THE PARTING
The breathless galleries leaned forward to catch the slightest sound
from the arena below.
One by one the Senators from the seceding Southern States rose and
renounced their allegiance to the United States in obedience to the
voice of their people.
With each solemn exit the women of the galleries grew hysterical, waved
their perfumed handkerchiefs and shouted their approval with cries of
sympathy and admiration.
David Yulee, Stephen K. Mallory and Benjamin Fitzpatrick had each closed
his portfolio and with slow measured tread marched down the crowded
aisle and out of the Chamber never again to enter its doors.
All eyes were focused now on the brilliant young Senator from Alabama,
Clement C. Clay, Jr. It was understood that he had prepared an eloquent
defense of his action and would voice the passionate feeling of the
masses of the Southern people in this his last utterance in the
crumbling temple of the old Republic.
He rose in his place, lifted his strong head with its leonine locks and
broad, high forehead, paused a moment and began his speech in the clear
steady tones of the trained orator, master of himself, his theme and his
audience. The Northern Senators met his gaze with scorn and he answered
with a look of bold defiance.
The formal announcement of the secession of his State he made in brief
sharp sentences and plunged at once into the reasons for their solemn
act.
"Forty-two years ago, Alabama was admitted into the Union," he declared
in ringing tones. "She entered it as she goes out, with the Republic
convulsed by the hostility of the North to her domestic institutions.
Not a decade has passed, not a year has elapsed since her birth as a
State that has not been marked by the steady and insolent growth of the
mob violence of the North which has demanded the confiscation of her
property and the destruction of the foundations of her civilization.
"Who are the leaders of these mobs who seek thus to overthrow the
Constitution? Who are these hypocrites who claim the championship of
freedom and the moral leadership of the world?
"The men who sold their own slaves to us because they could not use them
with profit in a northern climate; the men who built and manned every
American slave ship that ever sailed the seas; the sons of old Peter
Faneuil of Boston who built Faneuil Hall, their cradle of liberty, out
of the profits of slave ships whose trade the Southern people had
forbidden by law; the men who have flooded Congress for two generations
with petitions to dissolve the Union; the men who threatened to secede
with the addition of every foot of territory we have added to our
Republic!
"These are the men who have denied to the manhood of the South Christian
Communion because they could not endure what they have been pleased to
style the moral leprosy of Slavery! These are the men who refuse us
permission to sojourn or even pass through the sacred precincts of a
Northern State and dare to carry our servants with us. These are the men
who deny to the South equal rights in the lands of the West bought by
Southern blood and brains and added to our inheritance against their
furious protests. These are the men who burn the sacred charters of
American Liberty in their public squares, and inscribe on their banners
the foul motto:
"'The Constitution is an agreement with Death, a covenant with Hell.'
"These are the men who dare to call us traitors! These are the men who
have deliberately passed laws in fourteen Northern States nullifying the
provisions of the Constitution of the Union which they have sworn to
defend and enforce--"
The speaker paused and lifted high above his head a little morocco bound
volume.
"Here in the presence of Almighty God--the God of our fathers, and these
witnesses, I read its solemn provisions which the laws of fourteen
Northern States have brazenly and openly defied!"
He opened the little book and slowly read:
"'Article 4, Section 2.
"'_No person held to service of labor in one State, under the laws
thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or
regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor--but shall
be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may
be due._'"
He turned suddenly to the Northern Senators:
"Your States have not only repudiated the Constitution you have sworn to
uphold, but your emissaries have invaded the peaceful South and sought
to lay it waste with fire and sword and servile insurrection. You have
murdered Southern men who have dared demand their rights on Northern
soil. You have invaded the borders of Southern States, burned their
dwellings and murdered their people. You have proclaimed John Brown, the
criminal maniac who sought to murder innocent and helpless men, women
and children in Virginia, a hero and martyr and then denounced _us_ in
your popular meetings, your religious and legislative assemblies as
habitual violators of the laws of God and the rights of humanity! You
have exerted all the moral and physical agencies that human ingenuity
can devise or a devil's malice employ to heap odium and infamy upon us
and make the very name of the South a by-word of hissing and of scorn
throughout the civilized world--"
He paused overcome with emotion and lifted his hand to stay the burst of
applause from the galleries.
"We have borne all this for long years and might have borne it many more
under the assurance of our Northern friends that such fanaticism does
not represent the true heart of the Northern people. But the fallacy of
these promises and the folly of our hopes have been too clearly proven
in the late election. The platform of the political party on which you
have swept every Northern State and elected a sectional President is a
foul libel upon our character and a declaration of open war on the lives
and property of the Southern people.
"In defiance of the Constitution which protects our rights your mob has
decreed the confiscation of three thousand million dollars' worth of our
property. If we claim the protection of our common law, your mob
solemnly burns the Constitution in your public squares and denounces it
as 'an agreement with Death and covenant with Hell.' We appeal to the
Supreme Court of the Republic and when its Judges unanimously sustain
our position on every point, your mob cries:
"'Down with the Supreme Court of the United States!'
"You have not only insulted us as unchristian and heathen, you have
proclaimed that four million ignorant negroes but yesterday taken from
the savagery of cannibal Africa are our equals and entitled to share in
the solemn rights of American citizenship. Your declaration is an open
summons that they rise in insurrection with the knife in one hand and
the torch in the other.
"Your mob has declared the South outlawed, branded with ignominy,
consigned to execration and ultimate destruction. Your mob has decreed
the death of Slavery and sends the new President to execute their
decree.
"All right--kill Slavery and then what? Kill Slavery and what will you
do with its corpse? Who shall deliver us from the body of this death? We
are not leaving this Hall to fight for the Institution of African
Slavery. The grim specter of a degraded and mongrel citizenship which
lies back of your mob's programme of confiscation is the force that is
driving the Southern people out of the Union to find peace and safety.
Whatever may be the sins of Slavery in the South they are as nothing
when compared to the degradation of your life which must follow their
violent emancipation. The Southern white man is slowly lifting the
African out of barbarism into the light of Christian civilization. In
our own good time we will emancipate him and start him on a new life
beyond the boundaries of our Republic. Whatever may be the differences
of opinion in the South on the institution of slavery--there is no
difference and there has never been on one point--it was true
yesterday--it is true to-day--it will be true to-morrow--_Slavery is the
only modus viviendi by which two such races as the Negro and the Aryan
can live side by side in a free democracy with equality the law of its
life_--"
Again a burst of tumultuous applause swept the gallery.
"The issue is clear cut and terrible in its simplicity--the South stands
on the faith of our fathers who created this Republic. The South stands
for Constitutional freedom under the forms of established law. The
North has lifted the red flag of revolution and proclaims the
irresponsible despotism of an enthroned mob!
"For a generation your school mistresses have been training your boys to
hate us and arming them to fight us. Make no mistake about this movement
to-day. We who go are but the servants of those who sent us. They now
recall their ambassadors, and we obey their sovereign will. Make no
mistake about it. They are not a brave and rash people, deluded by bad
men, who are attempting in an illegal way to wreck the Union. They seek
peace and safety outside driven by the Rebellion against Law and Order
within.
"Are we more or less than men? Can we love our enemies and bless them
that curse and revile us? Are we devoid of the sensibilities, the
sentiments, the passions, the reason, and the instincts of mankind? Have
we no pride, no honor, no sense of shame, no reverence for our
ancestors, no care for posterity, no love for home, or family or
friends? Must we quail before the onion breath of an enthroned mob,
confess our baseness, discredit the fame of our sires, degrade our
children, abandon our homes, flee from our country and dishonor
ourselves--all for the sake of a Union whose Constitution you have
publicly burned and whose Supreme Court you have spit upon?
"Shall we consent to live under an administration controlled by those
who not only deny us justice and equality and brand us as infamous, but
boldly proclaim their purpose to rob us of our property and destroy our
civilization?
"The freemen of Alabama have proclaimed to the world they will not. In
their sovereign power they have recalled me. As their servant I go!"
With a wave of his hand in an imperious gesture of defiance to the
silent Senators of the North, amid a scene of unparalleled passion, the
speaker turned to his seat, gathered his books and papers and strode
with quick firm step down the aisle.
Jennie had leaped to her feet and stood clapping her hands in a frenzy
of excitement, unconscious of the existence of the strangely quiet young
man by her side.
He rose and stood smiling into her flushed face as she gasped:
"A wonderful speech--wasn't it?"
"They say the South has never lacked audacity, Miss Barton. I'm
wondering if they are really going to make good such words with deeds."
He spoke with a cold detachment that chilled and angered the impulsive
girl. A hot answer was on her lips when she remembered suddenly that he
was a foreigner.
"Of course, Signor, you can not understand our feelings!"
"On the other hand, I assure you, I do--I'm just wondering in a cold
intellectual way whether the oratorical temperament--the temperament of
passion, of righteous wrath of the explosive type which we have just
witnessed, will win in the trial by fire which war will bring--"
"You doubt our courage?" she interrupted, with a slight curve of the
proud little lips.
"Far from it--I assure you! I'm only wondering if it has the sullen,
dogged, staying qualities these stolid Northern men down there have
exhibited while they listened--"
The girl threw him a quick surprised look and he stopped. His voice had
unconsciously taken the tones of a soliloquy.
"I beg your pardon, Miss Barton," he said, with sudden swing to the
polite tones of society. "I'm annoying you with my foreign
speculations--"
A sudden murmur swept the galleries and all eyes were turned on the tall
slender figure of Jefferson Davis as he slowly entered the Senate
Chamber.
"Who is it?" Socola asked.
"Senator Davis--you don't know him?"
"I have never seen him before. He has been quite ill I hear."
"Yes. He's been in bed for the past week suffering agonies from
neuralgia. He lost the sight of one of his eyes from chronic pain caused
by exposure in the service of his country in the northwest."
"Really--I didn't know that."
"He was compelled to remain in a darkened room for months the past year
to save the sight of his remaining eye."
"That accounts for my not having seen him before."
Socola followed the straight military figure with painful interest as he
slowly moved toward his seat greeting with evident weakness his
colleagues as he passed. He was astonished beyond measure at the
personality of the famous leader of the "Southern Conspirators" of whom
he had heard so much. He was the last man in all the crowd he would have
singled out for such a rôle. The face was too refined, too spiritual,
too purely intellectual for the man of revolution. His high forehead,
straight nose, thin compressed lips and pointed chin belonged to the
poet and dreamer rather than the man of action. The hollow cheek bones
and deeply furrowed mouth told of suffering so acute the sympathy of
every observer was instantly won.
In spite of evident suffering his carriage was erect, dignified, and
graceful. The one trait which fastened the attention from the first and
held it was the remarkable intensity of expression which clothed his
thin muscular face.
"You like him?" Jennie ventured at last.
"I can't say, Miss Barton," was the slowly measured answer. "He is a
remarkably interesting man. I'm surprised and puzzled--"
"Surprised and puzzled at what?"
"Well, you see I know his history. The diplomatist makes it his business
to know the facts in the lives of the leaders of a nation to whose
Government he is accredited. Mr. Davis spent four years at West Point.
He gave seven years of his life to the service of the army in the West.
He carried your flag to victory in Mexico and hobbled home on crutches.
He was one of your greatest Secretaries of War. He sent George B.
McClellan and Robert E. Lee to the Crimea to master European warfare,
organized and developed your army, changed the model of your arms,
introduced the rifled musket and the minie ball. He explored your
Western Empire and surveyed the lines of the great continental railways
you are going to build to the Pacific Ocean. He planned and built your
system of waterworks in the city of Washington and superintends now the
extension of the Capitol building which will make it the most imposing
public structure in the world. He has never stooped to play the part of
a demagogue. He has never sought an office higher than the rôle of
Senator which fits his character and temperament. His mind has always
been busy dreaming of the imperial future of your widening Republic. His
eye has seen the vision of its extension to the Arctic on the north and
the jungles of Panama on the south. Why should such a man deliberately
come into this chamber to-day before this assembled crowd and commit
hari-kari?"
"He's a true son of the South!" Jennie Barton proudly answered.
"Even so, how can he do the astounding thing he proposes to carry out
to-day? His record shows that passionate devotion to the Union has been
the very breath of his life. I've memorized one of his outbursts as a
model of your English language--"
Jennie laughed.
"I never heard of his Union speeches, I'm sure!"
"Strange that your people have forgotten them. Listen: 'From sire to son
has descended the love of the Union in our hearts, as in our history are
mingled the names of Concord and Camden, of Yorktown and Saratoga, of
New Orleans and Bunker Hill. Together they form a monument to the common
glory of our common country. Where is the Southern man who would wish
that monument less by one Northern name that constitutes the mass? Who,
standing on the ground made sacred by the blood of Warren, could allow
sectional feeling to curb his enthusiasm as he looks upon that obelisk
which rises a monument to freedom's and his country's triumph, and
stands a type of the time, the men and the event it commemorates; built
of material that mocks the waves of time, without niche or molding for
parasite or creeping thing to rest upon, pointing like a finger to the
sky to raise man's thoughts to high and noble deeds!'"
Socola paused and turned his dark eyes on Jennie's upturned face.
"How can the man who made that speech in Boston do this mad deed
to-day?"
"Senator Clay has given the answer," was the girl's quick reply.
"For Senator Clay, yes--the fiery, impulsive, passionate child of
emotion. But this thin hollow-cheeked student, thinker and philosopher,
who spoke the thrilling words I quote--he should belong to the order of
the Prophet and the Seer--the greatest leaders and teachers of history."
"We believe he does, Signor!" was the quick answer. "Look--he's going
to speak--you'll hear him now."
Jennie leaned forward, her thoughtful little chin in both hands, as a
silence so intense it was pain fell suddenly on the hushed assembly.
The face of the Southern leader was chalk white in its pallor. His first
sentences were weak and scarcely reached beyond the circle of his
immediate hearers. His physician had forbidden him to leave his room.
The iron will had risen to perform a solemn duty. The Senators leaned
forward in their arm-chairs fearful of losing a word.
He paused as if for breath and gazed a moment on the upturned faces with
the look of lingering tenderness which the dying cast on those upon whom
they gaze for the last time.
His figure suddenly rose to its full height, as if the soul within had
thrust the feeble body aside to speak its message. His words, full,
clear and musical rang to the furthest listener craning his neck through
the jammed doorways of the galleries. Never was the music of the human
voice more profoundly appealing. Unshed tears were in its throbbing
tones.
There was no straining for effect--no outburst of emotion. The
impression which reached the audience was the sense of restraint and the
consciousness of his unlimited reserve power. Back of the simple
clean-cut words which fell in musical cadence from his white lips was
the certainty that he was only speaking a small part of what he felt,
saw and knew. He neither stormed nor raved and yet he filled the hearts
of his hearers with unspeakable passion.
He turned suddenly and bent his piercing single eye on the Northern
Senators:
"I hope none who hear me will confound my position with the advocacy of
the right of a State to remain in the Union and disregard its
Constitutional obligations by the nullification of the law--"
A sudden cheer swept the tense galleries. The sergeant-at-arms called
for order. The cheer rose again. The Vice-President rapped for silence
and threatened to close the galleries. The speaker lifted his hand and
commanded silence.
"It was because of his deep attachment to the Union--his determination
to find some remedy for existing ills short of a severance of the ties
which bound South Carolina to the other States--that John C. Calhoun
advocated the doctrine of nullification which he proclaimed to be
peaceful and within the limits of State power.
"Secession belongs to a different class of remedies. It is to be
justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. There was a time
when none denied it. The phrase 'to execute the laws' General Jackson
applied to a State refusing to obey the law while yet a member of the
Union. You may make war on a foreign state. If it be the purpose of
gentlemen--"
He paused and again his eagle eye swept the tiers of Northern Senators.
"You may make war against a State which has withdrawn from the Union;
but there are no laws of the United States to be executed within the
limits of a seceded State--"
Seward leaned forward in his seat and shook his head in grave dissent.
The speaker bent his gaze directly upon his great antagonist and spoke
with strange regretful tenderness.
"A State finding herself in a condition in which Mississippi has judged
she is--in which her safety requires that she should provide for the
maintenance of her rights out of the Union--surrenders all the benefits
(and they are known to be many), deprives herself of all the advantages
(and they are known to be great), severs all the ties of affections (and
they are close and enduring) which have bound her to the Union; and thus
divesting herself of every benefit--taking upon herself every
burden--she claims to be exempt from any power to execute the laws of
the United States within her limits.
"When Massachusetts was arraigned before the bar of the Senate for her
refusal to permit the execution of the laws of the United States within
her borders, my opinion was the same then as now. Her State is
sovereign. She never delegated to the Federal Government the power to
drive her by force. And when she chooses to take the last step which
separates her from the Union, it is her right to go!--"
Another electric wave swept the crowd that burst into applause. The
speaker lifted his long arm with an impatient gesture.
"And I would not vote one dollar nor one man to coerce her back into
unwilling submission. I would say to her--'God speed in the memory of
the kind associations which once existed between her and her sister
States.'
"It has been a conviction of pressing necessity--a belief that we are to
be deprived in the Union of the rights which our fathers bequeathed
us--which has brought Mississippi to her present decision.
"You have invoked the sacred Declaration of Independence as the basis of
an attack upon her social order. The Declaration of Independence is to
be construed by the circumstances and purposes for which it was made. It
was written by a Southern planter and slave owner. The Colonies were
declaring their independence from foreign tyranny--were asserting in the
language of Jefferson, 'that no man was born booted and spurred to ride
over the rest of mankind; that men were created equal'--meaning the men
of their American political community; that there was no divine right to
rule; that no man could inherit the right to govern; that there were no
classes by which power and place descended from father to son; but that
all stations were equally within the grasp of each member of the body
politic. These were the principles they announced.
"They had no reference to a slave. The same document denounced George
III for the crime of attempting to stir their slaves to insurrection, as
John Brown attempted at Harper's Ferry. If their Declaration of
Independence announced that negroes were free and the equals of English
citizens how could the Prince be arraigned for daring to raise servile
insurrection among them? And how should this be named among the high
crimes of George III which caused the Colonies to sever their connection
with the Mother country?
"If slaves were declared our equals how did it happen that in the
organic law of the Union they were given a lower caste and their
population allowed (and that only through the dominant race) a basis of
three-fifths representation in Congress? So stands the compact of Union
which binds us together.
"We stand upon the principles on which our Government was founded!--"
The sentence rang clear and thrilling as the peal of a trumpet. The
effect was electric. The galleries leaped to their feet, and cheered.
Jennie turned to the silent diplomat.
"Isn't he glorious!"
"He stirs the hearts of men"--was the even answer.
Around them were unmistakable evidences. Women were weeping hysterically
and men embracing one another in silence and tears.
Again the Senator's hand was lifted high in command for silence and
again he faced Seward and his Northern colleagues with figure tense,
erect.
"When you repudiate these principles, and when you deny to us the right
to withdraw from a Government which, thus perverted, threatens to
destroy our rights, we but tread the path of our fathers when we
proclaim our independence and take the hazard!"
Again a cheer and shout which the Vice-President's gavel could not
quell. When the murmur at last died away the speaker's voice had dropped
to low appealing tenderness.
"We do this, Senators, not in hostility to others, not to injure any
section of our common country, not for our own pecuniary benefit, but
from the high and solemn motive of defending and protecting the rights
we inherited, which we will transmit unshorn to our children. We seek
outside the Union that peace, with dignity and honor, which we can no
longer find within.
"I trust I find myself a type of the general feeling of my constituents
towards yours. I am sure I feel no hostility toward you, Senators from
the North--"
He paused and swept the Northern tiers with a look of tender appeal.
"I am sure there is not one of you, whatever sharp discussion there may
have been between us, to whom I can not now say in the presence of my
God, I wish you well!"
Seward turned his head from the speaker, his eyes dimmed--the scheming
diplomat and unscrupulous politician lost in the heart of the man for
the moment.
"Such I am sure is the feeling of the people whom I represent toward
those whom you represent. I but express their desire when I say I hope
and they hope for peaceful relations with you, though we must part--"
He paused as if to suppress emotions too deep for words while a silence,
intense and suffocating, held the crowd in a spell. The speaker's voice
dropped to still lower and softer notes of persuasive tenderness as each
rounded word of the next sentence fell slowly from the thin lips.
"If war must come, we can only invoke the God of our fathers, who
delivered us from the power of the lion, to protect us from the ravages
of the bear, and putting our trust in Him and in our firm hearts and
strong arms we will vindicate the right as best we may--"
No cheer greeted this solemn utterance. In the pause which followed, the
speaker deliberately gazed over the familiar faces of his Northern
opponents and continued with a suppressed intensity of feeling that
gripped his bitterest foe.
"In the course of my service here, associated at different times with a
great variety of Senators, I see now around me some with whom I have
served long. There have been points of collision, but, whatever offense
there has been to me, I leave here. I carry with me no hostile
remembrance. For whatever offense I may have given which has not been
redressed, or for which satisfaction has not been demanded, I have,
Senators, in this solemn hour of our parting to offer you my apology--"
The low musical voice died softly away in the silence of tears.
A woman sobbed aloud.
Socola bent toward his trembling companion and whispered:
"Who is she?"
Jennie brushed the tears from her brown eyes before replying:
"The Senator's wife. She's heart-broken over it all--didn't sleep a
wink all night. I've been looking for her to faint every minute."
The leader closed his portfolio. His hollow cheeks, thin lips and white
drawn face were clothed with an expression of sorrow beyond words as he
slowly turned and left the scene of his life's triumphs.
The spell of his eloquence at last thrown off the crowd once more
dissolved into hostile lowering groups.
Stern old Zack Chandler of Michigan collided with Jennie's father in the
cloak room, his eyes red with wrath.
"Well, Barton," he growled, "after the damned insolence of that scene if
the North don't fight, I'll be much mistaken--"
"You generally are, sir," Barton retorted.
"If they don't fight, by the living God, I'll leave this country and
join another nation--the Comanche Indians preferred to this Government."
Barton glanced at his opponent and his heavy jaw closed with a snap.
"I trust, Senator," he said with deliberate venom, "you will not carry
out that resolution--the Comanche Indians have already suffered too much
from contact with the whites!"
Dick Welford heard the shot and gripped the fierce old Southerner's hand
as Chandler turned on his heel and disappeared with an oath.
"You got him that time, Senator!"
Barton laughed with boyish glee.
"I did, didn't I? Sometimes we can only think of our best things when
it's too late. But by Gimminy I got the old rascal this time, didn't I?"
"You certainly plugged him--what did you think of the speeches?"
"Clay said something! Davis is too slow. He's got no blood in his
veins. I don't like him. He'll pull us back into the Union yet if we
don't watch him. He's a reconstructionist at heart. The State of
Mississippi is dragging him out of Washington by the heels. He makes me
tired. The time for talk has passed. To your tents now, O Israel!"
Dick hurried to the gallery and watched Socola talking in his graceful
Italian way with Jennie. He had hated this elegant foreigner the moment
he had laid eyes on him. He made up his mind to declare himself before
another sun set.
He ignored the Italian's existence.
"You are ready, Miss Jennie?"
She took Dick's proffered arm in silence and bowed to Socola who watched
them go with a peculiar smile playing about his handsome mouth.
Jennie insisted on stopping at Senator Davis' home to tell his wife of
the wonderful power with which his speech had swept the galleries.
The house was still, the library door open. The girl paused on the
threshold in awe. The Senator's tall figure was lying prostrate across
his desk, his thin hands clasped in prayer, his face buried in his arms.
His lips were murmuring words too low to be heard until at last they
swelled in sorrowful repetition:
"May God have us in his holy keeping and grant that before it is too
late peaceful councils may prevail!"
The girl turned softly and left without a word.