CHAP. III. SENTIMENTS OF DISUNIONISTS. 1421 suppose that Abolition is the cause of dissolution between the North and the South. The Cavaliers, Jacobites, and the Huguenots who settled the South, naturally hate, contemn, and despise the Puritans who settled the North. The former are master races; the latter a slave race, the descendants of the Saxon serfs." Mr. Fitzhugh added: "Our women are far in advance of our men in their zeal for disunion. They fear not war, for every one of them feels confident that when their sons or husbands are called to the field, they will have a faithful body-guard in their domestic servants. Slaves are the only body-guard to be relied on. They [the women] and the clergy lead and direct the disunion movement." The Charleston Mercury, edited by a son of Barnwell Rhett, and the chief organ of the conspirators of South Carolina, scorning the assertion that anything so harmless as "Abolition twaddle" had caused any sectional feelings, declared, substantially, that it was an abiding consciousness of the degradation of the "chivalric Southrons" being placed on an equality in government with "the boors of the North" that made "Southern gentlemen " desire disunion. It said, haughtily, "We are the most aristocratic people in the world. Pride of caste, and color, and privilege makes every man an aristocrat in feelings." It was by men of this cast of mind that "Southern Rights" associations were formed, and were fostered for nearly thirty years before the Civil War, with disunion as their prime object. The feeling of contempt for the Northern masses among the "chivalric Southrons" was more intense in South Carolina than elsewhere. The self-constituted leaders of the people there, who hated democracy and a republican form of government, who yearned for the pomps of royalty and the privileges of an hereditary aristocracy, and who had persuaded themselves and the "common people" around them that they were superior to all others on the continent as patterns of gentility, refinement, courtly manners, grace, and every characteristic of the highest ideal of chivalry, had for many years yearned for separation from the vulgar North. William H. Trescott, who was Assistant Secretary of State under Buchanan, and one of the most active members of the "Southern Rights Association" of South Carolina (the avowed object of which was the destruction of the unity of the Republic), said, in an address before the South Carolina Historical Society in 1859: "More than once has the calm self-respect of old Carolina breeding been caricatured by the consequential insolence of vulgar imitators.' This was the common tone of thought among the leading South Carolinians. Dr. Russell, writing to the London Times at the close of April, 1861, said: “Their admiration for monarchical institutions on the English model, for privileged classes, and for a landed aristocracy and gentry, is undisguised and apparently genuine. Many are they who say, 'We would go back to-morrow, if we could.' An intense affection for the British connections, a love of British habits and customs, a respect for British sentiment, law, authority, order, civilization, and literature, pre-eminently distinguish the inhabitants of this State, who, glorying in their descent from ancient families on the three islands, whose fortunes they still follow, and with whose members they maintain, not unfrequently, familiar relations, regard with an aversion which it is impossible to give an idea of to one who has not seen its manifestations, the people of New England and the population of the Northern States, whom they regard as tainted beyond cure with the venom of Puritanism." There was a prevailing voice, Dr. Russell wrote, that said, "If we could only get one of the royal race of England to rule over us, we should be content." That sentiment, he wrote, "varied a hundred ways, has been repeated to me over and over again." So early as May, 1851, when there were active preparations in South Carolina for revolt, Muscoe R. H. Garnett, of Virginia, wrote to Mr. Trescott, then a leader of the "Southern Rights Association" in the first-named State, expressing his fears that Virginia would not consent to engage in the movement. The Legislature did not favor it, but he expressed the hopeful opinion that the law-makers did not reflect the sentiments of the people of the State. "In the East, at least," he said, "the great majority believe in the right of secession, and feel the deepest sympathy with Carolina in opposition to measures which they regard as she does. But the West-West Virginia— here is the rub!—only sixty thousand slaves to four hundred and ninety-four thousand whites! When I consider this fact, and the kind of argument which we have heard in this body, I cannot but regard with the greatest fear the question, whether Virginia would assist Carolina in such an issue. I must acknowledge, my dear sir, that I look to the future with almost as much apprehension as hope. You will object to the term Democrat. Democracy, in its original philosophical sense, is incompatible with slavery and the whole system of Southern society. . I do not hesitate to say that if the question is raised between Carolina and the Federal Government, and the latter prevails, the last hope of Republican government and, I fear, of Southern civilization is gone." The restless spirits of South Carolina continued to confer secretly with the politicians of the slave-labor States on the subject of disunion; and finally, in November, 1859, the Legislature of that State openly resolved that "the commonwealth was ready to enter, together with other slave-holding States, or such as desire prompt action, into the formation of a Southern Confeder acy." The Carolinians were specially anxious to secure the co-operation of CHAP. III. EARLY PREPARATIONS FOR DISUNION. 1423 the Virginians; and in January following, at the request of the Legislature, the governor of the State sent C. G. Memminger as a special commissioner to Virginia, for the purpose of enlisting its representatives in the scheme of disunion. With protestations of attachment to the Union, Mr. Memminger invited the Virginians to co-operate in a convention of delegates from slave-labor States to "take action for their defence;" in other words, to secede from the Union. He made an able plea, addressed to their reason, their passions, and their prejudices, and concluded by saying, "I have delivered into the keeping of Virginia the cause of the South." But the Virginians did not desire a Southern Confederacy wherein free-trade in African slaves would prevail, for it would seriously interfere with the profitable inter-state traffic in negroes. So they hesitated; and in an autograph letter before me, Mr. Memminger wrote to the editor of the Charleston Mercury, that the Democratic party in Virginia was "not a unit," that "Federal politics" made that "great State comparatively powerless," and that he saw "no men who would take the position of leaders in a revolution." I have cited these few utterances from speakers and writers who were participants or cotemporaries with the actors in the events of the late Civil War, that the reader may have a key to the real causes which brought about that war. These seem to have been chiefly a desire on the part of the slaveholders to be freed from social and political contact with the people of the free-labor States (whom they regarded as less cultivated, refined, chivalric, and civilized than themselves), with perfect freedom to extend and perpetuate the system of slave-labor, and revive, without hindrance, the African slave-trade. Notwithstanding the Charleston Mercury, at the beginning, gave greater prominence to the first-named cause, after more than three years of war (February, 1864), it was constrained to say: "South Carolina entered into this struggle for no other purpose than to maintain the institution of slavery. Southern independence has no other object or meaning. Independence and slavery must stand or fall together." When the election of Mr. Lincoln was certified, the political leaders in South Carolina were eager to begin the contemplated revolution. To be prepared for immediate action, an extraordinary session of the Legislature was assembled at Columbia on the 5th of November; and as the news of the result of the election went over the land, the governor of the State received congratulatory despatches from other commonwealths wherein the politicians were in sympathy with the Secessionists. "North Carolina will secede," a despatch from Raleigh said. "A large number of Bell men have declared for secession; the State will undoubtedly secede," said another from the capital of Alabama. Another from Milledgeville, Georgia, said: "The hour for action has come. This State is ready to assert her rights and independence. The leading men are eager for the business." "There is a great deal of excitement here," said a despatch from Washington city; "several extreme Southern men, in office, have donned the palmetto cockades and declared themselves ready to march South." A despatch from Richmond said: "If your State secedes, we will send you troops and volunteers to aid you." "Placards are posted about the city," said a message from New Orleans, "calling a convention of those favorable to the organization of a corps of minute-men." A second message from Washington said: "Be firm; a large quantity of arms will be shipped South from the Arsenal here to-morrow. The President is perplexed. His feelings are with the South, but he is afraid to assist them openly." So was revealed the fact that simultaneous action in favor of disunion had been preconcerted. As these despatches came, one after the other, to Columbia, and were immediately forwarded to Charleston, a blaze of pleasurable excitement was kindled among the citizens of the latter place. The palmetto flag, the emblem of the sovereignty of the State, was everywhere displayed. From the thronged streets went up cheer after cheer for a Southern Confederacy. All day long on the 7th of November, when it was known that Mr. Lincoln was elected, the citizens were harangued in the open air and in public halls, the speakers portraying the glories of State independence. Flags and banners, martial music, and the roar of cannon attested the general joy; and that night blazing bonfires and illuminations lighted up the city. Multitudes of palmetto cockades (made of blue silk ribbon, with a button in the centre bearing the figure of a palmetto tree) were worn in the streets of Charleston. Public offices under the Government of the United States were closed, or transferred to the "sovereign State" of South Carolina, in the most formal manner. On the 7th of November, Judge McGrath, of the United States District Court, solemnly resigned his office, saying to the jurors: "For the last time I have, as judge of the United States, administered the laws of the United States within the limits of South Carolina. So far as I am concerned, the temple of justice raised under the Constitution of the United States is now closed." He then laid aside his judicial gown and retired. The collector of customs at Charleston resigned at the same time; so also did the attorney-general. So it was that before a convention to consider the secession of the State from the Union had been authorized, the Secessionists, with plans matured, acted as if disunion had been already accomplished. The Legislature of South Carolina assembled at Columbia on the day after Mr. Lincoln's election, when joint resolutions of both houses providing CHAP. III. EAGERNESS FOR SECESSION. 1425 for a State Convention to consider the withdrawal of the State from the Union were offered. Some of the more cautious members counselled delay, but they were overborne by the more fiery zealots, who did not wish the popular excitement caused by the election to cool before the decisive step should be taken. One of the latter (Mr. Mullins, of Marion), in a speech against delay and waiting for the co-operation of other States, revealed the fact that an overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of the State were opposed to the schemes of the politicians. He also revealed the important fact that emissaries had been sent to Europe to prepare the way for aid and recognition by foreign governments of the contemplated Southern Confederacy. "We have it from high authority," he said, "that the representative of one of the imperial powers of Europe [France], in view of the prospective separation of one or more of the Southern States from the present Confederacy, has made propositions in advance for the establishment of such relations between it and the government about to be established in this State, as will insure to that power such a supply of cotton for the future as their increasing demand for that article will require." He urged the importance of immediate action. "If we wait for co-opera tion," he said, "Slavery and State rights will be abandoned; State sovereignty and the cause of the South lost forever." James Chestnut, a member of the United States Senate, recommended immediate secession; and W. W. Boyce, of the National House of Representatives, said: "I think the only policy for us is to arm as soon as we receive authentic intelligence of the election of Lincoln. It is for South Carolina, in |