side,

two jealous rivals who are always on the point of attacking each other.

Peace will not remove their antipathies; it will not efface the memory

of the past greatness of the Union now destroyed; the victorious South

will, without doubt, be quite as friendly toward slavery, and as fond of

domination as ever. The enemies of slavery, now masters of their own

policy, will certainly not be soothed by the separation. What will the

Southern confederacy be to the North! It will be a foreign power

established in America, with a frontier of one thousand five hundred

miles, unprotected on every side, and consequently continually

threatening or menaced. This power, hostile, because of its vicinity

alone, and still more so by its institutions, will possess a very

considerable portion of the New World; it will have half the coasts of

the Union; it will command the Gulf of Mexico, an inland sea one third

the size of the Mediterranean; it will be the mistress of the mouths of

the Mississippi, and can ruin at its pleasure the inhabitants of the

West. The fragments of the old Union will have to be always ready to

defend themselves against their rivals. Questions of customs and of

frontiers; rivalries, jealousies, in fact all the scourges of old Europe

will overwhelm America at once and together; she will have to establish

custom houses over an extent of five hundred leagues; to build and arm

forts on this immense frontier, to keep on foot large standing armies,

to maintain a naval force; in other words, she will have to renounce her

old Constitution, to weaken her municipal independence by the

centralization of power. Farewell to the old and glorious liberty!

Farewell to those institutions which made America the common refuge of

all who could not exist in Europe! The work of Washington will be

destroyed; the situation will be full of dangers and difficulties. I

understand how the prospect of such a future can delight those who have

never been able to forgive America her prosperity and greatness; history

is full of such sad jealousies. Still better I understand and approve of

this, that a people accustomed to liberty should risk its last man and

give its last dollar to preserve the inheritance of its fathers. I do

not understand why there are persons in Europe who believe themselves

liberal when they reproach the North for its generous resistance by

advising her disgracefully to relinquish her rights. War is certainly a

frightful evil, but from war a durable peace may issue, the

South may tire of a struggle which exhausts its strength, the old Union

may again arise in its glory, and the future may be saved. What but

endless war and numberless miseries can result from a separation? This

dismemberment of a country is an irreparable evil; no people, no nation,

will submit to such a calamity until it no longer has any power to

resist.

Up to this time I have reasoned in the supposition that the South would

remain an independent power. But unless the West joins the confederates,

and the Union reestablishes itself against New England, this

independence is a chimera: it might last for some time; but in ten or

twenty years, when the free population of the West would have doubled or

trebled itself, how would the South, necessarily much enfeebled by slave

culture, compare with a people, thirty millions in number, enclosing it

on two sides? To resist successfully, the South would be forced to rely

on Europe; it could only live when protected by a great naval power, and

England is the only one in a condition to guarantee for it its

sovereignty. Here is a new danger for free America and for Europe. The

South has no commercial marine, nor with slavery ever will have; England

will at once seize the monopoly of cotton, and will furnish capital and

vessels to the South. In two words, the triumph of the South is the

reinstatement of England on the continent, whence the policy of Louis

XVI and Napoleon has driven her; it is enfeebled neutrality; it is

France plunged anew into all the questions concerning the liberty of the

seas, which have already cost her two centuries of struggles and

suffering. In defending its own rights, the American Union assured the

independence of the ocean. The Union once destroyed, the English will

again resume their preponderance, peace will be exiled from the world,

and a policy will return which has only benefited our rivals.

This is what Napoleon felt; this is what is forgotten to-day. It would

seem that history is but a collection of frivolous tales, good enough,

perhaps, to amuse children; it would seem that no one wishes to

understand the lessons of the past. If the experience of our fathers

were not lost on our ignorance, we would see that, while fighting for

her independence, while upholding her national unity, the North is

defending our cause as well as her own. All our prayers should be for

our old and faithful friends. The weakness of the United States will be

our weakness, and on the first quarrel with England, we will too late

regret having abandoned a policy that for forty years has been our

security.

In writing these pages, I do not expect to convert those persons who

have in their hearts an innate love of slavery; _I_ write for those

honest souls who allow themselves to be captivated by the grand visions

of national independence which are continually shown to them in order to

dazzle and mislead. The South has never been menaced, and at this late

hour can return to the Union even with her slaves [the reader will

remember that this article was published in December, 1862], and is only

required not to destroy the national unity, and not to ruin political

liberty. It cannot be repeated too often that the North is not an

aggressor--it only defends what every true citizen will defend--the

national compact, the integrity of the country. It is very sad that it

should have found so little sympathy in Europe, and, above all, in

France. It counted on us, its hopes were in us; we have forsaken it, as

if those sacred words Country and Liberty no longer found an echo in

our breasts. Where is the time when all France cheered the young

Lafayette giving his sword to serve the Americans? Who has imitated him?

Who has recalled this glorious memory? Have we become so old that our

memory has failed?

It is impossible to foresee what will be the issue of this war. The

South may succeed; the North may split up, and wear itself out in

internal struggles. Perhaps the Union is already but a great memory.

But, whatever fortune may have in the future, it is the plain duty of

every man who has not allowed himself to be carried away by present

successes, to sustain and encourage the North to the last, to condemn

those whose ambition threatens the most beautiful and patriotic work the

world has ever beheld, to remain faithful until the end of the war, and

even after defeat, should it come, to those who will have fought to the

last for the right and for liberty.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: This point of view has been thoroughly exposed by one of

the wisest citizens of America, EDWARD EVERETT, in 'The Questions of the

Day,' New York, 1861.]

THE HUGUENOTS OF VIRGINIA.

The warmer climes of the South induced many Huguenots to settle in the

colony of Virginia, and their neat little cottages, covered with French

grapevines, and the wild honeysuckle, might be seen scattered along

James river, not far above Richmond. One writer of that day, says: 'Most

of the French who lived at that town (_Monacan_) on James river, removed

to Trent river, in North Carolina, where the rest were expected daily to

come to them, when I came away, which was in August, 1708.' In 1690,

King William sent to Virginia many of the Huguenot Refugees, his

followers, who had taken shelter in England. Here they were naturalized

by an especial act in 1699. Six hundred more came over, conducted by

their pastor, Philip de Richebourg, locating themselves, about twenty

miles above Richmond, on lands formerly occupied by a powerful tribe of

Indians. There is a church now near the spot, retaining its Indian name

to this day. In 1700, the Virginia assembly exempted these French

settlers from taxation, and fully protected their rights.

We have seen a curious relic of the Huguenots in Virginia, which was

found in the family of a descendant. It is entitled: 'A register,

containing the baptisms made within the church of the French Refugees,

in the Manakin town, in Virginia, within the parish of King William, in

the year of our Lord 1721, the 25th of March. Done by Jacques Soblet,

clerk.' This manuscript contains about twenty-five pages of foolscap

paper, and remains a standing evidence of the fidelity of the Virginia

Huguenots to their Christian duties and ordinances. As a specimen of

their entries, we copy the following, literally, not even correcting

their orthography:

'Jean Chastain fils de Jean ett de Marianne Chastain les pere et

mere nee le 26 Septembre, 1721, est baptise le 5 Octobre, par M.

Fountaine. Ils ava pour parun et marene Pierre David et Anne sa

femme le quels ont declaree que cest enfan nee le jour et an que

deshus.

Segnee

JACQUE SOBLET,

Clerk.'

John Chastain, son of John Chastain and of Marianne Chastain, the

father and mother, born the 26th of September, 1721, was baptized

the 5th of October, by Mr. Fontaine. He had for godfather and

godmother Peter David and Anne, his wife, who have declared that

this infant was born the day and year aforesaid.

Signed, JACQUE SOBLET, Clerk.

Two or three of the pages contain records of deaths. Here is one:

'Le 29 de Janvier, 1723-4, morut le Sieur Authonoine Trabue, agee

danviron sinquaint six a sept annees fut en terree le 30 du meme

moy.

J. SOBLETT, Clerk.'

Jan. 29th, 1723-4, died Sir Anthony Trabue, aged about fifty six or

seven years. He was buried the 30th of the same month.

J. SOBLETT, Clerk.

Huguenot names found in this old register of baptism:

'Chastain, David, Monford, Dykar, Neim, (_Minister_) Dupuy, Bilbo,

Dutoi, Salle, Martain, Allaigre, Vilain, Soblet, Chambou, Levilain,

Trabu, Loucadon, Harris, Gasper, Wooldridge, Flournoy, Amis,

Banton, Ford, Laisain, Lolaigre, Givodan, Mallet, Dubruil,

Guerrant, Sabbatie, Dupre, Bernard, Amonet, Porter, Rapine, Lacy,

Watkins, Cocke, Bondurant, Goin, Pero, Pean, Deen, Robinson,

Edmond, Brook, Brian, Faure, Don, Bingli, Reno, Lesuer, Pionet,

Trent, Sumpter, Moiriset, Jordin, Gavain.

Names of Negroes: Thomberlin (Northumberland), Ivan, Jaque, Janne,

Anibal, Guillaume, Jean, Pierre, Olive, Robert, Jak, Julienne,

Francois, Susan, Primus, Moll, Chamberlain, Dick, Pegg, Nanny,

Tobie, Dorole, Agar, Agge, Pompe, Frank, Cæsar, Amy, Joham, Debora,

Tom, Harry, Cipio, Bosen, Sam, Tabb, Jupiter, Essek, Cuffy, Orange,

Robin, Belin, Samson, Pope, Dina, Fillis, Matilda, Ester, Yarmouth,

Judy, and Adam.'

We find in Beverly's 'History of Virginia,' a very interesting account

of the Manakin French Refugees: 'The assembly was very bountiful to

those who remained at this town, bestowing on them large donations,

money and provisions for their support; they likewise freed them from

every public tax for several years to come, and addressed the governor

to grant them a brief to entitle them to the charity of all

well-disposed persons throughout the country, which, together with the

king's benevolence, supported them very comfortably, till they could

sufficiently supply themselves with necessaries, which they now do

indifferently well, and begin to have stocks of cattle, which are said

to give abundantly more milk than any other in the country. I have heard

that these people are upon a design of getting into the breed of

buffaloes, to which end they lay in wait for their calves, that they may

tame and raise a stock of them; in which, if they succeed, it will in

all probability be greatly for their advantage; for these are much

larger than other cattle, and have the benefit of being natural to the

climate. They now make many of their own clothes, and are resolved, as

soon as they have improved that manufacture, to apply themselves to the

making of wine and brandy, which they do not doubt to bring to

perfection.' The Rev. J. Fontaine, a Calvinistic clergyman, first

preached to his Refugee French brethren in England and Ireland (1688).

Then his sons emigrated to Virginia, and became settled ministers. From

this stock alone, including his son-in-law, Mr. Maury, have descended

hundreds of the best citizens of that commonwealth--ministers, members

of the bar, legislators, and public officers. The Rev. Dr. Hawks

estimates the relations of these Fontaine families, in the United

States, at not less than _two thousand_.

A few years ago, he found in a family under his parochial charge, a

manuscript autobiography of one of its ancestors. This was a James

Fontaine, who was a persecuted Huguenot, and endured much for the sake

of his religion. The work has been translated and published, and is full

of interest--'A Tale of the Huguenots; or, Memoirs of a French Refugee

Family, with an Introduction, by F. L. Hawks, D.D.'

M. Fontaine was a noble example of a true Huguenot. In his early life,

he was accustomed to the enjoyments of wealth, education, and refined

society; but, for conscience' sake, he was stripped of them all, and

forced to leave his native land. An exile in England, ignorant of its

language, and unaccustomed to labor, he soon accommodated himself to his

altered circumstances. He became a skillful artisan, and worked

successfully at his trade; at first he opened a little store, with a

school also, to teach the French language, and he says: 'We were in

great hopes, that with both together we should be able to pay our way.'

M. Fontaine next undertook the manufactory of worsted goods, which he

profitably carried on for some time, but became tired of the business.

He was anxious to unite with a French church, and, knowing that there

were many Refugees in the land, went to Cork in 1695.

At first he preached in the English church, after its regular pastor had

finished his services. Next, the French Refugees obtained the court room

for their worship, and, finally, he gave up a large apartment on the

lower floor of his own house, which was properly arranged with a pulpit

and seats for religious meetings. M. Fontaine writes at the time: 'I was

now at the height of my ambition; I was beloved by my hearers, to whom I

preached gratuitously. Great numbers of zealous, pious, and upright

persons had joined our communion. This state of things was altogether

too good to last. My cup of happiness was now full to overflowing, and,

like all the enjoyments of this world, it proved very transitory.'

Dissensions grew up; M. Fontaine was a Presbyterian, and some of his

hearers required him to receive Episcopal ordination, and this

circumstance produced discussion, until he felt it his duty to resign

his charge. In answer to his request, his elders gave a reluctant and

sorrowful consent, thanking him most humbly for the service he had

rendered to this church, during two years and a half, without receiving

any stipend or equivalent whatsoever for his unceasing exertions. '...

We have been extremely edified by his preaching, which has always been

in strict accordance with the pure Word of God. He has imparted

consolation to the sick and afflicted, and set a bright example to the

flock of the most exemplary piety and good conduct.'

Our French Refugee next removed to Bear Haven, and entered largely into

the fishing business; and now he became a justice of the peace, exerting

himself to break up the contraband traffic, which he found generally

carried on 'between the Irish robbers and the French privateers,' then

swarming the Irish coast. From eight to ten of these desperate

characters were sent to Cork for trial at every assize of Bear Haven.

They swore vengeance upon the upright magistrate; and in the year

1704, a French privateer hove in sight--soon anchoring, he faced M.

Fontaine's house. The vessel mounted ten guns, with a crew of eighty

seamen. The Huguenot mustered all his men, amounting to twenty, and,

sending the Papists away, he supplied the Protestants with muskets. This

reduced his force to seven men, besides himself, wife, and children, and

four or five of these were of but little use.

Fontaine posting himself in a tower over the door, the rest of the party

occupied the different windows. The lieutenant now landed with twenty

men, and, approaching the dwelling, he took aim and fired at M.

Fontaine, but missed him. The Huguenot then discharged a blunderbuss,

with small leaden balls, one of which entered the neck of the

privateersman, and another his side, when his men carried him back

wounded to the ship. This unexpected resistance from a minister made the

captain furious, when he sent to the attack twenty more men, under

another commander, with two small cannons. 'I must acknowledge,' he

says, 'that being unaccustomed to this sort of music, I felt some little

tremors of fear when the first cannon ball struck the house; but I

instantly humbled myself before my Maker, and having committed myself,

both soul and body, to His keeping, my courage revived, and I suffered

no more from fear. I put my head out of the window to see what effect

the ball had produced on our stone wall, and when I perceived it had

only made a slight scratch, I cried out for joy, 'Courage, my dear

children, their cannon balls have no more effect on our stone walls than

if they were so many apples.'

The wife of M. Fontaine displayed the greatest self-possession and

bravery on this trying occasion, carrying ammunition, acting as surgeon,

and encouraging all by her words and actions. 'Courage, my children,'

said she, 'we are in the hands of God, and it is not fear that will

insure our safety; on the contrary, God will bless our courage. If you

cannot fire yourselves, you can load the muskets for your father and

others who are older and stronger than you are; drive away all fear, if

you can, and leave the care of your persons to God.' The fight continued

from eight in the morning until four in the afternoon, without

intermission. Only two of the Huguenot family were wounded--a man, and

one of the children slightly in his finger. The pirates finally

withdrew, with three men killed and seven wounded. During the whole

action the Huguenot minister did not permit any one 'to taste a drop of

wine or spirits, or strong beer.' A second attack was feared, but soon

the privateer weighed anchor and sailed away; when the pious family

returned thanks to God for their 'glorious deliverance.'

A full account of this bold and courageous affair was transmitted to

Lord Cox, then chancellor of Ireland, and the Duke of Ormond, the lord

lieutenant. Fontaine recommended to them that a fort should be built

there, when 'it would be a great place for the settlement of French

Refugees, and would also prove a safeguard to the commerce of the whole

kingdom.' In the year 1704, he himself erected a fortification at the

back of his house, purchased some six-pounders, which had been obtained

from a vessel lost on the Irish coast, and the Government supplied him

with powder and balls. The Council of Dublin also voted him £50, and

Queen Anne, in 1705, granted him a pension of five shillings a day for

his services, and as a French Refugee.

From this daring defence, the name of M. Fontaine and wife became known

and famous throughout all Europe. The French corsairs especially

remembered it, and threatened another attack. Indeed, the family

constantly apprehended such a visit, and it did take place in 1704.

Leaving their vessels at midnight, the enemy soon reached the dwelling

of the Huguenot, and, firing the outbuildings and stacks of grain, in

less than half an hour the whole were completely enveloped in flames. On

this occasion, the entire garrison consisted of the two parents,

children, with four servants, two of whom were cowboys. By two o'clock

in the afternoon, the pirates had made a breach through the wall of the

house; but the children, protected by a mattress, in front of the

opening, fired one after another at the assailants as they possibly

could. The Huguenot leader, having overcharged his musket, it burst,

throwing him down, and broke three of his ribs and right collar bone.

For a short time he was insensible, but remarks: 'I had already done my

part, for, during the course of the morning, I had fired five pounds of

swan shot from my now disabled piece. Notwithstanding this unfortunate

accident, an incessant fire was kept up on both sides, until a parley

took place. Life and liberty were then guaranteed to the family, as the

terms of capitulation, while the pirates were to have the plunder; and

they swore to these conditions as Frenchmen and men of honor. When the

officer and men entered the dwelling, and, looking anxiously around, saw

only five youths, and four cowherds, they suspected that an ambush had

been laid for them.

'You need not fear anything dishonorable from me,' said the French

preacher; 'you see all our garrison.'

'Impossible!' he replied; 'these children could not possibly have kept

up all the firing.'

The house was then stripped of everything, not excepting the coats,

which had been thrown off in the heat of the action; and the booty

filled six boats. When they departed, M. Fontaine with his two eldest

boys and two servants were taken away as prisoners. In vain did the

brave good man protest that this was an infraction of the treaty. The

remonstrance availed nothing with the freebooters. In a few days, the

children with the servants were set ashore, but he was detained, when

orders were given to raise the anchor. During all these severe trials,

his noble and pious companion did not sit down, quietly lamenting her

misfortunes. She first went to the parish priest, who was under great

obligations to her husband, entreating him for his liberation. But he

positively refused. Perceiving the privateer under sail, she resolved to

follow it along the shore, as long as she could, and, reaching a

promontory, she made a signal with her apron, on the top of a stick. A

boat came near the shore, and she carried on a conversation with its

crew through a speaking trumpet. After much bargaining, they agreed to

set M. Fontaine at liberty, upon the payment of £100 sterling. Of this

sum the excellent lady could only borrow £30, and the captain of the

privateer consented to take this amount, with one of her sons as a

hostage, until the remaining £70 were paid, calling her at the same time

'a second Judith.'

Mrs. Fontaine repaired forthwith to Cork, for the purpose of raising the

sum wanted, and could easily have obtained it, but the merchants of that

city objected to any payment of the kind. The privateer hovered about

the Irish coast for some time, expecting the ransom money; but when the

governor of Brest heard the circumstances, he condemned the captain

strongly for bringing a hostage away with him, contrary to the law of

nations. The difficulty did not terminate here. As soon as he was able,

the French preacher visited Kinsale, and made an affidavit of the

outrage he had suffered. At this place were a government officer and a

prison, and immediately all the French officers who had been taken in

the war then existing were ironed. Numbers of the same description were

treated in a similar manner. These retaliatory measures excited great

public feeling against the captain of the privateer, and he was summoned

to appear before the governor of Brest, who imprisoned and even

threatened to hang him. Upon his promising to set at liberty the young

hostage, and convey him to the place from whence he had been taken, the

officer was liberated.

M. Fontaine now determined to live in Dublin, and support his family by

teaching the Latin, Greek, and French languages; and in the mean time

the grand jury of Cork awarded him £800 for his losses at Bear Haven. In

his new abode he was able to give his children an excellent education;

one became an officer in the British service, and three entered college.

The former was John Fontaine, and the family determined that he should

visit America for information; and after travelling through

Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland, he purchased a

plantation in Virginia. Peter, another brother, received ordination from

the bishop of London, and with Moses, who studied law, both embarked for

Virginia in 1716. Francis, the last son, remained at college.

There were two daughters in his family. The eldest, Mary Anne, married

Matthew Maury, a Protestant Refugee from Gascony, in 1716, and the next

year he joined his relations in this country. His son was the Rev. James

Maury, of Albemarle, Virginia, a very estimable and useful clergyman of

the Church of England. James was another son of the French preacher who

made America his home, bringing with him his wife, child, mother-in-law,

and thirteen servants, in 1717. Francis, in 1719, was ordained by the

Bishop of London, on the particular recommendation of the Archbishop of

Dublin, and then also sailed for Virginia. He became a very eloquent and

popular preacher, and settled in St. Margaret's parish, King William

county.

In the year 1721, Mr. Fontaine lost his most faithful, exemplary, and

pious companion. 'A melancholy day,' he records in his autobiography,

'it was, that deprived me of my greatest earthly comfort and

consolation. I was bowed down to the very dust; but it made me think of

my own latter end, and made preparations to join her once more.' At the

conclusion of his memoirs, he uses the following remarkable language:

'I feel the strongest conviction, that if you will take care of

these memoirs, your descendants will read them with pleasure; and I

here declare that I have been most particular as to the truth of

all that is herein recorded.

'I hope God will bless the work, and that by His grace it may be a

bond of union among you and your descendants, and that it may be an

humble means of confirming you all in the fear of the Lord.

I am, dear children,

'Your tender father,

'JAMES FONTAINE.'

Little did the faithful Huguenot preacher imagine that a century after

he wrote thus kindly to his own children, myriads who have been born

from the same noble and holy ancestry would be animated, cheered, and

profited by his useful life and example. Though dead he yet speaketh.

We have dwelt thus at length upon the heroic history of this Huguenot

minister and his family; for where can we find an example so worthy of

imitation? He was a Huguenot in its fullest sense, bearing himself, at

all times, with a noble spirit of the true man, for the work before him.

Never losing trust in God, nor proper confidence in himself, he proved

that, when thus true, no man need ever despair. His long line of

descendants in the United States may well cherish and honor his memory.

As we have said before, we dwell more particularly upon the character

and history of Mr. Fontaine, as a striking example of a true Huguenot;

and how truth and the right will finally triumph over all obstacles.

Wherever the French Protestants settled in America, they exhibited this

same excellent trait; and among their families of Virginia were those

who distinguished themselves as brave soldiers and able magistrates in

the councils of the then young Republic.

TO-MORROW!

[G. H. BOKER.]

'The sun is sinking low,

Upon the ashes of his fading pyre;

The evening star is stealing after him,

Fixed, like a beacon on the prow of night;

The world is shutting up its heavy eye

Upon the stir and bustle of _to-day_;--

_On what shall it awake?_'

MONTGOMERY IN SECESSION TIME.

In the beginning of the year 1860, there existed in the city of

Montgomery, Alabama, a strong, active, and apparently indestructible

Union party. Three months after the close of the year there remained in

the city no trace of Union sentiment. To show how this feeling was

destroyed, sinking slowly, and with many reactions, under influences in

themselves insignificant, and to narrate, as they fell under personal

observation, that short train of events which make up the historic

period of this first capital of the Southern confederacy, will be the

object of the present sketch.

Early in the summer of 1860 it became evident to every dispassionate

observer in the South that the country was swiftly approaching a great

crisis. So dexterously had politicians managed the excitement which

arose on the discovery of the plot of John Brown, that at the very

beginning of the year a small and united party had been formed, having

for its aim the immediate separation of the States. This party,

following this well-defined object, was the only fixed thing in Southern

society during the year. In the midst of all changes it was permanent.

Even before the presidential election, when men's minds wavered about

things so permanent as party lines and party creeds, about old political

dogmas associated with favorite political leaders, it remained

unaffected. The presence of this restless and determined insurrectionary

element in the party politics of the time gave to the struggle preceding

the presidential election a character of unusual intensity. The city of

Montgomery, as the home of Mr. Yancey, and consequently of his warmest

admirers, and most bitter opponents, felt the full influence of this

excitement, and soon became one of the natural centres of the growing

struggle of opinions.

From causes difficult then to trace, there appeared early in the year in

the money market of the South an unusual condition of prostration. Banks

were unaccountably cautious. Money was scarce. Debts of more than a

year's standing were unpaid, and business of all kinds languished. Not

even were the customary advances made by the banks in the East for the

purchase of cotton, nor did the money scattered through the country by

those sales which did take place relieve the financial pressure under

which everything labored. In October capitalists refused to venture

their funds on anything which did not promise the most immediate return.

In these signs, in the inexplicable shrinking of capital to its hiding

places, and in the universal darkening of business, it would seem that

all might have discovered the approach of that storm which has since

burst with such fury upon the land. But this was not the case. Although

every one looked forward with anxiety to the time of election, it was

only a portion of the so-called BRECKINRIDGE party who saw with any

distinctness the point toward which all things were tending. Nor did

these men make public the extent of their hopes.

They were satisfied at first to do nothing more than familiarize the

minds of the people with the idea of secession. They spread the doctrine

that the only hope of Union lay in the defeat of Mr. Lincoln. Expressing

the worst fears of all, this doctrine was thought to be peculiarly

calculated to increase the numbers of the Union or Bell party, and was

therefore readily adopted by those who would at first have repelled with

patriotic horror the alternative it suggested.

It is impossible to estimate the influence of this lurking fallacy. Not

merely were multitudes of well-meaning, but unreasoning men, who were

confident of the success of their party, brought to acquiesce in a

proposition utterly false in its base, but the whole conservative

element in society was placed in a position from which it would be

thrown by defeat into a most dangerous reaction. Thus consciously or

unconsciously all parties were using every effort in their power to

prepare the popular mind for the question of secession.

But the period was not without its traits of patriotism. In October

strong efforts were made in the States of Alabama and Georgia to unite

the three parties in the South on one of the three candidates; thus

securing a President to the South, and the certainty of the Union. The

Breckinridge Democrats, however, contemptuously refused to be party to

every arrangement of the kind. The insurrectionary element, gathering to

itself the excitable and disaffected spirits of every class, had now

gained the command of this party, and no longer attempted to conceal its

revolutionary intentions. At the head of this element, exercising a vast

influence over all its movements, and embodying in himself, more than

any other man (except, perhaps, Mr. Yancey), the fierceness of its

spirit, stood Mr. Toombs, of Georgia. He was now invited to speak in

Montgomery. As a man of large political experience, some statesmanship,

and master of a grave and sonorous eloquence, it was expected that he

would influence a class of men who had hitherto held themselves

studiously aloof from the insurrectionary ranks--that calm, conservative

class, which is recognized by all as the basis of every society which

has acquired, or having acquired, hopes to retain, stability of

government and security of morals. The sentiments of the speaker were

too well known to admit of any doubts as to the probable character of

his address. He appeared as the undisguised advocate of secession. No

form of appeal or argument was neglected which could have had weight

with a people peculiarly susceptible to the influence of oratory.

Setting aside the question of the approaching election, to which he

scarcely alluded, the orator strove only to show that it was an

imperative social necessity that the South should have a vast and

constantly increasing slave territory; that in the path of this

necessity the only obstacle was the Federal Union, and that the time for

its destruction had now come. These were the representative arguments of

his party before the election, and he did not speak to an unsympathizing

audience. For when toward the close, raising his voice until it broke

almost in a scream, he exclaimed, 'Let the night which decides the

election of Mr. Lincoln be ushered in by the booming of the hostile

cannon of the South,' the hall rang again and again with the shouts of

his excited hearers. But _nemo repente turpissimus semper fuit_. These

were not the sentiments of all. There was a large class present who did

not applaud--but neither did they hiss. They seemed for the time

overawed by the energy of the spirit which had suddenly sprung up among

them.

In the following week, however, a singular, though, unfortunately, but

momentary check was given to the progress of insurrectionary sentiments

in the vicinity of the city. Senator DOUGLAS, who had been slowly

advancing, in his oratorical tour, down the coast, was about this time

announced to speak in Montgomery. Since his speech in Norfolk, where he

was thought to have expressed himself too clearly against secession, a

strong prejudice had grown up in the South against him, and it now

threatened to manifest itself in acts of positive violence. Such was the

state of popular feeling, that for a time it seemed uncertain whether it

would be desirable for him to attempt to speak. Hints of peculiar

personal outrages were thrown out by men of a certain class; and

threats were made of something still more ominous in case he should

attempt to repeat the sentiments of his Norfolk speech.

He arrived in the evening, and was met at the cars by a large crowd, and

a procession formed from a coalition, for the occasion, of his party

with that of Mr. Bell. It was feared that the short ride to the hotel

would not be accomplished without some act of violence on the part of

the excited throng by which his carriage was surrounded. A few eggs were

thrown, but otherwise the ride was performed without interruption. From

further outrages the crowd restrained itself until something positive

should appear on the part of the orator himself. Unintimidated, however,

by these unmistakable evidences of the public feeling, Mr. Douglas on

the following morning presented himself on the steps in front of the

capitol, where it had been announced that his speech would be delivered.

The city was filled with strangers, who had come from all parts of the

country to be present at the State fair which was held there that week.

On Capitol Hill, therefore, an immense throng was early assembled, which

coldly awaited the arrival of the orator. Everything was chilly and

unfavorable. But the spirit of the obstinate debater seemed to rise with

the difficulties by which he was surrounded. At first even his manner of

speaking operated to his disadvantage. The sharp, syllabic emphasis,

which he was accustomed to adopt in addressing large assemblages in the

open air, grated harshly on ears accustomed to the smooth and carefully

modulated elocution of Mr. Yancey. Beginning, however, by enunciating

general principles of government, in which all could agree, he gradually

conciliated, by an unexpected appearance of moderation, the favorable

attention of his audience. As he advanced upon his customary sketch of

the history of the different political parties during the past few

years--a work which a hundred repetitions enabled him to perform with a

dramatic energy of style and expression singularly effective--he was

occasionally interrupted by exclamations of acquiescence. As he

described the various successes of the Democratic party, these became

frequent, and before he had finished the _resumé_, his voice was drowned

amid the enthusiastic cheers of the crowd.

It was a triumph of oratory. He repeated every sentiment of his Norfolk

speech, and the men who in the morning had thrown out dark hints of

'stoning,' joined in the applause. He accepted as a certainty the

election of Mr. Lincoln, but caused the crowd to shout with exultation

at the prospect of tying all his activity by the constitutional check of

a Democratic majority in Congress. In short, he came amid general

execration, and departed amid universal regret. I had heard Mr. Douglas

before, but never when he gave any evidence of the wonderful power which

he exhibited on this occasion. With few tricks of rhetoric, with no

extraordinary bursts of eloquence, he accomplished all the results of

the most impassioned oratory. The qualities of a great debater--unshaken

presence of mind, tact in adapting himself to his audience, the power of

arranging facts in a form at once simple and coherent, and yet most

favorable to his own cause, the strange influence by which one mind

compels from others the recognition of its supremacy--have long been

conceded to the late Senator from Illinois, but never did he exhibit

these qualities with greater effect than before the excited populace of

Montgomery.

This was the last strictly Union speech which was delivered in that

city. No one after this was found bold enough to stand up in the defence

of the cause that from this day began slowly to succumb to the fierce

spirit to which it was opposed. For several days the effects of the

speech were visible in the moderate tone of 'popular feeling;' but they

were soon lost in the tumultuous excitement attending the return of Mr.

Yancey from his tour in the North, and the still more intense feeling

produced by the election which immediately followed.

It was impossible in these last hours of distinct political

organizations not to be struck with the differences that characterized

the opposing parties--differences which, both before and since, have had

much to do with the progress of the rebellion. The Union gatherings were

easy, jovial, fond of speeches adorned with the quips and turns of

political oratory, and filled with the spirit 't'will all come right in

the end.' In the Breckinridge--or, as they had now practically

become--the secession meetings, a different spirit prevailed. It was the

spirit of insurrection, fierce, stormy, unrestrained. It was the spirit

of hatred; hatred of the North, hatred of the Union, hatred of Mr. Bell,

whose success would deprive them of their only weapon for the

destruction of that Union.

But with the 4th of November came a change. Three days after election

there remained in Montgomery no trace of party organizations. All the

widely divergent streams of public opinion seemed suddenly to have

joined in one, and that running fiercely, and unrestrained toward

disunion. The election of Mr. Lincoln united the people. On all sides

prevailed the deepest enthusiasm in favor of secession. Mass meetings,

attended by all parties, were held, and passed resolutions advocating in

the strongest terms immediate disunion. Secessionists were astonished at

the change, and in their anxiety to avoid anything which might shock the

newly awakened sentiment, appeared in many cases the most conservative

members of the community. But indeed nothing was too violent for the

state of public feeling. War committees were appointed, and active

measures taken to put the State in a position to maintain her

independence as soon as the ordinance of secession should have received

the sanction of the convention. Troops were despatched to take

possession of the arsenal, and agents were sent North to purchase

additions to the already large supply of arms in the State. Immediate

secession seemed to be the desire of every class. But this condition of

things was not always to continue. The reaction which had carried the

Unionists from a state of perfect confidence in the success of their

candidate, to one of deep disappointment, and of rage at the section to

which they attributed their defeat, having at length spent itself, signs

of a returning movement began to make their appearance. At first these

were not strongly marked. All were yet in favor of secession, but a

large party, composed of most of the former partisans of Mr. Bell,

together with the conservative element of every class, began at length

to object to a too great precipitancy, and finally to demand that the

action of Alabama should be made to depend upon the decision of the

other Southern States. This movement was understood by the secessionists

to have for its ultimate object the defeat of their hopes of disunion;

and such, unquestionably, was its aim; for whatever may have been the

plans of some of the leaders of the Coöperationists, as this party was

called, it is certain that the great body of the party had no other end

in view, and was sustained in its action by no other hope than the

perpetuation of the Union.

At the caucus meetings which preceded the election of delegates to the

State convention the two parties, as now formed, first came into

conflict. At once important differences became apparent. Although nearly

equal in numbers, in spirit the two parties were signally unequal. While

the secessionists were bold, vigilant, and uncompromising, the

Coöperationists were timid and passionless, though full of a passive

confidence that the Union would in some way be preserved. A knowledge

of this difference explains many things, in themselves apparently

inexplicable. It shows how it was possible that a State so confessedly

loyal that it would have rejected the ordinance of secession if it had

been submitted directly to the people, could yet, on this very issue,

elect a convention with a majority in favor of disunion. The whole

question was decided in the caucus meetings. The secessionists of all

parts of the State were bound together by watchful associations, and

were everywhere on the alert. In counties where by their number they

were entitled to no representative, attending the caucus meeting in

force, they effected--as they easily could while there was no distinct

party organization--a union of the tickets, and thus secured to

themselves one of the two candidates. So frequently was this repeated in

different parts of the country, that it was afterward estimated that by

this simple expedient of a union ticket the whole question of the

secession of this State was decided.

From these political struggles, however, the interest of the community

was suddenly withdrawn by an event which instantly absorbed all

attention, and struck terror into every household. In the little town of

Pine Level, a village situated a few miles from Montgomery, traces were

discovered of a plot having for its object a general uprising of the

negroes on the evening preceding Christmas.

In the progress of the investigations which were immediately begun, it

came to light that the plot was not simply local, but extended over many

counties, including in its circuit the city of Montgomery, and involving

in its movements many hundred negroes. Further examination revealed all

the horrible details which were to attend the consummation of the

plot--the butchery of the whites, the allotment of females, the division

of property. The whole surrounding country was alive with excitement.

Active measures were taken to crush at once the spirit of insurrection.

The ringleaders and some of the poor whites, with whom the plot is said

to have originated, were seized and, after a brief trial, immediately

hung. In Montgomery feeling was such as to demand the adoption of the

most stringent precautionary measures. Military companies were called

out and placed in nightly guard over the capitol and arsenal. On

Christmas eve the plot was to go into execution, and as the time

approached, the anxiety became painfully intense. It was whispered that

one of Mr. Yancey's slaves had been detected in an attempt to poison her

master. The police was doubled, soldiers with loaded muskets were

stationed in all the prominent streets, while mounted guards ranged the

thinly inhabited section of the outskirts. The night, however, passed

without alarm, and the excitement from that time slowly subsided.

It is scarcely worthy of notice, perhaps, that with the returning sense

of security came also the flippant confidence which had been for a time

put to flight. The blacks were again a timid and affectionate race, and

it was soon not difficult to find multitudes who declared themselves

willing to meet alone a hundred insurrectionary slaves. Sitting in this

evening calm, listening to such remarks, it was difficult to accept as

real the events of the hot and excited day which had gone before. Surely

they were dreams--the hurried trials, the hangings, the nightly tread of

soldiers, the brooding terror that whitened the lips of mothers. A home

guard, however, was immediately formed, including all citizens,

irrespective of age or station, capable of bearing arms, and not in

other military organizations.

On the 7th of January, the convention met. South Carolina had already

passed her ordinance of secession; but what others would follow the

example of this excitable State was yet uncertain. All eyes were now

anxiously directed toward Alabama, upon whose decision would to a great

degree depend that of the two great conservative States, Louisiana and

Georgia. Nor was this anxiety diminished by the accounts given of the

composition of the convention of this State. Both sides claimed a

majority; and it was evident that, without some unexpected defection,

the two parties would narrowly escape a tie. This singular uncertainty

was soon, however, to cease. Immediately on convening, it became evident

that the command of the body lay with the secessionists. It was found by

secret estimates that the two parties were divided by ten votes. Of the

hundred delegates, fifty-five were in favor of disunion. Although this

majority gave the secessionists power to carry their wishes into instant

effect, it was not thought politic to do so while the difference between

the two parties remained so small. The passage of the ordinance was,

therefore, for several days delayed, while the Coöperationists were

plied with arguments to induce them to acquiesce in that which it was

now impossible for them to prevent. At length, after four days of

deliberation, it became evident that all of this party had succumbed

whom it seemed possible to change, and on the morning of the 11th of

January it was publicly announced that the ordinance of secession had

passed the convention by a vote of sixty-one in the affirmative against

thirty-nine in the negative.

By the insurrectionists the announcement was received with transports of

joy, but by the Unionists it was met with demonstrations of grief, which

they made no efforts to conceal. Women wept, and houses were closed as

for a day of mourning. In the northern part of the State the

manifestations of disappointment were still more unmistakable.

Indignation meetings were held, and one of the delegates received a

telegram from his constituents, charging him with having betrayed them

on the very issue for which he was elected, and demanding explanations.

At length the loyal feeling of the State seemed aroused, and had the

ordinance of secession been now submitted to the people, all admitted

that it would have been rejected by an unquestionable majority. But the

ordinance was not submitted to the people, and the Union sentiment,

which had already, within the interval of a few weeks, passed through

two complete oscillations--vibrating from the loyalty which preceded the

presidental election through all the changes of the strong disunion

reaction which followed--was now again in the ascendant. But from this

point it soon began to recede, descending slowly along an arc of which

no eye can see the end, with a momentum that permits no prediction as to

the time of its return.

A multitude of influences began at once to weaken the energy of the

Union sentiment. From the first, it had been the policy of the disunion

leaders to represent the question of secession as lying wholly with the

South. In case this section should decide upon disunion, there would be

little reason, it was said, to fear any prolonged opposition on the part

of the North--least of all a war. Nothing appeared on the part of the

Federal Executive to refute these assertions. It was by a large class

believed, therefore, that the leaders were right when they said that the

secession would be a mere withdrawal of the Southern States, for the

formation of a government perfectly friendly to the North, with which,

indeed, a board of commissioners would soon arrange the terms of a

peaceful international trade. After the passage of this ordinance,

however, a slight modification of this argument became necessary. Peace

was conditioned upon unanimity. Unionists were now called upon to render

their support to the new government in order to secure peace. If it was

clear that the State was united in favor of the changed condition of

things, there would be no difficulty, it was said, to procure, amid the

divisions of the North, a peaceful recognition of the confederacy. The

factions of the Northern States would never allow the Federal Government

to attempt to coerce a united people. Thus the very weapons which

loyalty had used to arm herself were here wrested to her own

destruction. To insure peace, men became insurrectionists.

It is useless now to surmise what would have been the result if the

action of the Federal Government in reference to the question of

secession at the beginning of the rebellion, had been less ambiguous. It

is enough to know, what was for many weeks so painfully realized by

every Northerner in the South, that had the Southern people, by any

means, been brought to understand that Federal laws were protected by

sanctions, and that an attempt at disunion would certainly be followed

by war, the question of secession would never have become a formidable

issue. But while men believed, as many of the Unionists did, that

secession was an experiment, attended with no danger to themselves, and

which would more than likely result, after a few years, in a peaceful

reconstruction of the Union on terms more favorable to the South, there

is little occasion for wonder that the cause of disunion met with no

very earnest, or, at least, prolonged opposition.

The passage of the ordinance of secession gave to the disunionists an

incalculable advantage. It is true, the Union feeling was deep, and in

many places strongly aroused, but the State had seceded, the new

government was quietly and apparently solidly forming itself, profitable

offices were in its gift, and, added to all, the conservative spirit

whispered its old motto, _quieta non movere_, and the hands which had

been raised in weak resistance fell harmlessly back.

In the mean while, at the capitol, another work was going on. The

convention, having established by ordinance the independence of the

State, was now engaged in tearing down and remodelling to meet the petty

wants of the Republic of Alabama the august structure of the Federal

Constitution. The work was soon completed, and on the 29th of January

this body, which in a brief session of three weeks had carried through

measures involving some of the most stupendous changes possible to a

civil State, adjourned to meet again on the 4th of March, cutting off,

by this, all possibility of any of the questions which it had discussed

being brought before the people by a new election. On the week following

the adjournment of the convention, the confederate congress assembled in

Montgomery.

This body immediately showed a fine appreciation of the state of public

feeling, and drew to itself the confidence of the people by selecting

for president and vice-president of the temporary government men who

were thought to represent the more conservative element in community.

Mr. Davis, at the time of his election, was in Mississippi, but on

receiving the official announcement of the event, started at once for

Montgomery, passing through Southern Tennessee, then a loyal State,

along a path nearly parallel to the one in which Mr. Lincoln was at the

same time moving a little farther north.

He reached the city in the night, but a large crowd was awaiting his

arrival at the depot. A procession of carriages, filled with members of

the confederate congress, led the way to the hotel. It was preceded by a

military band, and at regular intervals rockets were discharged,

announcing to the distant beholder the progress of the procession. All

felt that by attention to these honorary details they were assisting to

give dignity to the newly formed confederacy. On arriving at the hotel,

Mr. Davis was announced to speak from the balcony. The crowd pressed

curiously forward. Two candles threw a faint, yellow light over a

spare, angular form, rather below the medium height, lighting up, at the

same time, the sunken cheeks and strongly marked jaws of a face now

working with the emotions which the unusual events of the evening were

so well calculated to excite.

The ceremonies of inauguration were postponed to the beginning of the

following week. Early on Monday morning, however, the hill before the

capitol was covered with a vast throng, collected from all parts of the

new confederacy. For the accomodation of the members of congress, a

temporary platform had been erected in front of the capitol. Standing on

this, and glancing over the city, the eye rested on the rich valley of

the Alabama, stretching away many miles to the north, broken here and

there by the dark green foliage of the pine forests, which now twinkled

in the soft light of a day mild even for the latitude. At the extreme

rear of the platform, behind a small table, was seated the chairman of

the congress, Howell Cobb. Corpulent even to grossness, he formed a

curious contrast to the small and wasted forms of the two presidents

elect, who sat at his side. The events of this day have given to every

trait of these men a lasting and unenviable interest. Neither looked

like a great man, neither like a man thoroughly bad. All the impressions

produced by the first appearance of Mr. Davis were strengthened, without

being changed, by a farther acquaintance. To a physique by no means

imposing, he joins a manner too reserved to make him at any time a

favorite of the populace. His whole bearing, in fact, declares him a

stranger to that deep and contagious enthusiasm which has so often in

enterprises like this drawn to a leader the admiration and unconquerable

fidelity of the common people. Nor, on the other hand, is there anything

in his appearance to indicate the presence of the broad and

comprehensive energy which, in the mind of the thoughtful, can take the

place of such an enthusiasm. Still, he is in many respects peculiarly

suited to take the head of the rebellion. Elected at a time when State

distinctions were lost sight of in the warmth of the first formation of

the confederacy, he soon lost his sectional character, and represents,

as no one now elected could, the people alike of Virginia and those

along the Gulf. He is shrewd, cautious, determined. But his caution may

easily become scarcely distinguishable in its results from timidity. His

determination is never far removed from stubbornness. Mr. Stevens, who

sat, or, rather, had sunk, in his chair by the side of Mr. Davis, was a

thin, sickly looking man, whose small round face was characterized by

the pallid self-concentrated expression peculiar to invalids. On rising

at the administration of the oath, which he did with the laborious

movement of one to whom weakness had become a habit, he revealed a form

of about the medium height, but broken, as by some physical

disfigurement. During most of the ceremonies, he wore the air of an

uninterested spectator, amusing himself with the head of a slight and

rather jaunty cane, which he held between his knees. Although greatly

inferior, so far as mere physical appearances are concerned, to his

colleague, there is yet something in the expression and bearing of Mr.

Stevens which suggests a depth and comprehensiveness of intellect for

which one searches in vain the face of Mr. Davis. On the platform were

gathered nearly all those restless spirits which have, during the past

twenty years, disturbed the peace of the country. Conspicuous among them

appeared the bristling head of Mr. Toombs. He sat during the whole

ceremony, with his face, wearing the imperious expression which had

become habitual to it, turned upon the people. With uncovered heads, and

in perfect silence, the crowd listened to the oath of office.

Immediately on the completion of this ceremony the two presidents and

the congress withdrew to the senate chamber.

A levee was announced for the evening. The hall which had been selected

for this gathering was a large, low room in the upper story of a

building near the centre of the city.

Some efforts had been made by the ladies to conceal the rudeness of the

apartment, but it was expected that every deficiency of this kind would

be forgotten in the presence of that courtly society which had hitherto

given all the attractiveness to occasions like this on the banks of the

Potomac. It is but fair to suppose that these expectations were

disappointed, for early in the evening the hall was crowded with a

throng of men and boys, who, standing with uncovered heads, talking

loudly of the hopes of the new confederacy, or moved uneasily about,

seeking a favorable position from which to watch the 'president shake

hands.' This was the ambition of the evening. Every standing point in

the vicinity of Mr. Davis was taken advantage of. Chairs and benches

served as footstools to elevate into positions of prominence long rows

of men dressed in the yellow jeans of the country, who stood, during all

the long hours of the evening, watching with unchanging countenances the

multiplied repetitions of the short double shake and spasmodic smile

which Mr. Davis meted out to each of the constantly forming column that

filed before him. The platform was filled with the same class, and even

the arch of evergreen, under which it was intended that Mr. Davis should

stand, was pushed aside, to give place to those unwinking faces which

pressed to every loophole of observation. The ladies, who appeared here

and there in the crowd, sparkling with jewels, and dressed in the rich

robes naturally suited to the occasion, only increased by their presence

the rude incongruities of the gathering. Men were surprised at the

manifestations on every hand of a vulgarity and coarseness which they

had been accustomed to think the natural products and exclusive

characteristics of a state of society farther north. To the eyes of the

fastidious, a new class had suddenly arisen in their midst. Perhaps the

lesson was not a new one. Many nations before, when in the midst of

revolutions, have been called mournfully to learn that there are grades

in every society, that rebellions are not always tractable, and that the

class which guides their opening rarely controls their close. But if the

scene of the evening had any prophecies of this kind--and I do not say

that it had--it wailed them, like Cassandra, to ears divinely closed.

From this time the ferment of public opinion disappeared. A tangible

government existed, against which to speak was treason, and the friends

of the Union--and in spite of all changes, the number of these was yet

considerable--now for the first time ceased from the expression of those

objections by which they had hitherto indicated the direction of their

sympathies. All classes of men were longing for something permanent, and

eagerly grasped at these appearances of a settled government, as

promising to supply that which they so much desired. The establishment

of a calm and united state of public feeling seemed, therefore, the

almost instant effect of the inauguration of Mr. Davis. As might be

expected, the events which have been related had not taken place in the

South without affecting the condition of the Northern stranger who

chanced to be within the gate. To him every change had been for the

worse. During the fluctuations of public opinion in the early part of

the season, his position, though unpleasant, had still some relieving

circumstances; the condition of the country was not yet utterly

hopeless, and the vanity of being stable in the midst of universal

change, ministered a mild though secret pleasure, which, in the painful

anxieties of the period, was not without its consolatory value. But when

the tide of public opinion had turned strongly in one direction, and

that in favor of secession, all those pleasures, so mild and spiritual,

were at once destroyed. Nor was this a condition without change. Every

week added some new restraints to those by which the Unionist was

already surrounded. But never was the pressure of these restraints felt

to be so great as in this singular calm, which followed the inauguration

of Mr. Davis. The loyal spirit seemed extinct. Union sentiments were no

longer expressed in even the private circles. Now, however, hints were

occasionally dropped of the possibility of a future reconstruction, and

in this direction it was evident the small remnant of the Union party

was now turning its hopes.

Notwithstanding the general appearance of unanimity, one thing remained

which seemed to indicate a want of perfect confidence on the part of the

people generally in the permanency of the new order of affairs. This

was, the little interest which was manifested in the transactions of the

rebel congress. With nothing else to occupy their minds, the people

allowed the most important measures of public policy to pass almost

without remark. To the congress itself this apathy did not extend. There

appeared here, on the contrary, a germ even of the old State

antagonisms; for when Mr. Toombs, carrying out the former policy of his

State, introduced a bill imposing a tax on imports, declaring, at the

same time, that no government could ever be sustained without depending

chiefly upon this source of revenue, every member from South Carolina

was on his legs. After a warm debate, and against the strongest protests

of these members, the bill was carried and went into effect.

Notwithstanding this, many in England still secretly believe that the

Federal tariff was the real cause of the secession.

The astonishing promptness with which the rebel government, immediately

after the fall of Fort Sumter, equipped and placed upon the field an

enormous and fairly organized army, has given rise to a strong

impression concerning the energy put forth by the executive department

during the two months which intervened between this event and the

inauguration. No mistake could be greater. On the very day of the

election of Mr. Lincoln the South possessed a military establishment

quite equal, in proportion to its population, to that of either France

or Russia. At the time of the John Brown excitement, a rumor was spread

through the South that large bodies of men were gathering in different

parts of the North, having for their object an invasion of the Southern

States. Among all the reports which this excited period produced, none

was more sedulously diffused, and none more generally believed.

Whatever had been the original design of the story, its instant effect,

in the excited state of the public mind, was the formation of companies

in every county and village throughout the South for military drill.

These organizations, of which there were frequently several in a single

village, were equipped entirely at the expense of the individual

members. As they were under constant drill during the winter and summer,

they presented at the opening of the year 1861 the singular spectacle of

a great army, organized and equipped at its own expense, ready at any

moment to march at the command of the recognized government. This, it is

unnecessary to say, was the grand basis of that army which was afterward

placed upon the field; and thus it was that a secretary of war so

palpably inefficient as Mr. Walker was able, with an empty treasury, for

many months to surpass the North in the supply of troops, equipped, and

at once prepared for duty.

It was in full appreciation of this great armed mass that lay at his

hand in a condition to be easily formed into an organized and efficient

army, that Mr. Davis, after much entreaty, and repeated postponement,

reluctantly gave his assent to the first strong act of the executive

department, and ordered the attack upon Fort Sumter.

Without anticipating what were to be the effects of this act in the

North, which was, indeed, open to the conjecture of no man, Mr. Davis on

this occasion simply exhibited a hesitancy in venturing on extreme

measures, which will be found to be a characteristic feature of his

administration.

For several days the city was filled with rumors concerning the

anticipated attack, but early on Friday morning it was announced that

the bombardment had already begun. In the general excitement, business

was suspended. Crowds filled the streets. The war department was in

constant receipt of telegraphic messages announcing the progress of the

bombardment. But nothing came during the day to diminish the growing

anxiety. It was found that the fleet of war vessels said to be outside

the bar would take advantage of the night to come to the succor of the

fort. Sleep was impossible. Men who had gone to bed arose again and

joined the crowd which thronged the streets. At length, shortly after

midnight, Mr. Walker came forth and announced the last and most

favorable telegraphic report concerning the progress of the siege,

uttering at the same time the famous boast which has linked his name

with an indissoluble association of folly. Shortly past noon on

Saturday, the message came which announced the surrender of the fort.

The city was frantic with joy. For hours, no forms of manifestation

seemed adequate to express the excitement which filled all classes of

society. Standing on the housetop in the evening, a wild crowd could be

seen flitting before bonfires, or ranging the streets, and shouting in

the ecstasy of an excitement which none could control. Immediately on

the arrival of the despatch, messengers had started into the country

with the welcome tidings, and deep in the night the ear was startled by

the dull roar of the cannon announcing the arrival in some distant

village of the joyful intelligence.

'That will be the end of the war,' said a man of well known

conservatism, who stood by at the announcement in Montgomery of the

surrender of the fort. It was the last expression of that fatal fallacy

which had lured so large a class quietly to acquiesce in the fact of

secession in the hope of thus securing the peaceful recognition of the

North. In a few days more, the whole deception had passed away. But the

correction had come too late. The Union party was extinct. Twice, in the

course of that great change, by the progress of which, a people, in

majority loyal, was converted into one totally disloyal and

revolutionary, it lay within the power of the Federal Executive, by

firmness and a proper exhibition of its powers, to have sustained the

Union party in the South and crushed the rebellion--before the election

of Mr. Lincoln, and at the time of the strong Union reaction in the

election of delegates to the State convention. At both these periods the

Union feeling was strong and increasing, immediately after each; pressed

upon by arguments which the course of the Executive had failed to

answer, it slowly declined. But no great sentiment is destroyed at once.

There is reason to believe that, if left to itself, the tide of Union

feeling might again have flowed back, and the faint traces of a

reconstruction party which appeared in the short interval of quiet that

belonged to the rebel confederacy indicates, perhaps, the path along

which it would have returned. But the time for these things had passed.

The fall of Sumter brought the doctrines of secession into instant

popularity, and roused a spirit of military enthusiasm in the South

scarcely less intense than that which the same event excited in the

North. At once, in every direction, disappeared all those sober scruples

which, during the hottest excitement of the preceding months, had

quietly controlled the judgment of a small but influential class in

every community. The change in north Alabama and central Tennessee,

where the principles of secession had been steadily rejected by the

people, was almost instantaneous. The excitement and pride of a

sectional victory, and a false sympathy for the individuals who had

ventured their lives in a cause in itself, perhaps, objectionable,

effected what the most cunning fallacies of the leaders had been unable

to accomplish. As this movement of the popular feeling had many points

of resemblance with the revolution of feeling which took place just

after the election of Mr. Lincoln, there were some who believed that it

would be followed by a similar reaction. The excitement of the war into

which the whole country was immediately precipitated, cut off, however,

every chance of any such retrogressive movement. No reaction took place.

The surrender of Fort Sumter completed the change of opinion which had

been so long progressing in the South.