The Victim: A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis Part 30

At the next stop, the Senator had just taken his position on the rear platform, lifted his hand for silence and said:

"Friends and fellow citizens--"

The engine suddenly blew off steam with hiss and roar and when it ceased the train pulled out with a jerk amid the shouts and protests of the crowd. The grateful speaker waved his hand in regretful but happy farewell.

The conductor repeated the trick for three stations until the exhausted speaker had recovered his strength and then allowed him a few brief remarks at each stop.

From the moment the train entered the State of Mississippi, grim, earnest men in groups of two, three, four and a dozen stepped on board, saluted their Chief and took their seats.

When the engine pulled into the station at Jackson a full brigade of volunteer soldiers had taken their places in the ranks.

The Governor and state officials met their leader and grasped his hand.

"You have been commissioned, Senator," the Governor began eagerly, "as Major-General in command of the forces of the State of Mississippi. Four Brigadier-Generals have been appointed and await your a.s.signment for duty."

The tall figure of the hero of Buena Vista suddenly stiffened.

"I thank you. Governor, for the high honor conferred on me. No service could be more congenial to my feelings at this moment."

The Governor waved his hand at the crowd of silent waiting men. "Your men are ready--the first question is the purchase of arms. I think a stand of 75,000 will be sufficient for all contingencies?"

The Senator spoke with emphasis:

"The limit of your purchases should be our power to pay--"

"You can't mean it!" the Governor exclaimed.

"I repeat it--the limit of your purchase of arms should be the power to pay. I say this to every State in the South. We shall need all we can get and many more I fear."

The Governor laughed.

"General, you overrate our risks!"

"On the other hand," Davis continued earnestly, "we are sure to underestimate them at every turn."

He paused, overcome with emotion.

"A great war is impending, Governor, whose end no man can foresee. We are not prepared for it. We have no arms, we have no ammunition and we have no establishments to manufacture them. The South has never realized and does not now believe that the North will fight her on the issue of secession. They do not understand the silent growth of the power of centralization which has changed the opinions of the North under the teaching of Abolition fanatics--"

Again he paused, overcome.

"G.o.d help us!" he continued. "War is a terrible calamity even when waged against aliens and strangers--our people are mad. They know not what they do!"

The new Commander hurried to Briarfield, his plantation home, to complete his preparations for a long absence.

Socola on a sudden impulse asked the honor of accompanying him. It was granted without question and with cordial hospitality.

It was an opportunity not to be lost. An intimate view of this man in his home might be of the utmost importance. He promised Jennie to hasten to Fairview when he had spent two days at Briarfield. Mrs. Barton was glad of the opportunity to set her house in order for her charming and interesting guest.

The Davis plantation was a distinct shock to his fixed New England ideas of the h.e.l.lish inst.i.tution of Slavery.

The devotion of these simple black men and women to their master was not only genuine, it was pathetic. He had never before conceived the abject depths to which a human being might sink in contentment with chains.

And he had come to break chains! These poor ignorant blacks kissed the hand that bound them and called him their best friend.

The man they called master actually moved among them, a minister of love and mercy. He advised the negroes about the care of their families in his long absence. He talked as a Hebrew Patriarch to his children. He urged the younger men and women to look after the old and helpless.

He was particularly solicitous about Bob, the oldest man on the place.

Over and over again he enumerated the comforts he thought he might need and made provision to supply them. He sent him enough cochineal flannel for his rheumatism to wrap him four-ply deep. For Rhinah, his wife, he ordered enough flannel blankets for two families.

"Is there anything else you can think of, Uncle Bob?" he asked kindly.

The old man scratched his gray head and hesitated, looked into his master's face, smiled and said:

"I _would_ like one er dem rockin' cheers outen de big house, Ma.r.s.e Jeff.--ya.s.sah!"

"Of course, you shall have it. Come right up, you and Rhinah, and pick out the two you like best."

With suppressed laughter Socola watched the old negroes try each chair in the hallway and finally select the two best rockers in the house.

The Southern leader was obviously careworn and unhappy. Socola found his heart unconsciously going out to him in sympathy.

a.s.suming carefully his att.i.tude of foreign detached interest, the young man sought to draw him out.

"You have given up all hope of adjustment and reunion with the North?"

he asked.

"No," was the thoughtful reply, "not until the first blood is spilled."

"Your people must see, Senator, that secession will imperil the existence of their three thousand millions of dollars invested in slaves?"

"Certainly they see it," was the quick answer. "Slavery can never survive the first shot of war, no matter which side wins. If the North wins, we must free them, or else maintain a standing army on our borders for all time. It would be unthinkable. Rivers are bad boundaries. We could have no others. Fools have said and will continue to say that we are fighting to establish a slave empire. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are seeking to find that peace and tranquillity outside the Union we have not been able to enjoy for the past forty years inside. If the Southern States enact a Const.i.tution of their own, they will merely reaffirm the Const.i.tution of their fathers with no essential change. The North is leading a revolution, not the South.

"Not one man in twenty down here owns a slave. The South would never fight to maintain Slavery. We know that it is doomed. We simply demand as the sons of the men who created this Republic, equal rights under its laws. If we fight, it will be for our independence as freemen that we may maintain those rights."

"I must confess, sir," Socola replied with carefully modulated voice, "that I fail to see as a student from without, why, if Slavery is doomed and your leaders realize that fact, a compromise without bloodshed would not be possible?"

"If Slavery were the only issue, it would be possible--although as a proud and sensitive people we propose to be the judge of the time when we see fit to emanc.i.p.ate our slaves. Abolition fanatics, whose fathers sold their slaves to us, can't dictate to the South on such a _moral_ issue."

"I see--your pride is involved."

"Not merely pride--our self-respect. In 1831 before the Northern Abolitionists began their crusade of violence there were one hundred four abolition societies in America--ninety-eight of them in the South and only six in the entire North. But the South grew rich. At the bottom of our whole trouble lies the issue of sectional power. New England threatened to secede from the Union when we added the Territory of Louisiana to our domain, out of which we have carved seven great States.

Slavery at that time was not an issue. Sectional rivalry and sectional hatred antedates even our fight against England for our freedom.

Washington was compelled to warn his soldiers when they entered New England to avoid the appearance of offense. The Governor of Ma.s.sachusetts refused to call on George Washington, the first President of the Union, when he visited Boston.

"And mark you, back of the sectional issue looms a vastly bigger one--whether the Union is a Republic of republics or a Centralized Empire. The millions of foreigners who have poured into the North from Europe during the past thirty years, until their white population outnumbers ours four to one, know nothing and care nothing about the Const.i.tution of our fathers. They know nothing and care nothing for the principles on which the Federal Union was founded. They came from empires. They think as their fathers thought in Europe. And they are driving the sons of the old Revolution in the North into the acceptance of the ideas of centralized power. If this tendency continues the President of the United States will become the most autocratic ruler of the world. The South stands for the sovereignty of the States as the only bulwark against the growth of this irresponsible centralized despotism. The Democratic party of the North, thank G.o.d, yet stands with us on that issue. Our only possible hope of success in case of war lies in this fact--"

Socola suddenly started.