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RECEPTION OF JEFFERSON DAVIS.

257

the Military and Naval Committees to report plans for the organization of an army and navy, and to make provision for the officers in each service who had deserted their flag and were seeking employment from the Confederates at Montgomery.

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1861.

Preparations were now made for the reception and inauguration of Davis. He was at his home near Vicksburg when apprised of his election, and he hastened to Montgomery on the circuitous railway route by the way of Jackson, Grand Junction, Chattanooga, and West Point. His journey was a continuous ovation. He made twenty-five speeches on the way, all breathing treason to the Government by whose bounty he had been educated and fed, and whose laws he had frequently sworn to uphold. A committee of the Convention and the public. authorities of Montgomery met him eight miles from the city." At Opelika, two companies from Columbus, Georgia, joined the February 15 escort. He reached his destination at ten o'clock at night, where he was received with unbounded enthusiasm. Cannon thundered a welcome, and the shouts of a vast multitude filled his ears. At the railway station he was formally received, and made a speech, in which he briefly reviewed the then position of the South, and said the time for compromises had passed. "We are now determined," he said, "to maintain our position, and make all who oppose us smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel." He had no doubts of the result, if coercion should be persisted in. "We will maintain our rights and our government," he said, "at all hazards. We ask nothing; we want nothing; and will have no complications. If the other States join our Confederacy, they can freely come in on our terms. Our separation from the old Union is complete, and no compromise, no reconstruction can now be entertained.”

Davis was conducted from the station to the Exchange Hotel, where a large crowd, many of them women, awaited his arrival. He made a speech from the balcony or gallery to the assembled populace, while on each side of him stood a negro, with a candle, that the people might see his face. He addressed them as "Brethren of the Confederated States of America." He expressed undoubting confidence in the success of the revolution they had just inaugurated. They had nothing to fear at home, for they were united as one people; and they had nothing to fear from abroad, for if war should come, their valor would be sufficient for any occasion.

February.

The inaugural ceremonies took place at noon on the 18th, upon a platform erected in front of the portico of the State House. Davis and Stephens, with the Rev. Dr. Manly, riding in an open barouche, and followed by a large concourse of State officials and citizens, moved from the Exchange Hotel to the Capitol, while cannon were thundering. The eminence on which the Capitol stands was crowded at an early hour. It is said that so grand a spectacle had not been seen in the Slavelabor States since the ovation given in New Orleans to the victorious General Jackson, in January, 1815.

At one o'clock in the afternoon, after a prayer by Dr. Manly, Davis commenced pronouncing his Inaugural Address. He defended the right of secession; and he declared that, "moved by no interest or passion to invade the rights of others, and anxious to cultivate peace and commerce with the

VOL. I.-17

258

INAUGURATION OF JEFFERSON DAVIS.

nations," if they could not hope to avoid war, they might at least expect that posterity would acquit them of having needlessly engaged in it. "Doubly justified," he said, "by the absence of wrong on their part, and by wanton aggression on the part of others," there could be no doubt of success. The world must have their "agricultural productions" (meaning cotton), and mutual interest would invite good-will and kind offices, especially from the manufacturing and navigating States of the Union. "If, however," he said, "passion or lust of dominion should cloud the judgment or inflame the ambition of those States, we must prepare to meet the emergency, and maintain, by the final arbitrament of the sword, that position which we have assumed among the nations of the earth." Ile declared that they had separated from the old Union from necessity, and not from choice. Having done so, they must prepare to stand alone; and he recommended the immediate organization of an army and navy. He suggested privateering or piracy as an arm of strength for them. "Besides the ordinary remedies," he said, "the well-known resources for retaliation upon the commerce of an enemy will remain to us." He closed by invoking the protection of the Almighty, while they should be performing the work of destroying the noble fabric of free institutions erected by the fathers. At the close of the address, the oath of office was administered to Davis by Ilowell Cobb, the President of the Convention.

In the evening, after the inauguration, Davis, in imitation of the custom

THE WHITE HOUSE" AT MONTGOMERY.

at the National Capital, held a levee at Estelle Hall; and Montgomery was brilliantly lighted up by bonfires and illuminations. A spacious mansion was soon afterward provided for Davis and his family, and it became distinguished as the "White House of the Southern Confederacy."

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Davis chose, from among the most. active of his fellow-conspirators, fitting agents to assist him in his nefarious work, and ostentatiously tiled them in imitation of the National Government. He called Robert Toombs to act as "Secretary of State;" Charles G. Memminger, as "Secretary of the Treasury;" Le Roy Pope Walker, as "Secretary of War;" Stephen R. Mallory, as "Secretary of the Navy," and John H. Reagan, as PostmasterGeneral." Afterward, Judah P. Benjamin was appointed to be "AttorneyGeneral." William M. Browne, late editor of the Washington Constitution,

1 The official residence of the President of the United States, at Washington City, being white, has always been better known by the title of "The White House" than by any other.

DAVIS AND HIS CHIEF COUNSELORS.

259

President Buchanan's official organ, was appointed "Assistant Secretary of State," and Philip Clayton, of Georgia, "Assistant Secretary of the Treasury." He offered John Slidell a seat in his "cabinet," but that conspirator preferred a safer sphere of action,

as minister to some foreign court. He was gratified; and Davis's leading associates in crime were all soon supplied with places of honor and profit.

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JOHN H. REAGAN.

Jefferson Davis was about fifty-four years of age at the time we are considering. His person was sinewy and light, a little above the middle hight, and erect in posture. His features were regular and well-de ned; his face was thin and much wrinkled; one eye was sightless, and the other was dark and piercing. He was born in Kentucky, and was taken to reside in Mississippi in early boyhood. He was educated at the Military Academy at West Point, on the Hudson River; served under his father-in-law, General Taylor, in the war with Mexico; occupied a seat in the National Senate, and was a member of President Pierce's Cabinet, as Secretary of War. He was a man of much ability, and considerable refinement of manner when in good society. As a politician, he was utterly unscrupulous. In public life, he was untruthful and treacherous. He was not a statesman, nor a high-toned partisan. He was calm, audacious, reticent, polished, cold, sagacious, rich in experience of State affairs, possessed of great concentration of purpose, an imperious will, abounding pride, and remarkable executive ability. He was a relentless foe, and was well fitted to be the leader in the commission of a crime greater in magnitude than any recorded in the annals of mankind.

Alexander H. Stephens, the lieutenant of the chief of the conspirators, was a few years the junior of Davis, having been born in Georgia in 1812. He had climbed to distinction from obscurity by the force of his own genius. Sickness had kept his frame weak from boyhood, and he never weighed a hundred pounds avoirdupois. His voice was effeminate, yet, when it was used in glowing oratory, of which he was often a charming master, it became, at times, quite sonorous. He was for several years an able representative of his State in the National Congress. More conservative and honest, and less courageous than Davis, he performed a comparatively passive part in the great drama of crime in which he was an actor. Three of the members of Davis's privy council, namely, Toombs, Mallory, and Benjamin, had lately left their seats in the National Senate. Their previous career we shall hereafter consider. Memminger was a man of fine culture, and eminent as a lawyer. So also was Walker, whose social and professional position in northern Alabama was inferior to but few. Reagan was a lawyer of ability, and was a judge in Texas when he rebelled against his Government.

The Confederates, having assumed for their league a national character, at once presented their claims to recognition as such by the powers of the earth. They sent commissioners to Europe to secure formal recognition by,

260 THE CONSPIRATORS' REPRESENTATIVES IN EUROPE.

and make commercial arrangements with, the leading governments there. These Commissioners were William L. Yancey, of Alabama; P. A. Rost, of Louisiana; A. Dudley Mann, of Virginia; and T. Butler King, of Georgia. Yancey was to operate in England, Rost in France, and Mann in Holland and Belgium. King seems to have had a sort of roving commission. Yancey had more real ability and force of character than either of the others. He was not a statesman, but a demagogue, and lacked almost every requisite for a diplomatist. He could fill with wild passion an excitable populace at home, but he utterly failed to impress the more sober English mind with a sense of his wisdom or the justice of his cause. Rost was a Frenchman, who emigrated to Louisiana in early life, married a woman of fortune, and finally reached a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court of that State. Mann was a dull statistician of very moderate ability; and King was an extensive farmer and slaveholder. These men so fitly represented their bad cause in Europe, that confidence in the justice or the ultimate success of that cause was speedily so impaired, that they went wandering about, seeking in vain for willing listeners among men of character in diplomatic circles; and, finally, they abandoned their missions in disgust, to the relief of statesmen who were wearied with their importunities and offended by their duplicity. Mr. Stephens assumed the office of expounder of the principles upon which the new government was founded and was to be established. He

1861.

made the occasion of a speech to the citizens of Savannah, March 21, Georgia," the opportunity for giving that exposition to the world. He declared that the immediate cause of the rebellion was African Slavery existing in the United States; and said that Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this as the "rock on which the Union would split." He doubted whether Jefferson understood the truth on which that rock stood. He, and "most of the leaders at the time of the formation of the old Constitution," entertained the erroneous idea that "the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically." They erroneously believed "that in the order of Providence the institution would be evanescent and pass away." That, he said, was "the prevailing idea of the fathers," who rested upon the false assumption put forth in the Declaration of Independence, that "all men are created equal."

"Our new government," said the Expounder, "is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that Slavery— subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so, even among us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well that this truth was not generally admitted even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty

1 This was in flat contradiction of the extra-judicial opinion of the late Chief-Justice Taney, who said that the "prevailing opinion of the time" was, that the negroes were “so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect." See his decision in the Dred Scott case.

FOUNDATION OF THE CONFEDERATE GOVERNMENT.

261 years ago.'. . . In the conflict, thus far, success has been, on our side, complete throughout the length and breadth of the Confederate States. It is upon this, as I have stated, our actual fabric is firmly planted; and I cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of a full recognition of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world." After reiterating the assurance that SLAVERY was the special, strong, and commendable foundation of the new "government," he blasphemously used the substance of the words which the Apostle applied to Christ, saying:-"This stone, which was rejected by the first builders, 'is become the chief stone of the corner' in our new edifice."

By these frank avowals of one of the chief men in the Confederacy, that SLAVERY was the corner-stone of their government, so called-that it was founded upon the principle that a superior race has a divine right to enslave an inferior race-that its ethics were those of the savage, who insists that "Might makes Right;" and the explicit avowal of the chief leader, that "all who oppose us shall smell Southern powder and feel Southern steel," mankind were plainly notified that an outlaw against the principles of Christianity, of Civilization, and of the Age was abroad, heavily mailed in political and social prejudices, brandishing a gleaming dagger, poison-tipped, and defying the authority of God and Man. How that outlaw was sheltered, and fed, and caressed, and strengthened, until more than half a million of precious lives had been sacrificed by his "steel," we shall observe hereafter.

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