INSTANCES OF OUTRAGE AND Instances of Outrage and Suffrages. Instances of Outrage and Suffering. the fellow had gone ashore, | was deemed a lenient puntaking with him some ishment-hanging was the clothes to wash. The five usual mode of treating men completed the search which, it became "such scoundrels." The inhuman wretches evident to the captain, was but a cover for the took their prisoners to the front of the court"citizens" to examine his cargo, his means of house, where, both being stripped to the waist resistance, &c., as well as to discover, if pos- and tied to a tree, they were whippedsible, some" Abolition literature" by which to twenty-five blows with heavy leather thongs to seize the entire crew and vessel as "danger- being administered to each. The elder Ryder, ous to the peace of the community." The being an old man, was a terrible sufferer "Committee" returned on the following day, under the horrible infliction. After the "pun late in the evening. It had grown to fifteen in ishment" both were thrust into cells in the numbers, who proceeded to thoroughly ran- jail. The large crowd which witnessed the sack the vessel's hold. Every chest and whipping enjoyed it, apparently with a bunker were overhauled. Nothing "danger- real zest, as it jeered and laughed voous" being found, the "Committee” passed ciferously during the brutal punishment. on shore where, summoning the negroes who The two men lay fourteen days in that jail, had been engaged in unloading the vessel, suffering exquisite tortures from their they examined them as to the conversations on wounds. At the end of that time five men the vessel. Six of them were finally most came, took them out, carried them to their unmercifully whipped, to make them "con- vessel, and remained until the craft stood out fess." What they confessed, was not known to sea. to the captain; but, as they probably stated anything required, the mob, it soon became evident, was ready for proceedings. captain and his son went before the "Committee" and stated that, not only had no conversation been had, but that they had positively forbidden any unnecessary communication between his men and the negroesthat one or the other of the officers always was present, to see that orders were obeyed. This did not satisfy the "Committee," and the two were taken to the jail at Jefferson, fifteen miles away. There they were again arraigned before another "Vigilance Association," and charged with being Abolitionists -a charge which both men denied as unfounded in proof. No proof being produced, they were allowed to spend that night at a hotel. A cook (black) from another vessel, was produced on the succeeding morning, who stated that he had heard both white men say they were Republicans, and would have voted for Mr. Lincoln if an opportunity The This instance of atrocious wrong was simply one of several similar cases inflicted in the same neighborhood. The civilized world may be excused for doubting evidence so inhuman; but, there is no room for disbelief when an old man's scarred back is exhibited to the pitying eye. We may close this revolting record with the following statement made by the Cincinnati Gazette, of May 18th: "Nearly every day some fresh arrivals of refu gees from the violence and ferocity of the New Dahomey bring to this city fresh and corroborative proofs of the condition of affairs in the rebel States. Many of these have come thence at the peril of their lives, and to avoid threatened death, have taken a hurried journey surrounded by thick dangers from the madmen who now fill the South with deeds of violence and bloodshed. The people in that section seem to have been given up to a madness that is without parallel in the history of civilization-we had almost written barbarism. They are cut off from the news of the North, purposely blinded by their leaders as to the movements and real power of the Government, and in their local presses receive and swallow the most outrageous falsehoods and misstatements. had offered. The black fellow who had taken the clothes to wash, was then brought forward, and he corroborated the statement of the other black man. This was deemed evi"Yesterday, one William Silliman, a person of indence conclusive to the "Committee" and the telligence and reliability, reached this city, return sentence of a public flogging was immediate-ing from a year's residence in Southern Mississippi. ly decreed against both father and son. This, He was one of a party who, in 1860, went from this Instances of Outrage city and engaged in the con- and Suffering. "The party who is suspected of hostility, or even a man was hung under similar circumstances, and still The instances herein given are such as and monstrous, belonging to another age, and cer- seemed to us to be so verified as to admit of tainly to another county than our own. no doubt as to their entire truthfulness. Many others made public, and some of a most outrageous character, which have been repeated to us by refugees in person, we have refrained from referring to, since a suspicious public might question the authenticity of their unsupported statements. Enough has been given to throw an historical light upon the animus of the Southern people engaged in the revolution. The future historian of thorities. These five men were Northerners, at dif- in that spirit, not only a key to the social the great rebellion will not fail to discover light sympathy, with the rebellion, is at once seized. He is fortunate if he is allowed to leave in a given time, without flogging. He is still fortunate if only a flogging is added to the order to depart. Many have been hung or shot on the spot. Mr. Silliman details five instances of the latter as having occurred among the amiable people of Itawamba County, within the past ten weeks, of several of which he was the eye-witness, a mob wreaking their vengeance upon their victims under the approval of local au ferent times assailed by the rebels. Three of them were strangers to all about them. "On Saturday of last week a man was hung at Guntown, who refused to join the rebel army, and also refused to leave. He was taken to a tree in the outskirts of the village, and left hanging to a limb. state of that section of the country, but will, 1 CHAPTER XLII. THE FINAL ISSUE. MR. BUCHANAN AND HIS ERRORS.* THE Southern seceded States, notwithstanding their apparent confidence in their future, still were much alarmed at the attitude of the North, as well as at Mr. Lincoln's expressed determination to "retake and hold" the property of the Government seized by the revolutionists. From the preliminary stages of the secession movement, its leaders had, with entire reliance, counted upon a strong defensive support in the North which would restrain any attempts at coercion, should they be made by the Republicans and Douglas Democrats. New York City alone was regarded not only as ready to sustain the South in its secession, but, looking to the future through the medium of tasteful men in the Lower House; with Toombs, Davis, Pickens, Brown, Slidell, Yancey, Rhett, Cobb, Benjamin-all plotting and counter-plotting for their own preeminence in the new nation: it is not remarkable that the secession movement should have resulted as it did-in driving the North, as a section, into an attitude of firm and determined resistance. Had the wiser counsels of Mr. Stephens, Judge Campbell, and other Southern conservatives" prevailed, it is highly probable that the history of the revolution would not have been written in blood-that diplomacy would have taken the place of the bayonet. Let the story of that reign of madmen remain, with its moral, as a warning to future malcontents! 66 Mayor Wood's treasonable and preposterous | olutionists in the Senate; with equally dismanifesto regarding the independence of New York island, Southern men felt assured that the result would justify their most arrogant and precipitate steps in the formation of a Confederacy of Slave States. This rashness unquestionably was their ruin. Peaceable secession the administration Democracy stood ready to defend, as all their speeches in Congress during December, and the tone of the leading administration journals in the North, during the same month and the first half of January, will demonstrate. But, who ever knew the South, as a section, to treat any measure with calmness which affected their social or political status? The spirit which domineered at home was not one to play the courtier in the presence of its legislative equals; and when the serpent of the revolu tion began to uncoil-began to put forth, one by one, its hydra heads, its fangs were freely shown, and those who would have bade the monster depart in peace from the National Capital, were compelled to assume an attitude of defence against its malice and folly. The speech of Mr. Sickles, in the House, February 5th, sounded the alarum in these words of warning: "In November it was peaceable secession. We could agree to that. I am for it. In January it was forcible secession; and then, sir, the friends of peaceable secession in the North were transformed into timid apologists. In February it is spoliation and war. Armies were raised under the guns of forts belonging to the United States, the ju risdiction of which has been ceded to us by the solemn acts of the Seceding States. Measures of open war only yielded to Mexican spoliations, and I say, in the presence of this new and last phase of the secession movement, that it can have no friends in the North-it can have no apologists in the North; but there will soon be no exception to the general denunciation which it must meet from every loyal and patriotic citizen of this country." Before such an issue, rashness and insolence would have given way at least to an outward show of kindness, in order to foster the moral and material force of that Northern sentiment in favor of peaceable secession; but, with a mountebank like Wigfall-with such a "tower of strength" as that embodiment of coarseness, James M. Mason-with the distempered and thwarted Robert M. T. Hunter-to defend and direct the cause of the rev In view of the apparently inevitable issue of a defence against their aggressions, the most extraordinary exertions were put forth by the Provisional Government to meet impending emergencies. As stated elsewhere, the levy of troops became general throughout the Seceded States. The forts in possession of the revolutionists were strengthened, and strongly garrisoned. Before Fort Pickens, off Pensacola, a powerful army gathered in February, under command of Braxton Bragg, late of the United States army. Before Fort Sumter the outlines of the lands around fairly bristled with guns. It was of the first necessity, in event of a conflict with the Federal Government, that both of these fortresses should be in possession of the Confederates. They thus become, per consensum, the points of all interest to the people. around, and within their ramparts must the first blood be shed of a contest at which the civilized world should stand aghast. In view of Mr. Lincoln's several declarations, on his route from Springfield to the Capital, regarding the forts and the property of the Government, the Charleston Mercury called, in these terms, for haste and extent of warlike preparations: "If his (Lincoln's) declarations are to be relied on, he will attempt to retake the forts now in the possession of the Confederate States and reenforce those now in the possession of the United States. That will be war-war in our bays and harbors. He will probably be willing to confine it to such localities. We have no idea that he will dare a campaigu with an army to conquer the South, but we can make the war he will have begun as wide as the ocean itself. It is said that New England made more money than she lost in the war of 1812, by pri vateers on the British commerce. We of the Con federate States cannot be the greatest loser at such a game. But, whatever may be our instrumentalities of defence or aggression, the Provisional Government was established to put them in full operation against our enemies of the North. It is a war government. It may be compelled to raise an unusual army. It may be compelled to lay unusual taxesto call for unusual loans. Let the people of the Confederate States view with forbearance its imperfections or irregularities, and be prepared to support it in all its difficulties. Within one month we will know what our necessities require. The Provisional Government may be useless, and a permanent government, looking to all those guaranties which a free government require, may supersede its tempo rary existence. The terms here used-" our enemies of the North"-implied a fact which should be given due weight, viz.: that the Southern populace had been educated to believe that the North was, an open and declared enemy of the South; hence, the unanimity with which they responded to the call to arms, and submitted their necks to their rulers' yoke. The relative strength of each section became a subject of quite general attention, as well as the comparative courage and activity of the Northern and Southern people. The intelligent community never before took such interest in the census statistics. It is indicative of the extraordinary self-deception which the Southern people practised upon themselves, that they deemed their six millions of white population fully equivalent, in material force, to the nineteen millions of the North. It would have been considered an evidence of cowardice in the South for a person to have confessed the equality of the North with the South, man-for-man. The local and State prejudices which ever have prevailed in the Cotton-growing Statesowing as much to the want of general intelligence among the masses of the people, as to the egotismʼand dictatorial spirit engendered by long exercise of the rights of masters over slaves-served to strengthen this over-estimate of strength and the resources of war. Whiting was dispatched by Jefferson Davis to inspect the fortifications of Charleston. The "Floating Battery," of which great expectations were formed, was launched February 25th. It was simply a floating fortification about one hundred feet front, to mount four to six heavy guns. It was low in the water, built of pine and palmetto logs and ribbed with iron-thus supposed to be impervious to shot. The design was to anchor it in a commanding position off Sullivan's island, where it could enfilade the ramparts of Sumter.* The fortress on Cumming's point was a firm structure of green logs covered in sand, mounting guns of a very heavy calibre, with one or two very effective rifled cannon. The other batteries strung along on Sullivan, Morris and James islands, were located in Sumter-thus to cut off all reenforcements by spots to command the channel approaches to sea. Fort Moultrie was a frowning fortress, of a nameless number of guns, evidently prepared for throwing shot and shell in an of the "Invincible Eighty" which lay off in appalling shower upon the sea-girt fastness the harbor, as cullen, silent and dark as a sleeping volcano. This was the consideration which the Con federate Government vouchsafed to the Audi alteram partem. We feel the force of the injunction when we are called to sit in judgment on the Administration of Mr. Buchanan. With the effects of his misrule we are so painfully impressed, that the impulse to pronounce a sweeping condemnation is in deed strong. The tragedy of war-the humiliation of our National prestige—the awful The idea of this battery was by no means an original one. At the seige of Gibralter, 1782, ten floating forts were constructed, at a cost of upwards of $500,000. They were so compactly built as to be deemed invuluerable, and, mounting from ten to eighteen guns each, truly were formidable engines of destruction. They worked well and did great execution, until the fortress threw hot shot, when they were soon all in flames, and those on board During the last days of February, Col. perished almost to a man. MR. BUCHANAN AND HIS ERRORS. 507 peril to Republican Government which he bequeathed as a legacy to his successor-all rise up, not like spirits, but like palpable presences, to cry out "anathema!" There are, too, minor sins for which partisans of the Democratic faith will not fail to hold him responsible. He assumed the Chief Magistracy as the representative of a powerful party whose rule has rarely been broken since Jefferson laid its bases in the National heart. He vacated the Chief Magistracy to leave that party broken, bruised, abased. He found the country prosperous-he left it weak. He found a Treasury overflowinghe left it bankrupt. He trailed his robes of office in the dust of politicians' haunts, and made his high dignity a bye-word in caucuses and committee-rooms. In a word, he dishonored his country-dishonored his office-dishonored his trusts, and his memory promises not to be precious with mankind, nor honorable in history. could demand, at his elbow were men as bra zen, as dangerous, as traitorous as their pa rent, the Prince of Darkness: all'of whom watched, warned, plotted, promised, cajoled, threatened, until the President was wholly ob scured in the partisan. If he committed inexcusable errors the first was in his pledges of service; his next was the choice of his advisers; his third was in following their advice. Out of these sprang the terrible train of evils which now darken his name and load his memory with a weight of calamities which all the special pleading of special chroniclers will scarcely be able to transfer to other shoulders. Following upon the Kansas imbroglio came his second blow to the Democracy, which still clung to him as its leader. His intrigues against Mr. Douglas and the persecution of his friends-his support of the irregular Southern nominee, irretrievably dissevered the two wings of the party and sent the antiLecompton or Northern wing over to the Republicans as their only means of defence against his attempted demoralization.* He triumphed by seeing his rival fall, but it was the triumph of madness; for, hardly had the deed of defeat been recorded ere he found himself betrayed by his Southern friends, and he opened his eyes to behold beneath his feet a mine which the creatures of his smiles had placed there not only for his own destruction but for the destruction of his country. * In a very undignified speech, made to a crowd of Breckenridge and Lane "ratifiers," the President unqualifiedly scoffed the idea of "Squatter Sover But, for all these miseries entailed, there still are some who offer a defence, if not in justification at least in palliation, of his acts. He was chosen Chief Magistrate to serve a party rather than to serve the country. He was both openly and secretly bound to men and to a policy, which, to have forsaken, would have required the moral and physical courage of a Jackson. He dared not "assume the responsibility:" and, in this dependance, is written much of the misery which followed upon his rule. He pledged Kansas to the South as the price of Southern support. To redeem that pledge he stultified himself, he outraged the first principles of true democracy, he caused human blood to be shed and a fair land to struggle into the Union through desolution and curses. To make Kansas a Slave State, and thus "preserve the balance of power," he pursued a course ealculated to inscribe the word "odious" over his name. His reward was to see the Re-right to pass any law to establish, impair, or abolish Slavery publican party grow into the public heart, flourishing and daily strengthened on his very errors and follies. What should he do? desert his Southern friends and bend before the unqestionable will of the people of the North? He dared not desert! He could not if he would; for, in his Cabinet were men subtle and unscrupulous as an impious cause eignty"-the very principle upon which he had sesured his promotion to office. He only recorded his own weakness in that desertion of principle at the behest of Southern men. He said: "We have been told that non-intervention on the part of Cong ess with Slavery in the Territories is the true policy. Very well. I most cheerfully admit that Congress ha no in the Territories. Let this principle of non-inte vention be extended to the Territorial Legislatures, and let it be declared that they in I ke manner have no power to establish, impair, or destroy Slavery, and then the controversy is in effect ended. This is all that is required at present, and I verily beheve all that will ever be required. Hands off by Congress, and hands off by the Territorial Legislature !" Had he made this speech in 1856, James Buchanan never would have been President of the United States. |