The Civil War in America Part 3

The planters have agreed among themselves to hold over one-half of their cotton crop for their own purposes and for the culture of their fields, and to sell the other to the Government. For each bale of cotton, as I hear, a bond will be issued on the fair average price of cotton in the market, and this bond must be taken at par as a circulating medium within the limits of the Slave States. This forced circulation will be secured by the act of the Legislature. The bonds will bear interest at 10 per cent., and they will be issued on the faith and security of the proceeds of the duty of one-eighth of a cent on every pound of cotton exported. All vessels loading with cotton will be obliged to enter into bonds, or give security that they will not carry their cargoes to Northern ports, or let it reach Northern markets to their knowledge. The Government will sell the cotton for cash to foreign buyers, and will thus raise funds amply sufficient, they contend, for all purposes. I make these bare statements, and I leave to political economists the discussion of the question which may and will arise out of the acts of the Confederate States. The Southerners argue that by breaking from their unnatural alliance with the North they will save upward of $47,000,000, or nearly 10,000,000 sterling annually. The estimated value of the annual cotton crop is $200,000,000. On this the North formerly made at least $10,000,000, by advance, interest and exchanges, which in all came to fully 5 per cent. on the whole of the crop. Again, the tariff to raise revenue sufficient for the maintenance of the Government of the Southern Confederacy is far less than that which is required by the Government of the United States. The Confederate States propose to have a tariff which will be about 12 per cent. on imports, which will yield $25,000,000. The Northern tariff is 30 per cent., and as the South took from the North $70,000,000 worth of manufactured goods and produce, they contribute, they a.s.sert, to the maintenance of the North to the extent of the difference between the tax sufficient for the support of their Government, and that which is required for the support of the Federal Government. Now they will save the difference between 30 per cent, and 12 per cent. (17 per cent), which amounts to $37,000,000, which, added to the saving on commissions, exchanges, advances, &c., makes up the good round sum which I have put down higher up. The Southerners are firmly convinced that they have "kept the North going" by the prices they have paid for the protected articles of their manufacture, and they hold out to Sheffield, to Manchester, to Leeds, to Wolverhampton, to Dudley, to Paris, to Lyons, to Bordeaux, to all the centres of English manufacturing life, as of French taste and luxury, the tempting baits of new and eager and hungry markets. If their facts and statistics are accurate, there can be no doubt of the justice of their deductions on many points; but they can scarcely be correct in a.s.suming that they will bring the United States to destruction by cutting off from Lowell the 600,000 bales of cotton which she usually consumes. One great fact, however, is unquestionable--the Government has in its hands the souls, the wealth, and the hearts of the people. They will give anything--money, labor, life itself--to carry out their theories. "Sir," said an ex-Governor of this State to me to-day, "sooner than submit to the North, we will all become subject to Great Britain again." The same gentleman is one of the many who have given to the Government a large portion of their cotton crop every year as a free-will offering. In his instance his gift is one of 500 bales of cotton, or 5,000 per annum, and the papers teem with accounts of similar "patriotism" and devotion. The ladies are all making sand-bags, cartridges, and uniforms, and, if possible, they are more fierce than the men. The time for mediation is past, if it ever were at hand or present at all; and it is scarcely possible now to prevent the processes of phlebotomization which are supposed to secure peace and repose.

There was no intelligence of much interest on Sunday, but there is a general belief that Arkansas and Missouri will send in their adhesion to the Confederacy this week, and the Commissioners from Virginia are hourly expected. The att.i.tude of that State, however, gives rise to apprehensions lest there may be a division of her strength; and any aggression on her territories by the Federal Government, such as that contemplated in taking possession of Alexandria, would be hailed by the Montgomery Government with sincere joy, as it would, they think, move the State to more rapid action and decision.

Montgomery is on an undulating plain, and covers ground large enough for a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants, but its population is only twelve thousand. Indeed, the politicians here appear to dislike large cities, but the city designers certainly prepare to take them if they come. There is a large negro population, and a considerable number of a color which forces me to doubt the evidences of my senses rather than the statements made to me by some of my friends, that the planters affect the character of parent in their moral relations merely with the negro race. A waiter at the hotel--a tall, handsome young fellow, with the least tinge of color in his cheek, not as dark as the majority of Spaniards or Italians--astonished me in my ignorance to-day when, in reply to a question asked by one of our party, in consequence of a discussion on the point, he informed me he "was a slave." The man, as he said so, looked confused; his manner altered. He had been talking familiarly to us, but the moment he replied, "I am a slave, Sir," his loquacity disappeared, and he walked hurriedly and in silence out of the room. The river Alabama, on which the city rests, is a wide, deep stream, now a quarter of a mile in breadth, with a current of four miles an hour. It is navigable to Mobile, upward of four hundred miles, and steamers ascend its waters for many miles beyond this into the interior.

The country around is well wooded, and is richly cultivated in broad fields of cotton and Indian corn, but the neighborhood is not healthy, and deadly fevers are said to prevail at certain seasons of the year.

There is not much animation in the streets, except when "there is a difficulty among the citizens," or in the eternal noise of the hotel steps and bars. I was told this morning by the hotel keeper that I was probably the only person in the house, or about it, who had not loaded revolvers in his pockets, and one is aware occasionally of an unnatural rigidity scarcely attributable to the osseous structure in the persons of those who pa.s.s one in the crowded pa.s.sages.

MONDAY, May 6.--To-day I visited the Capitol, where the Provisional Congress is sitting. On leaving the hotel, which is like a small Willard's, so far as the crowd in the hall is concerned, my attention was attracted to a group of people to whom a man was holding forth in energetic sentences. The day was hot, but I pushed near to the spot, for I like to hear a stump speech, or to pick up a stray morsel of divinity in the _via sacra_ of strange cities, and it appeared as though the speaker was delivering an oration or a sermon. The crowd was small.

Three or four idle men in rough, homespun, makes.h.i.+ft uniforms, leaned against the iron rails inclosing a small pond of foul, green-looking water, surrounded by brick-work, which decorates the s.p.a.ce in front of the Exchange Hotel. The speaker stood on an empty deal packing case. A man in a cart was listening with a lack-l.u.s.tre eye to the address. Some three or four others, in a sort of vehicle, which might either be a hea.r.s.e or a piano-van, had also drawn up for the benefit of the address.

Five or six other men, in long black coats and high hats, some whittling sticks, and chewing tobacco, and discharging streams of discolored saliva, completed the group. "Nine h'hun'nerd and fifty dollars! Only nine h-hun'nerd and fifty dollars offered for him," exclaimed the man, in the tone of injured dignity, remonstrance, and surprise, which can be insinuated by all true auctioneers into the dryest numerical statements.

"Will _no one_ make any advance on nine hundred and fifty dollars?" A man near me opened his mouth, spat, and said, "Twenty-five." "Only nine hundred and seventy-five dollars offered for him. Why, at's radaklous--only nine hundred and seventy-five dollars! Will no one," &c.

Beside the orator auctioneer stood a stout young man of five-and-twenty years of age, with a bundle in his hand. He was a muscular fellow, broad-shouldered, narrow-flanked, but rather small in stature; he had on a broad, greasy, old wide-awake, a blue jacket, a coa.r.s.e cotton s.h.i.+rt, loose and rather ragged trowsers, and broken shoes. The expression of his face was heavy and sad, but it was by no means disagreeable, in spite of his thick lips, broad nostrils, and high cheek-bones. On his head was wool instead of hair. I am neither sentimentalist, nor Black Republican, nor negro-wors.h.i.+per, but I confess the sight caused a strange thrill through my heart. I tried in vain to make myself familiar with the fact that I could, for the sum of nine hundred and seventy-five dollars, become as absolutely the owner of that ma.s.s of blood, bones, sinew, flesh, and brains, as of the horse which stood by my side. There was no sophistry which could persuade me the man was not a man--he was, indeed, by no means my brother, but a.s.suredly he was a fellow creature.

I have seen slave markets in the East, but somehow or other the Orientalism of the scene cast a coloring over the nature of the sales there which deprived them of the disagreeable harshness and matter-of-fact character of the transaction before me. For Turk, or Smyrniote, or Egyptian, to buy and sell slaves, seemed rather suited to the eternal fitness of things than otherwise. The turbaned, shawled, loose-trowsered, pipe-smoking merchants, speaking an unknown tongue, looked as if they were engaged in a legitimate business. One knew that their slaves would not be condemned to any very hard labor, and that they would be in some sort the inmates of the family and members of it.

Here it grated on my ear to listen to the familiar tones of the English tongue as the medium by which the transfer was effected, and it was painful to see decent-looking men in European garb engaged in the work before me. Perchance these impressions may wear off, for I meet many English people who are the most strenuous advocates of the slave system, although it is true that their perceptions may be quickened to recognize its beauties by their partic.i.p.ation in the profits. The negro was sold to one of the bystanders, and walked off with his bundle, G.o.d knows where. "n.i.g.g.e.rs is cheap," was the only remark of the bystanders. I continued my walk up a long, wide, straight street, or, more properly, an unpaved sandy road, lined with wooden houses on each side, and with trees by the side of the footpath. The lower of the two stories is generally used as a shop, mostly of the miscellaneous store kind, in which all sorts of articles are to be had, if there is any money to pay for them; and, in the present case, if any faith is to be attached to the conspicuous notices in the windows, credit is of no credit, and the only thing that can be accepted in exchange for the goods is "cash." At the end of this long street, on a moderate eminence, stands a whitewashed or painted edifice, with a gaunt, lean portico, supported on lofty, lanky pillars, and surmounted by a subdued and dejected-looking little cupola. Pa.s.sing an unkempt lawn, through a very shabby little gateway in a brick frame, and we ascend a flight of steps into a hall, from which a double staircase conducts us to the vestibule of the Chamber. Anything much more offensive to the eye cannot well be imagined than the floor and stairs. They are stained deeply by tobacco juice, which have left its marks on the white stone steps, and on the base of the pillars outside. In the hall which we have entered there are two tables, covered with hams, oranges, bread and fruits, for the refreshment of members and visitors, over which two sable G.o.ddesses, in portentous crinoline, preside. The door of the chamber is open, and we are introduced into a lofty, well-lighted and commodious apartment, in which the Congress of the Confederate States hold its deliberations. A gallery runs half round the room, and is half filled with visitors--country cousins, and farmers of cotton and maize, and, haply, seekers of places, great or small. A light and low semi-circular screen separates the body of the house, where the members sit, from the s.p.a.ce under the gallery, which is appropriated to ladies and visitors. The clerk sits at a desk above this table, and on a platform behind him are the desk and chair of the presiding officer or Speaker of the Congress.

Over his head hangs the unfailing portrait of Was.h.i.+ngton, and a small engraving, in a black frame, of a gentleman unknown to me. Seated in the midst of them, at a Senator's desk, I was permitted to "a.s.sist," in the French sense, at the deliberations of the Congress. Mr. Howell Cobb took the chair, and a white-headed clergyman was called upon to say prayers, which he did, upstanding, with outstretched hands and closed eyes, by the side of the Speaker. The prayer was long and sulphureous. One more pregnant with gunpowder I never heard, nor could aught like it have been heard since

"Pulpit, drum ecclesiastic, Was beat with fist instead of a stick."

The Rev. gentleman prayed that the Almighty might be pleased to inflict on the arms of the United States such a defeat, that it might be the example of signal punishment forever; that this President might be blessed, and that the other President might be the other thing; that the gallant, devoted young soldiers, who were fighting for their country, might not suffer from exposure to the weather or from the bullets of their enemies; and that the base mercenaries who were fighting on the other side might come to sure and swift destruction; and so on.

Are right and wrong mere geographical expressions? The prayer was over at last, and the House proceeded to business. Although each State has several delegates in Congress, it is only ent.i.tled to one vote on a strict division. In this way some curious decisions may be arrived at, as the smallest State is equal to the largest, and a majority of the Florida representatives may neutralize a vote of all the Georgia representatives. For example, Georgia has ten delegates; Florida has only three. The vote of Florida, however, is determined by the action of any two of its three representatives, and these two may, on a division, throw the one State vote into the scale against that of Georgia, for which ten members are agreed. The Congress transacts all its business in secret session, and finds it a very agreeable and commendable way of doing it. Thus, to-day, for example, after the presentation of a few unimportant motions and papers, the Speaker rapped his desk, and announced that the House would go into secret session, and that all who were not members should leave.

As I was returning to the hotel there was another small crowd at the fountain. Another auctioneer, a fat, flabby, perspiring, puffy man, was trying to sell a negro girl who stood on the deal-box beside him. She was dressed pretty much like a London servant girl of the lower order out of place, except that her shoes were mere shreds of leather patches, and her bonnet would have scarce pa.s.sed muster in the New Cut. She, too, had a little bundle in her hand, and looked out at the buyers from a pair of large sad eyes. "n.i.g.g.e.rs were cheap;" still here was this young woman going for an upset price of $610, but no one would bid, and the auctioneer, after vain attempts to raise the price and excite compet.i.tion, said, "Not sold to-day, Sally; you may get down."

TUESDAY, May 7.--The newspapers contain the text of the declaration of the state of war on the part of President Davis, and of the issue of letters of marque and reprisal, &c. But it may be asked, who will take these letters of marque? Where is the Government of Montgomery to find s.h.i.+ps? The answer is to be found in the fact that already numerous applications have been received from the s.h.i.+powners of New England, from the whalers of New Bedford, and from others in the Northern States, for these very letters of marque, accompanied by the highest securities and guaranties! This statement I make on the very highest authority. I leave it to you to deal with the facts.

To-day I proceeded to the Montgomery Downing Street and Whitehall to present myself to the members of the Cabinet, and to be introduced to the President of the Confederate States of America. There is no sentry at the doors, and access is free to all, but there are notices on the doors warning visitors that they can only be received during certain hours. The President was engaged with some gentlemen when I was presented to him, but he received me with much kindliness of manner, and when they had left entered into conversation with me for some time on general matters. Mr. Davis is a man of slight, sinewy figure, rather over the middle height, and of erect, soldier-like bearing. He is about fifty-five years of age; his features are regular and well-defined, but the face is thin and marked on cheek and brow with many wrinkles, and is rather careworn and haggard. One eye is apparently blind, the other is dark, piercing, and intelligent. He was dressed very plainly in a light gray summer suit. In the course of conversation he gave an order for the Secretary of War to furnish me with a letter as a kind of pa.s.sport in case of my falling in with the soldiers of any military posts who might be indisposed to let me pa.s.s freely, merely observing that I had been enough within the lines of camps to know what was my duty on such occasions. I subsequently was presented to Mr. Walker, the Secretary of War, who promised to furnish me with the needful doc.u.ments before I left Montgomery. In his room were General Beauregard and several officers, engaged over plans and maps, apparently in a little council of war, which was, perhaps, not without reference to the intelligence that the United States troops were marching on Norfolk Navy Yard, and had actually occupied Alexandria. On leaving the Secretary I proceeded to the room of the Attorney General, Mr. Benjamin, a very intelligent and able man, whom I found busied in preparations connected with the issue of letters of marque. Everything in the offices looked like earnest work and business.

On my way back from the State Department I saw a very fine company of infantry and three field pieces, with about one hundred and twenty artillerymen, on their march to the railway station for Virginia. The men were all well equipped, but there were no ammunition wagons for the guns, and the transport consisted solely of a few country carts drawn by poor horses, out of condition. There is no lack of muscle and will among the men. The troops which I see here are quite fit to march and fight as far as their _personnel_ is concerned, and there is no people in the world so crazy with military madness. The very children in the streets ape the air of soldiers, carry little flags, and wear c.o.c.kades as they strut in the highways; and mothers and fathers feed the fever by dressing them up as Zouaves or Cha.s.seurs.

Mrs. Davis had a small levee to-day in right of her position as wife of the President. Several ladies there probably looked forward to the time when their States might secede from the new Confederation, and afford them the pleasure of holding a reception. Why not Presidents of the State of Georgia, or Alabama? Why not King of South Carolina, or Emperor of Florida? Soldiers of fortune, make your game! Gentlemen politicians, the ball is rolling. There is, to be sure, a storm gathering at the North, but it cannot hurt you, and already there are _condottieri_ from all parts of the world flocking to your aid, who will eat your Southern beeves the last of all.

One word more as to a fleet. The English owners of several large steamers are already in correspondence with the Government here for the purchase of their vessels. The intelligence which had reached the Government that their Commissioners have gone on to Paris is regarded as unfavorable to their claims, and as a proof that as yet England is not disposed to recognize them. It is amusing to hear the tone used on both sides toward Great Britain. Both are most anxious for her countenance and support, although the North bl.u.s.ters rather more about its independence than the South, which professes a warm regard for the mother country. "But," says the North, "if Great Britain recognizes the South, we shall certainly look on it as a declaration of war." "And,"

says the South, "if Great Britain does not recognize our privateers'

flag, we shall regard it as proof of hostility and of alliance with the enemy." The Government at Was.h.i.+ngton seeks to obtain promises from Lord Lyons that our Government will not recognize the Southern Confederacy, but at the same time refuses any guaranties in reference to the rights of neutrals. The blockade of the Southern ports would not occasion us any great inconvenience at present, because the cotton-loading season is over; but if it be enforced in October, there is a prospect of very serious and embarra.s.sing questions arising in reference to the rights of neutrals, treaty obligations with the United States Government, the trade and commerce of England, and the law of blockade in reference to the distinctions to be drawn between measures of war and means of annoyance.

As I write the guns in front of the State Department are firing a salute, and each report marks a State of the Confederacy. They are now ten, as Arkansas and Tennessee are now out of the Union.

LETTER IX.

FROM MONTGOMERY TO MOBILE.

MOBILE, Alabama, May 11.

THE wayfarer who confides in the maps of a strange country, or who should rely upon even the guide-books of the United States, which still lack a Murray or a Bradshaw, may be at times embarra.s.sed by insuperable hills and unnavigable rivers. When, however, I saw the three towering stories of the high-pressure steamer Southern Republic, on board of which we tumbled down the steep bank of the Alabama river at Montgomery, any such misgivings vanish from my mind. So colossal an ark could have ascended no mythical stream, and the existence and capabilities of the Alabama were demonstrated by its presence.

Punctuality is reputed a rare virtue in the river steamers of the West and South, which seldom leave their wharves until they have bagged a fair complement of pa.s.sengers, although steaming up and ringing gongs and bells every afternoon for a week or more before their departure, as if travellers were to be swarmed like bees. Whether stimulated by the infectious activity of these "war times," or convinced that the "politeness of kings" is the best steamboat policy, the grandson of Erin who owns and commands the Southern Republic casts off his fastenings but half an hour after his promised start, and the short puff of the engine is enlivened by the wild strains of a steam-organ called a "calliope,"

which gladdens us with the a.s.surance that we are in the incomparable "land of Dixie."

Reserving for a cooler hour the attractions of the lower floor--a Hades consecrated to machinery, freight, and negroes--we betake ourselves to the second landing, where we find a long dining-hall surrounded by two tiers of state rooms, the upper one accessible by a stairway leading to a gallery, which divides the "saloon" between floor and roof. We are shown to our quarters, which leave much to be desired and nothing to spare, and rush from their suffocating atmosphere to the outer balcony, where a faint breeze stirs the air. There is a roofed balcony above us that corresponds to the second tier of state rooms, from which a party of excited Secessionists are discharging revolvers at the dippers on the surface and the cranes on the banks of the river.

After we have dropped down five or six miles from Montgomery, the steam whistle announces our approach to a landing, and, as there is no wharf in view, we watch curiously the process by which our top-heavy craft, under the sway of a four-knot current, is to swing round in her invisible moorings. As we draw nigh to a wagon-worn indenture in the bank, the "scream" softens into the dulcet pipes of the "calliope," and the steamer doubles upon her track, like an elephant turning at bay, her two engines being as independent of each other as Seceding States, and, slowly stemming the stream, lays her nose upon the bank, and holds it there, with the judicious aid of her paddles, until a long plank is run ash.o.r.e from her bow, over which three pa.s.sengers, with valises, make way for a planter and his family, who come on board. The gang-plank is hauled in, the steamer turns her head down stream with the expertness of a whale in a ca.n.a.l, and we resume our voyage. We renew these stoppages at various times before dark, landing here a barrel and there a box, and occasionally picking up a pa.s.senger.

After supper, which is served on a series of parallel tables running athwart the saloon, we return to enjoy from the balcony the cool obscurity of the evening in this climate, where light means heat. As we cleave the gla.s.s surface of the black water, the timber-clad banks seem to hem us in more closely and to shut up in the vista before us, and while we glide down with a rapidity which would need but the roar of rapids to prefigure a cataract beyond, we yield to the caprice of fancy, inst.i.tuting comparisons between the dark perspective ahead and the mystery of the future.

Again a scream, and a ruddy light flashes from our prow and deepens the shades around us. This proceeds from the burning of "light wood"--a highly resinous pine--in a wire basket hung on gimbals and held like a landing-net below the bow of the steamer, so as to guide without blinding the pilot, who is ensconced like a Hansom cabman upon its roof.

The torch-bearer raises his cresset as we steam up to the bank, and plants it in a socket, when a hawser is seized round a tree, and the crew turned ash.o.r.e to "wood up." There is a steep high bank above us, and while dusky forms are flitting to and fro with food for our furnaces, we survey a long stairway ascending the bank at a sharp angle in a cut, which is lost in the sheds that crown the eminence over head.

This stair is flanked on either side by the bars of an iron tramway, up which freight is hauled when landed, and parallel to it is a wooden slide, down which bales of cotton and sacks of corn are shot upon the steamer. One or two pa.s.sengers slowly ascend, and a voice in the air notifies us that a team is at hand with a load of ladies, who shortly after are seen picking their way down the flight of steps. The cresset is constantly replenished with fresh light wood, and the shadows cast by its flickering flame make us regret that we have not with us a Turner to preserve this scene, which would have been a study for Rembrandt or Salvator Rosa.

At midnight we halt for a couple of hours at Selma, a "rising town,"

which has taken a start of late, owing to the arrival of a branch railway, that connects it with Tennessee and the Mississippi River. Here a huge _embarcadere_, several stories high, seems fastened to the side of the bank, and affords us an opportunity of stepping out from either story of the Southern Republic upon a corresponding landing. Upon one of these floors there are hackmen and hotel runners, competing for those who land, and indicating the proximity of a town, if not a city. Our captain had resolved upon making but a short stay, in lieu of tying up until morning--his usual practice--when an acquaintance comes on board and begs him to wait an hour for a couple of ladies and some children, whom he will hunt up a mile or so out of town. Times are hard, and the captain very cheerfully consents, not insensible to the flattering insinuation: "You know our folks never go with any one but you, if they can help it."

The next day and evening are a repet.i.tion of the foregoing scenes, with more plantations in view and a general air of tillage and prosperity. We are struck by the uniformity of the soil, which everywhere seems of inexhaustible fertility, and by the unvarying breadth of the stream, which, but for its constantly recurring sinuosities, might pa.s.s for a broad s.h.i.+p ca.n.a.l. We also remark that the bluffs rarely sink into bottoms susceptible of overflow, and admire the verdure of the primitive forest, a tangle of magnolias in full flower, of laurel, and of various oaks peculiar to this region, and which, though never rising to the dignity of that n.o.ble tree in higher lat.i.tudes, are many of them extremely graceful. All this sylva of moderate stature is intertwined with creepers, and at intervals we see the Spanish moss, indicating the malarious exhalations of the soil beneath. The Indian corn, upon which the Southerners rely princ.i.p.ally for food, has attained a height of two feet, and we were told that, in consequence of the war, it is sown in greater breadth than usual. The cotton plant has but just peeped above the earth, and, alluding to its tenderness, those around us express anxieties about that crop, which, it seems, are never allayed until it has been picked, bagged and pressed, s.h.i.+pped and sold.

As I am not engaged upon an itinerary, let these sketches suffice to convey an idea of the four hundred and seventeen miles of winding river which connect Montgomery with Mobile, to which place the Southern Republic conveyed us in thirty-four hours, stoppings included.

One of the Egyptian pyramids owes its origin to the strange caprice of a princess, and the Southern Republic is said to have been built with the proceeds of an accidental "haul" of Gold Coast natives, who fell into the net of her enterprising proprietor. This worthy, born of Irish parents in Milk street, is too striking a type of what the late Mr.

Webster was wont to call a "Northern man with Southern principles," not to deserve something more than a pa.s.sing notice.

For out-and-out Southern notions there is nothing in Dixie's Land like the successful emigrant from the North and East. Captain Meagher had at his fingers' ends all the politico-economical facts and figures of the Southern side of the question, and rested his reasoning solely upon the more sordid and material calculations of the Secessionists. It was a question of tariffs. The North had, no doubt, provided the protection of a navy, the facilities of mails, the construction of forts, Custom Houses, and Post Offices, in the South, and placed countless well-paid offices at the disposal of gentlemen fond of elegant leisure; but for all these the South had been paying more than their value, and when Abolitionists were allowed to elect a Sectional President, and the system of forced labor, which is the basis of Southern prosperity, was threatened, the South were too happy to take a "snap judgment," as in a _pie poudre_ Court, and declare the Federal compact forfeited and annulled forever.

During the long second day of our voyage, we examined the faces of the proletarians, whose color and const.i.tutions so well adapted them for the Cyclopian realms of the main deck. Among them we detect several physiognomies which strike us as resembling seedlings from the Gold Coast rather than the second or third fruits of ancient transplantation.

A fellow traveller gratifies at the same time our curiosity and our penetration. There are several native Africans, or, as they are called in Cuba, _bozales_, on board. They are the property of the argumentative captain, and were acquired by a coup de main, at which I have already hinted in this letter. It seems that a club of planters in this State and one or two others resolved, little more than a year ago, to import a cargo of Africans. They were influenced partly by cupidity and partly by fancy to set the United States laws at defiance, and to evince their contempt for New England philanthropy. The job was accepted by an Eastern house, which engaged to deliver the cargo at a certain point on the coast within certain limits of time.

Whether the s.h.i.+pment arrived earlier than antic.i.p.ated, or whether Captain Meagher was originally designed as the person to whom the bold and delicate manoeuvre of landing them should be intrusted, it is certain that on a certain Sunday in last July he took a little coasting trip in his steamer Czar, and appeared at Mobile on the following morning in season to make his regular voyage up river. It is no less certain that he ran the dusky strangers in at night by an unfrequented pa.s.s, and landed them among the cane-brakes of his own plantation with sufficient celerity to be back at the moorings of the Czar without his absence having been noticed. The vessel from which the _bozales_ were delivered was scuttled and sunk, and her master and crew found their way North by rail.

But the parties in interest soon claimed to divide the spoils, when, to their infinite disgust, the enterprising Captain very coolly professed to ignore the whole business, and defied them to seek to recover by suit at law property the importation of which was regarded and would be punished as felony, if not as piracy, by the judicial tribunals. A case was made and issue joined, when the Captain proved a circ.u.mstantial _alibi_, and, having cast the claimants, doled them out a few _bonzes_, perhaps to escape a.s.sa.s.sination, as sh.e.l.ls, while he kept the oyster in the shape of the pick of the importation, which he still holds, reconciling his conscience to the transaction by interpreting it as _salvage_.

All this is told us by our interlocutor, who was one of the losers by the affair, and who stigmatized the conduct of its hero as having been treacherous. The latter, after repeated jocular inquiries, suffers his vanity to subdue his reticence, and finishes by "acknowledging the corn."

In the forenoon of the second day we meet two steamers ascending the river, with heavy cargoes, and are told that they are the Keyes and the Lewis, recently warned off, and _not seized_ by the blockading squadron off Pensacola. They are deep with provisions for the forces of the Confederate States Army before Pickens, which must now be dispatched from Montgomery by rail.

In Mobile, for the first time since leaving Was.h.i.+ngton, "we realize" the entire stagnation of business. There are but five vessels in port, chiefly English, which will suffice to carry away the _debris_ of the cotton crop. Exchange on the North is unsalable, owing to the impossibility of importing coin through the unsettled country, and bills on London are of slow sale at par, which would leave a profit of seven per cent. upon the importation of gold from your side.

MOBILE, Sunday, May 11.

The heat of the city rendered an excursion to which I was invited, for the purpose of visiting the forts at the entrance of the bay, exceedingly agreeable, and I was glad to get out from the smell of warm bricks to the breezy waters of the sea. The party comprised many of the leading merchants and politicians of this city, which is the third in importance as a port of exportation in the United States of America.

There was not a man among them who did not express, with more or less determination, the resolve never to submit to the rule of the accursed North. Let there be no mistake whatever as to the unanimity which exists at present in the South to fight for what it calls its independence, and to carry on a war to the knife with the Government of the United States.

I have frequently had occasion to remark the curious operation of the doctrine of State Rights on the minds of the people: but an examination of the inst.i.tutions of the country as they actually exist leads to the inference that, where the tyranny of the majority is at once irresponsible and cruel, it is impossible for any man, where the doctrine prevails, to resist it with safety or success. It is the inevitable result of the action of this majority, as it operates in America, first to demoralize and finally to absorb the minority; and even those who have maintained what are called "Union doctrines," and who are opposed to secession or revolution, have bowed their heads before the majesty of the ma.s.s, and have hastened to signify their acquiescence in the decisions which they have hitherto opposed. The minority, cowardly in consequence of the arbitrary and vindictive character of the overwhelming power against which it has struggled, and disheartened by defeat, of which the penalties are tremendous in such conflicts as these, hastens to lick the feet of the conqueror, and rushes with frantic cheers after the chariot in the triumph which celebrates its own humiliation. If there be a minority at all on this great question of Secession in the Southern States, it hides in holes and corners, inaccessible to the light of day, and sits there in darkness and sorrow, silent and fearful, if not dumb and hopeless. There were officers who had served with distinction under the flag of the United States, now anxious to declare that it was not their flag, and that they had no affection for it, although they were ready to admit they would have continued to serve under it if the States had not gone out. A man's State, in fact, under the operation of these majority doctrines to which I have adverted, holds hostages for his fidelity to the majority, not only in such land or fortune as he may possess within her bounds, but in his family, his relatives, and kin, and if the State revolts, the officer who remains faithful to the flag of the United States is considered by the authorities of the revolting State a traitor, and, what is worse, he is treated in the persons of those he leave behind him as the worst kind of political renegade. General Scott, but a few months ago the most honored of men in a Republic which sets such store on military success, is now reviled and abused because, being a Virginian by birth, he did not immediately violate his oath, abandon his post, and turn to fight against the flag which he has ill.u.s.trated by repeated successes, during a career of half a century, the moment his State pa.s.ses an ordinance of Secession.

An intelligent and accomplished officer, who accompanied me to-day around the forts under his command, told me that he had all along resisted Secession, but that when his State went out he felt it was necessary to resign his commission in the United States army, and to take service with the Confederates. Among the most determined opponents of the North, and the most vehement friends of what are called here "domestic inst.i.tutions," are the British residents, English, Irish, and Scotch, who have settled here for trading purposes, and who are frequently slave-holders. These men have no State rights to uphold, but they are convinced of the excellence of things as they are, or find it their interest to be so.