Slave-pens; Negroes on sale or hire--Popular feeling as
to Secession--Beauregard and speech-making--Arrival at
Montgomery--Bad hotel accommodation--Knights of the Golden
Circle--Reflections on Slavery--Slave auction--The Legislative
Assembly--A “live chattel” knocked down--Rumours from the
North (true and false) and prospects of war.
_May 4th._--In the morning I took a drive about the city, which
is loosely built in detached houses over a very pretty undulating
country covered with wood and fruit-trees. Many good houses of
dazzling white, with bright green blinds, verandahs, and doors,
stand in their own grounds or gardens. In the course of the drive
I saw two or three sign-boards and placards announcing that
“Smith & Co. advanced money on slaves, and had constant supplies
of Virginian negroes on sale or hire.” These establishments
were surrounded by high walls enclosing the slave-pens or large
rooms, in which the slaves are kept for inspection. The train for
Montgomery started at 9·45 A.M., but I had no time to stop and
visit them.
It is evident we are approaching the Confederate capital, for the
candidates for office begin to show, and I detected a printed
testimonial in my room in the hotel. The country, from Macon in
Georgia to Montgomery in Alabama, offers no features to interest
the traveller which are not common to the districts already
described. It is, indeed, more undulating, and somewhat more
picturesque, or less unattractive, but, on the whole, there is
little to recommend it, except the natural fertility of the soil.
The people are rawer, ruder, bigger--there is the same amount of
tobacco chewing and its consequences--and as much swearing or
use of expletives. The men are tall, lean, uncouth, but they are
not peasants. There are, so far as I have seen, no rustics, no
peasantry in America; men dress after the same type, differing only
in finer or coarser material; every man would wear, if he could, a
black satin waistcoat and a large diamond pin stuck in the front of
his shirt, as he certainly has a watch and a gilt or gold chain of
some sort or other. The Irish labourer, or the German husbandman is
the nearest approach to our Giles Jolter or the Jacques Bonhomme
to be found in the States. The mean white affects the style of the
large proprietor of slaves or capital as closely as he can; he
reads his papers--and, by-the-by, they are becoming smaller and
more whitey-brown as we proceed--and takes his drink with the same
air--takes up as much room, and speaks a good deal in the same
fashion.
The people are all hearty Secessionists here--the Bars and Stars
are flying at the road-stations and from the pine-tops, and there
are lusty cheers for Jeff Davis and the Southern Confederacy.
Troops are flocking towards Virginia from the Southern States
in reply to the march of Volunteers from Northern States to
Washington; but it is felt that the steps taken by the Federal
Government to secure Baltimore have obviated any chance of
successfully opposing the “Lincolnites” going through that city.
There is a strong disposition on the part of the Southerners to
believe they have many friends in the North, and they endeavour
to attach a factious character to the actions of the Government
by calling the Volunteers and the war party in the North
“Lincolnites,” “Lincoln’s Mercenaries,” “Black Republicans,”
“Abolitionists,” and the like. The report of an armistice, now
denied by Mr. Seward officially, was for some time current, but it
is plain that the South must make good its words, and justify its
acts by the sword. General Scott would, it was fondly believed,
retire from the United States’ army, and either remain neutral or
take command under the Confederate flag, but now that it is certain
he will not follow any of these courses, he is assailed in the
foulest manner by the press and in private conversation. Heaven
help the idol of a democracy!
At one of the junctions General Beauregard, attended by Mr.
Manning, and others of his staff, got into the car, and tried
to elude observation, but the conductors take great pleasure in
unearthing distinguished passengers for the public, and the General
was called on for a speech by the crowd of idlers. The General
hates speech-making, he told me, and he had besides been bored
to death at every station by similar demands. But a man must be
popular or he is nothing. So, as next best thing, Governor Manning
made a speech in the General’s name, in which he dwelt on Southern
Rights, Sumter, victory, and abolitiondom, and was carried off
from the cheers of his auditors by the train in the midst of an
unfinished sentence. There were a number of blacks listening to the
Governor, who were appreciative.
Towards evening, having thrown out some slight out-works against
accidental sallies of my fellow-passengers’ saliva, I went to
sleep, and woke up at 11 P.M. to hear we were in Montgomery. A very
ricketty omnibus took the party to the hotel, which was crowded to
excess. The General and his friends had one room to themselves.
Three gentlemen and myself were crammed into a filthy room which
already contained two strangers, and as there were only three beds
in the apartment it was apparent that we were intended to “double
up considerably;” but after strenuous efforts, a little bribery
and cajoling, we succeeded in procuring mattrasses to put on the
floor, which was regarded by our neighbours as a proof of miserable
aristocratic fastidiousness. Had it not been for the flies, the
fleas would have been intolerable, but one nuisance neutralised the
other. Then, as to food--nothing could be had in the hotel--but one
of the waiters led us to a restaurant, where we selected from a
choice bill of fare, which contained, I think, as many odd dishes
as ever I saw, some unknown fishes, oyster-plants, ’possums,
raccoons, frogs, and other delicacies, and, eschewing toads and
the like, really made a good meal off dirty plates on a vile
tablecloth, our appetites being sharpened by the best of condiments.
Colonel Pickett has turned up here, having made his escape from
Washington just in time to escape arrest--travelling in disguise on
foot through out-of-the-way places till he got among friends.
I was glad, when bed-time approached, that I was not among the
mattrass men. One of the gentlemen in the bed next the door was
a tremendous projector in the tobacco juice line: his final
rumination ere he sank to repose was a masterpiece of art--a
perfect liquid pyrotechny, Roman candles and falling stars. A
horrid thought occurred as I gazed and wondered. In case he should
in a supreme moment turn his attention my way!--I was only seven
or eight yards off, and that might be nothing to him!--I hauled
down my musquito curtain at once, and watched him till, completely
satiated, he slept.
_May 5th._--Very warm, and no cold water, unless one went to
the river. The hotel baths were not promising. This hotel is
worse than Mill’s House or Willard’s. The feeding and the flies
are intolerable. One of our party comes in to say that he could
scarce get down to the hall on account of the crowd, and that
all the people who passed him had very hard, sharp bones. He
remarks thereupon to the clerk at the bar, who tells him that the
particular projections he alludes to are implements of defence or
offence, as the case may be, and adds, “I suppose you and your
friends are the only people in the house who haven’t a bowie-knife,
or a six-shooter, or Derringer about them.” The house is full of
Confederate Congressmen, politicians, colonels, and placemen with
or without places, and a vast number of speculators, contractors,
and the like, attracted by the embryo government. Among the
visitors are many filibusters, such as Henningsen, Pickett,
Tochman, Wheat.[4] I hear a good deal about the association called
the Knights of the Golden Circle, a Protestant association for
securing the Gulf provinces and states, including--which has
been largely developed by recent events--them in the Southern
Confederacy, and creating them into an independent government.
Montgomery has little claims to be called a capital. The streets
are very hot, unpleasant, and uninteresting. I have rarely seen
a more dull, lifeless place; it looks like a small Russian town
in the interior. The names of the shopkeepers indicate German and
French origin. I looked in at one or two of the slave magazines,
which are not unlike similar establishments in Cairo and Smyrna. A
certain degree of freedom is enjoyed by some of the men, who lounge
about the doors, and are careless of escape or liberty, knowing too
well the difficulties of either.
It is not in its external aspects generally that slavery is so
painful. The observer must go with Sterne, and gaze in on the
captives’ dungeons through the bars. The condition of a pig in a
stye is not, in an animal sense, anything but good. Well fed, over
fed, covered from the winds and storms of heaven, with clothing,
food, medicine provided, children taken care of, aged relatives
and old age itself succoured and guarded--is not this ----? Get
thee behind us, slave philosopher! The hour comes when the butcher
steals to the stye, and the knife leaps from the sheath.
Now there is this one thing in being an ἄναξ ἄνδρων, that be the
race of men bad as it may, a kind of grandiose character is given
to their leader. The stag which sweeps his rivals from his course
is the largest of the herd; but a man who drives the largest
drove of sheep is no better than he who drives the smallest. The
flock he compels, must consist of human beings to develop the
property of which I speak, and so the very superiority of the
slave master in the ways and habits of command proves that the
negro is a man. But, at the same time the law which regulates all
these relations between man and his fellows, asserts itself here.
The dominant race becomes dependent on some other body of men,
less martial, arrogant, and wealthy, for its elegances, luxuries,
and necessaries. The poor villeins round the Norman castle forge
the armour, make the furniture, and exercise the mechanical arts
which the baron and his followers are too ignorant and too proud
to pursue; if there is no population to serve this purpose, some
energetic race comes in their place, and the Yankee does the part
of the little hungry Greek to the Roman patrician.
The South has at present little or no manufactures, takes
everything from the Yankee outside or the mean white within her
gates, and despises both. Both are reconciled by interest. The
one gets a good price for his manufacture and the fruit of his
ingenuity from a careless, spendthrift proprietor; the other hopes
to be as good as his master some day, and sees the beginning of
his fortune in the possession of a negro. It is fortunate for our
great British Catherine-wheel, which is continually throwing off
light and heat to the remotest parts of the world--I hope not
burning down to a dull red cinder in the centre at last--that it
had not to send its emigrants to the Southern States, as assuredly
the emigration would soon have been checked. The United States has
been represented to the British and Irish emigrants by the free
States--the Northern States and the great West--and the British and
German emigrant who finds himself in the South, has drifted there
through the Northern States, and either is a migratory labourer, or
hopes to return with a little money to the North and West, if he
does not see his way to the possession of land and negroes.
After dinner at the hotel table, which was crowded with
officers, and where I met Mr. Howell Cobb and several senators
of the new Congress, I spent the evening with Colonel Deas,
Quartermaster-General, and a number of his staff, in their
quarters. As I was walking over to the house, one of the detached
villa-like residences so common in Southern cities, I perceived
a crowd of very well-dressed negroes, men and women, in front of
a plain brick building which I was informed was their Baptist
meeting-house, into which white people rarely or never intrude.
These were domestic servants, or persons employed in stores, and
their general appearance indicated much comfort and even luxury.
I doubted if they all were slaves. One of my companions went up
to a young woman in a straw hat, with bright red-and-green riband
trimmings and artificial flowers, a gaudy Paisley shawl, and a
rainbow-like gown, blown out over her yellow boots by a prodigious
crinoline, and asked her “Whom do you belong to?” She replied, “I
b’long to Massa Smith, sar.” Well, we have men who “belong” to
horses in England. I am not sure if Americans, North and South,
do not consider their superiority to all Englishmen so thoroughly
established, that they can speak of them as if they were talking
of inferior animals. To-night, for example, a gallant young South
Carolinian, one Ransome Calhoun,[5] was good enough to say that
“Great Britain was in mortal fear of France, and was abjectly
subdued by her great rival.” Hence came controversy, short and
acrimonious.
_May 6th._--I forgot to say that yesterday before dinner I drove
out with some gentlemen and the ladies of the family of Mr. George
N. Sanders, once United States’ consul at Liverpool, now a doubtful
man here, seeking some office from the Government, and accused by a
portion of the press of being a Confederate spy--_Porcus de grege
epicuri_--but a learned pig withal, and weather-wise, and mindful
of the signs of the times, catching straws and whisking them
upwards to detect the currents. Well, in this great moment I am
bound to say there was much talk of ice. The North owns the frozen
climates; but it was hoped that Great Britain, to whom belongs the
North Pole, might force the blockade and send aid.
The environs of Montgomery are agreeable--well-wooded, undulating,
villas abounding, public gardens, and a large negro and mulatto
suburb. It is not usual, as far as I can judge, to see women riding
on horseback in the South, but on the road here we encountered
several.
After breakfast I walked down with Senator Wigfall to the capitol
of Montgomery--one of the true Athenian Yankeeized structures of
this novo-classic land, erected on a site worthy of a better fate
and edifice. By an open cistern, on our way, I came on a gentleman
engaged in disposing of some living ebony carvings to a small
circle, who had more curiosity than cash, for they did not at all
respond to the energetic appeals of the auctioneer.
The sight was a bad preparation for an introduction to the
legislative assembly of a Confederacy which rests on the
Institution as the corner-stone of the social and political arch
which maintains it. But there they were, the legislators or
conspirators, in a large room provided with benches and seats,
and listening to such a sermon as a Balfour of Burley might have
preached to his Covenanters--resolute and massive heads, and large
frames--such men as must have a faith to inspire them. And that is
so. Assaulted by reason, by logic, argument, philanthropy, progress
directed against his peculiar institutions, the Southerner at last
is driven to a fanaticism--a sacred faith which is above all reason
or logical attack in the propriety, righteousness, and divinity of
slavery.
The chaplain, a venerable old man, loudly invoked curses on
the heads of the enemy, and blessings on the arms and councils
of the New State. When he was done, Mr. Howell Cobb, a fat,
double-chinned, mellow-eyed man, rapped with his hammer on the
desk before the chair on which he sat as speaker of the assembly,
and the house proceeded to business. I could fancy that, in all
but garments, they were like the men who first conceived the
great rebellion which led to the independence of this wonderful
country--so earnest, so grave, so sober, and so vindictive--at
least, so embittered against the power which they consider
tyrannical and insulting.
The word “liberty” was used repeatedly in the short time allotted
to the public transaction of business and the reading of documents;
the Congress was anxious to get to its work, and Mr. Howell Cobb
again thumped his desk and announced that the house was going into
“secret session,” which intimated that all persons who were not
members should leave. I was introduced to what is called the floor
of the house, and had a delegate’s chair, and of course I moved
away with the others, and with the disappointed ladies and men from
the galleries, but one of the members, Mr. Rhett, I believe, said
jokingly: “I think you ought to retain your seat. If the ‘Times’
will support the South, we’ll accept you as a delegate.” I replied
that I was afraid I could not act as a delegate to a Congress of
Slave States. And, indeed, I had been much affected at the slave
auction held just outside the hotel, on the steps of the public
fountain, which I had witnessed on my way to the capitol. The
auctioneer, who was an ill-favoured, dissipated-looking rascal, had
his “article” beside him on, not in, a deal packing-case--a stout
young negro badly dressed and ill-shod, who stood with all his
goods fastened in a small bundle in his hand, looking out at the
small and listless gathering of men, who, whittling and chewing,
had moved out from the shady side of the street as they saw the man
put up. The chattel character of slavery in the States renders it
most repulsive. What a pity the nigger is not polypoid--so that he
could be cut up in chunks, and each chunk should reproduce itself!
A man in a cart, some volunteers in coarse uniforms, a few Irish
labourers in a long van, and four or five men in the usual black
coat, satin waistcoat, and black hat, constituted the audience,
whom the auctioneer addressed volubly: “A prime field-hand! Just
look at him--good-natered, well-tempered; no marks, nary sign of
bad about him! En-i-ne hunthered--only nine hun-ther-ed and fifty
dol’rs for ’em! Why, it’s quite rad-aklous! Nine hundred and fifty
dol’rs! I can’t raly----That’s good. Thank you, sir. Twenty-five
bid--nine hun-therd and seventy-five dol’rs for this most useful
hand.” The price rose to one thousand dollars, at which the useful
hand was knocked down to one of the black hats near me. The
auctioneer and the negro and his buyer all walked off together to
settle the transaction, and the crowd moved away.
“That nigger went cheap,” said one of them to a companion, as
he walked towards the shade. “Yes, _Sirr_! Niggers is cheap
now--that’s a fact.” I must admit that I felt myself indulging in
a sort of reflection whether it would not be nice to own a man as
absolutely as one might possess a horse--to hold him subject to my
will and pleasure, as if he were a brute beast without the power of
kicking or biting--to make him work for me--to hold his fate in my
hands: but the thought was for a moment. It was followed by disgust.
I have seen slave markets in the East, where the traditions of the
race, the condition of family and social relations divest slavery
of the most odious characteristics which pertain to it in the
States; but the use of the English tongue in such a transaction,
and the idea of its taking place among a civilised Christian
people, produced in me a feeling of inexpressible loathing and
indignation. Yesterday I was much struck by the intelligence,
activity, and desire to please of a good-looking coloured waiter,
who seemed so light-hearted and light-coloured I could not imagine
he was a slave. So one of our party, who was an American, asked
him: “What are you, boy--a free nigger?” Of course he knew that in
Alabama it was most unlikely he could reply in the affirmative.
The young man’s smile died away from his lips, a flush of blood
embrowned the face for a moment, and he answered in a sad, low
tone: “No, sir! I b’long to Massa Jackson,” and left the room at
once. As I stood at an upper window of the capitol, and looked on
the wide expanse of richly-wooded, well-cultivated land which
sweeps round the hill-side away to the horizon, I could not help
thinking of the misery and cruelty which must have been borne in
tilling the land and raising the houses and streets of the dominant
race before whom one nationality of coloured people has perished
within the memory of man. The misery and cruelty of the system
are established by the advertisements for runaway negroes, and by
the description of the stigmata on their persons--whippings and
brandings, scars and cuts--though these, indeed, are less frequent
here than in the border States.
On my return, the Hon. W. M. Browne, Assistant-Secretary of State,
came to visit me--a cadet of an Irish family, who came to America
some years ago, and having lost his money in land speculations,
turned his pen to good account as a journalist, and gained
Mr. Buchanan’s patronage and support as a newspaper editor in
Washington. There he became intimate with the Southern gentlemen,
with whom he naturally associated in preference to the Northern
members; and when they went out, he walked over along with them. He
told me the Government had already received numerous--I think he
said 400--letters from shipowners applying for letters of marque
and reprisal. Many of these applications were from merchants in
Boston, and other maritime cities in the New England States. He
further stated that the President was determined to take the whole
control of the army, and the appointments to command in all ranks
of officers into his own hands.
There is now no possible chance of preserving the peace or of
averting the horrors of war from these great and prosperous
communities. The Southern people, right or wrong, are bent on
independence and on separation, and they will fight to the last for
their object.
The press is fanning the flame on both sides: it would be difficult
to say whether it or the telegraphs circulate lies most largely;
but that as the papers print the telegrams they must have the
palm. The Southerners are told there is a reign of terror in New
York--that the 7th New York Regiment has been captured by the
Baltimore people--that Abe Lincoln is always drunk--that General
Lee has seized Arlington heights, and is bombarding Washington. The
New York people are regaled with similar stories from the South.
The coincidence between the date of the skirmish at Lexington and
of the attack on the 6th Massachusetts Regiment at Baltimore is not
so remarkable as the fact, that the first man who was killed at the
latter place, 86 years ago, was a direct descendant of the first of
the colonists who was killed by the royal soldiery. Baltimore may
do the same for the South which Lexington did for all the Colonies.
Head-shaving, forcible deportations, tarring and feathering are
recommended and adopted as specifics to produce conversion from
erroneous opinions. The President of the United States has called
into service of the Federal Government 42,000 volunteers, and
increased the regular army by 22,000 men, and the navy by 18,000
men. If the South secede, they ought certainly to take over with
them some Yankee hotel keepers. This “Exchange” is in a frightful
state--nothing but noise, dirt, drinking, wrangling.