CHAPTER V.

——"The flowing goldOf her loose tresses,"

as a blonde—the distinctive type of northern beauty?

There's villany a broad; this letter shall tell you more.Love's Labor Lost.

There's villany a broad; this letter shall tell you more.

Love's Labor Lost.

Northerners and the Minute Men.

Nearly every northerner whom I heard of in the South, as suffering from the suspicion of Abolitionism, was really a pro-slavery man, who had been opposing the Abolitionists all his life. I recollect an amusing instance of a man, originally from a radical little town in Massachusetts, who had been domiciled for several years in Mississippi. While in New England, during the campaign after which Mr. Lincoln was elected, he expressed pro-slavery sentiments so odious that he was with difficulty protected from personal violence.

He was fully persuaded in his heart of hearts of the divinity of Slavery; and, I doubt not, willing to fight for it. But his northern birth made him an object of suspicion; and, immediately after the outbreak of Secession, the inexorable Minute Men waited upon him, inviting him, if he wished to save his life, to prepare to quit the State in one hour. He was compelled to leave behind property to the amount of twenty thousand dollars. His case was one of many.

Even from a Rebel standpoint, there was an unpleasant injustice about this. Perhaps Democrats were almost the only northerners now in the South—Republicans and Abolitionists staying away, in the exercise of that discretion which is the better part of valor.

I well remember thinking, as I strolled down to the post-office one evening, with a long letter in my pocket, which gave a minute and bitterly truthful description of the slave auctions:

A Lively Discussion.

"If the Minute Men were to pounce upon me now, and find this dispatch, no amount of plausible talking could save me. There would be a vacancy onThe Tribunestaff within the next hour."

But when the message was safely deposited in the letter-box, I experienced a sort of relief in the feeling that if the Rebels were now to mob or imprison me, I should at least have the satisfaction of knowing they were not mistaking souls; and that, if I were forced to emulate Saint Paul in "labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in pains more frequent, in deaths oft," I should, in their code, most richly have earned martyrdom.

New Orleans,March 17, 1861.

Yesterday was a lively day in the Convention. Mr. Bienvenu threw a hot shot into the Secession camp, in the shape of an ordinance demanding a report of the official vote in each parish (county) by which the delegates were elected. This would prove that the popular vote of the State was against immediate Secession by a majority of several hundred. The Convention would not permit such exposure of its defiance of the popular will; and, by seventy-three to twenty-two, refused to consider the question.

A warm discussion ensued, on the ordinance for submitting the "Constitution of the Confederate States of America" to the popular vote, for ratification or rejection. The ablest argument against it was by Thomas J. Semmes, of New Orleans, formerly attorney-general of Louisiana. He is a keen, wiry-looking, spectacled gentleman, who, in a terse, incisive speech, made the best of a bad cause. The pith of his argument was, that Republican Governments are not based upon pure Democracy, but upon what Mr. Calhoun termed "concurringmajorities." The voters had delegated full powers to the Convention, which was the "sublimated, concentrated quintessence of the sovereignty of the people."

Boldness of Union Members.

The speaker's lip curled with ineffable scorn as he rang the changes upon the words "mere numerical majorities." Just now, this is a favorite phrase with the Rebels throughout the South. Yet they all admit that a majority, even of one vote, in Mississippi or Virginia, justly controls the action of the State, and binds the minority. I wish they would explain why a "mere numerical majority" is more oppressive in a collection of States than in a single commonwealth.

Mr. Add Rozier, of New Orleans, in a bold speech, advocated submitting the constitution to the people. On being asked by a member—"Did you vote for the Secession ordinance several weeks ago?" he replied, emphatically:—

"No; and, so help me God, I never will!"

A spontaneous outburst of applause from the lobby gave an index of the stifled public sentiment. Mr. Rozier charged that the Secessionists knew they were acting against the popular will, and dared not appeal to the people. Until the Montgomery constitution should become the law of the land, he utterly spurned it, spat upon it, trampled it under his feet.

Mr. Christian Roselius, also of this city, advocated the ordinance with equal boldness and fervor. He insisted that it was based on the fundamental principle of Republicanism—that this Convention was no Long Parliament to rule Louisiana without check or limit; and he ridiculed with merciless sarcasm Mr. Semmes's theory of the "sublimated, concentrated quintessence of the sovereignty of the people."

The inexorable majority here cut off debate, callingthe previous question, and defeated the ordinance by a vote of seventy-three to twenty-six.

This body is a good specimen of the Secession Oligarchy. It appointed, from its own members, the Louisiana delegates to the Convention of all the seceded States which framed the Montgomery Constitution, and now it proposes to pass finally upon their action, leaving the people quite out of sight.

March 21.

Another Exciting Discussion.

Another exciting day in the Convention. Subject: "The adoption of the Montgomery Constitution." Five or six Union members fought it very gallantly, and denounced unsparingly the plan of a Cotton Confederacy, and the South Carolina policy of trampling upon the rights of the people. The majority made little attempt to refute these arguments, but some of the angry members glared fiercely upon Messrs. Roselius, Rozier, and Bienvenu, who certainly displayed high moral and physical courage. It is easy for you in the North to denounce Secession; but to oppose it here, as those gentlemen did, requires more nerve than most men possess.

The speech of Mr. Roselius was able and bitter. This was not a constitution; it was merely a league—a treaty of alliance. It sprung from an audacious, unmitigated oligarchy. It was a retrogression of six hundred years in the science of government. We were told (here the speaker's sarcasm of manner was ludicrous and inimitable, drawing shouts of laughter even from the leading Secessionists) that this body represented the "sublimated, concentrated quintessence of the sovereignty of the people!"

He supposed that Cæsar, when he crossed the Rubicon—Augustus, when he overthrew the Roman Republic—Cromwell,when he broke up the Long Parliament—Bonaparte, when he suppressed the Council of Five Hundred at the point of the bayonet—Louis Napoleon, when he violated his oath to the republic, and ascended the imperial throne—were each the "sublimated, concentrated quintessence of the sovereignty of the people."

Secession in a Nutshell.

Like the most odious tyrannies of history, it preserved the forms of liberty; but its spirit was crushed out. The Convention from which this creature crept into light had imitated the odious government of Spain—the only one in the world taxing exports—by levying an export duty upon cotton. He was surprised that the Montgomery legislators failed to introduce a second Spanish feature—the Inquisition. One was as detestable as the other.

Mr. Roselius concluded in a broken voice and with great feeling. His heart grew sad at this overthrow of free institutions. The Secession leaders had dug the grave of republican liberty, and we were called upon to assist at the funeral! He would have no part in any such unhallowed business.

Mr. Rozier, firm to the last, now offered an amendment:

That in adopting the Montgomery Constitution, "the sovereign State of Louisianadoes expressly reserve the right to withdraw from the Union created by that Constitution, whenever, in the judgment of her citizens, her paramount interests may require it."

This, of course, is Secession in a nutshell—the fundamental principle of the whole movement. But the leaders refused to take their own medicine, and tabled the proposition without discussion.

Mr. Bienvenu caused to be entered upon the journal his protest against the action of the Convention, denouncing it as an ordinance which "strips the people oftheir sovereignty, reduces them to a state of vassalage, and places the destinies of the State, and of the new Republic, at the mercy of an uncommissioned and irresponsible oligarchy."

The final vote was then taken, and resulted in one hundred and one yeas to seven nays; so "the Confederate Constitution" is declared ratified by the State of Louisiana.

March 25.

Despotic Theories of the Rebels.

The Revolutionists can not be charged with any lack of frankness.The Delta, lamenting that the Virginia Convention will not take that State out of the Union, predicts approvingly that "some Cromwellian influence will yet disperse the Convention, and place the Old Dominion in the Secession ranks."De Bow's Review, a leading Secession oracle, with high pretensions to philosophy and political economy, says, in its current issue:

"All government begins with usurpation, and is continued by force. Nature puts the ruling elements uppermost, and the masses below, and subject to those elements. Less than this is not a government. The right to govern resides with a very small minority, and the duty to obey is inherent with the great mass of mankind."

To-day'sCrescentdiscusses the propriety of admitting northern States into the Southern Confederacy, "when they find out, as they soon will, that they can not get along by themselves." It is quite confident that they will, ere long, beg admission—but predicts for them the fate of the Peri, who

——"At the gateOf Eden stood, disconsolate,And wept to think her recreant raceShould e'er have lost that glorious place."

They must not be permitted to enter. Upon this point it is inexorable. It will permit no compunctious visitings of nature to shake its fell purpose.

The Northwest to Join Them.

I know all this sounds vastly like a joke; butThe Crescentis lugubriously in earnest. In sooth, these Rebels are gentlemen of magnificent expectations. "Sir," remarked one of them, a judge, too, while conversing with me this very day, "in seven years, the Southern Confederacy will be the greatest and richest nation on earth. We shall have Cuba, Central America, Mexico, and every thing west of the Alleghanies. We are the natural market of the northwestern States, and they are bound to join us!"

Think of that, will you! Imagine Father Giddings, Carl Schurz, and Owen Lovejoy—the stanch Republican States of Wisconsin, Michigan, and even young Kansas—whose infant steps to Freedom were over the burning plowshare and through the martyr's blood—knocking for admission at the door of a Slave Confederacy! Is not this the very ecstasy of madness?

March 26.

That virtuous and lamented body, the Louisiana Convention, after a very turbulent session to-day, has adjourned until the 1st of November.

The Crescentis exercised at the presence here of "correspondents of northern papers, who inditereal falsehoods and liesas coolly as they would eat a dinner at the Saint Charles."The Crescent'srhetoric is a little limping; but its watchfulness and patriotism are above all praise. The matter should certainly be attended to.

The Swamp—a Trip through Louisiana.

We are still enjoying the delights of summer. The air is fragrant with daffodils, violets, and roses, the buds of the sweet olive and the blossoms of the orange. Ihave just returned from a ride through the swamp—that great cesspool of this metropolis, which generates, with the recurrence of summer, the pestilence that walketh in darkness.

It is full of sights strange to northern eyes. The stagnant pools of black and green water harmonize with the tall, ghastly dead trees, from whose branches depend long fleeces of gray Spanish moss, with the effect of Gothic architecture. It is used in lounges and mattresses; but when streaming from the branches, in its native state, reminds one of the fantastic term which the Choctaw Indians apply to leaves—"tree-hair."

The weird dead trunks, the moss and the water, contrast strikingly with the rich, bright foliage of the deciduous trees just glowing into summer life. The balmy air makes physical existence delicious, and diffuses a luxurious languor through the system. Remove your hat, close your eyes, and its strong current strokes your brow lovingly and nestles against your cheek like a pillow.

During the last week in March, I went by the New Orleans and Great Northern Railway to Jackson, Mississippi, where the State Convention was in session.

There is not in Louisiana a hill two hundred feet high. Along the railroad, smooth, grassy everglades give place to gloomy swamps, dark with the gigantic cypress and the varnished leaves of the laurel.

On the plantations, the white one-story cabins of the negroes stood in long double rows, near the ample porched and balconied residences of the planters. Young sugar-cane, resembling corn two or three weeks old, was just peering through the ground. Noble live-oakswaved their drooping boughs above the fields. The Pride-of-China tree was very abundant about the dwellings. It produces a berry on which the birds eagerly feed, though its juice is said to intoxicate them. As they do not wear revolvers or bowie-knives, it is rather a harmless form of dissipation.

Life in the City of Jackson.

Jackson was not a paradise for a man of my vocation. Containing four or five thousand people, it was one of those delightful villages, calling themselves cities, of which the sunny South by no means enjoys a monopoly—where everybody knows everybody's business, and where, upon the advent of a stranger, the entire community resolves itself into a Committee of the Whole to learn who he is, where he came from, and what he wants.

In a great metropolis, espionage was easily baffled; but in Jackson, an unknown chiel, who looked capable of "takin' notes," to say nothing of "prentin' 'em," was subject to constant and uncomfortable scrutiny.

Contrasted with the bustle of New Orleans, existence seemed an unbroken seventh-day rest, though a dire certainty possessed me, that were my errand suspected, e'en Sunday would shine no Sabbath day for me.

Some months later, a refugee, who had resided there, pictured vividly to me the indignant and bewildered astonishment of the Jacksonians, when, through a stray copy ofThe Tribune, they learned that one of its correspondents had not only walked with them, talked with them, and bought with them, but, less scrupulous than Shylock, had been ready to eat with them, drink with them, and pray with them.

At this time the Charleston papers and some northern journals declaredThe Tribune'ssouthern correspondence fictitious, and manufactured at the home office. Toremove that impression touching my own letters, I wrote, on certain days, the minutest records of the Convention, and of affairs in Jackson, which never found their way into the local prints.

Mournfully metropolitan was Jackson in one respect—the price of board at its leading hotel. The accommodations were execrable; but I suppose we were charged for the unusual luxury of an unctuous Teutonic landlord, who bore the formidable patronymic of H-i-l-z-h-e-i-m-e-r!

"—— Phœbus, what a name,To fill the speaking-trump of future fame!"

Reporting the Mississippi Convention.

The Convention was discussing the submission of the Montgomery Constitution to the people. The chief clerk, with whom I formed a chance acquaintance, kindly invited me to a chair beside his desk, and as I sat facing the members, explained to me their capacity, views, and antecedents. Whether an undue inquisitiveness seemed to him the distinguishing quality of the New Mexican mind, he did not declare; but once he asked me abruptly if I was connected with the press? With the least possible delay, I disabused his mind of that peculiarly unjust misapprehension.

After a long discussion, the Convention, by a vote of fifty-three to thirty-two, refused to submit the Constitution to the people, and ratified it in the name of Mississippi. Seven Union members could not be induced to follow the usual practice of making the action unanimous, but to the last steadfastly refused their adherence.

—— My business in this StateMade me a looker-on here in Vienna.Measure for Measure.I whipped me behind the arras, and there heard it agreed upon.Much Ado About Nothing.

—— My business in this StateMade me a looker-on here in Vienna.

Measure for Measure.

I whipped me behind the arras, and there heard it agreed upon.

Much Ado About Nothing.

Jackson, Miss.,April 1, 1861.

The Mississippi State House.

The Mississippi State House, upon a shaded square in front of my window, is a faded, sober edifice, of the style in vogue fifty years ago, with the representative hall at one end, the senate chamber at the other, an Ionic portico in front, and an immense dome upon the top. Above this is a miniature dome, like an infinitesimal parasol upon a gigantic umbrella. The whole is crowned by a small gilded pinnacle, which has relapsed from its original perpendicular to an angle of forty-five degrees, and looks like a little jockey-cap, worn jantily upon the head of a plethoric quaker, to whom it imparts a rowdyish air, at variance with his general gravity.

The first story is of cracked free-stone, the front and end walls of stucco, and the rear of brick. As you enter the vestibule two musty cannon stand gaping at you, and upon one of them you may see, almost any day, a little "darkey" sound asleep. Whether he guards the gun, or the gun guards him, opens a wide field for conjecture.

Ascending a spiral stairway, and passing along the balustrade which surrounds the open space under the dome, you turn to the left, through a narrow passage into the representative hall. Here is the Mississippi Convention.

View of the Representative Hall.

At the north end of the apartment sits the president,upon a high platform occupying a recess in the wall, with two Ionic columns upon each side of him. Before him is a little, old-fashioned mahogany pulpit, concealing all but his head and shoulders from the vulgar gaze. In front of this, and three or four feet lower, at a long wooden desk, sit two clerks, one smoking a cigar.

Before them, and still lower, at a shorter desk, an unhappy Celtic reporter, with dark shaggy hair and eyebrows, is taking down the speech of the honorable member from something or other county. In front of his desk, standing rheumatically upon the floor, is a little table, which looks as if called into existence by a drunken carpenter on a dark night, from the relics of a superannuated dry-goods box.

Upon one of the columns at the president's right, hangs a faded portrait of George Poindexter, once a senator from this State. Further to the right is an open fire-place, upon whose mantel stand a framed copy of the Declaration of Independence, now sadly faded and blurred, a lithographic view of the Medical College of Louisiana, and a pitcher and glass. On the hearth is a pair of ancient andirons, upon which a genial wood fire is burning.

General Air of Dilapidation.

The hypocritical plastering which coated the fireplace has peeled off, leaving bare the honest, worn faces of the original bricks. Some peculiar non-adhesive influence must affect plastering in Jackson. In whole rooms of the hotel it has seceded from the lath. Judge Gholson says that once, in the old State House, a few hundred yards distant, whenSargeantSeargeantS. Prentiss was making a speech, he saw "an acre or two" of the plastering fall upon his head, and quite overwhelm him for the time. The Judge is what Count Fosco would call the Man of Brains; he is deemed the ablest memberof the Convention. He was a colleague in Congress of the lamented Prentiss, whom he pronounces the most brilliant orator that ever addressed a Mississippi audience.

On the left of the president is another fire-place, also with a sadly blurred copy of the great Declaration standing upon its mantel. The members' desks, in rows like the curved line of the letter D, are of plain wood, painted black. Their chairs are great, square, faded mahogany frames, stuffed and covered with haircloth. As you stand beside the clerk's desk, facing them, you see behind the farthest row a semi-circle of ten pillars, and beyond them a narrow, crescent shaped lobby. Half-way up the pillars is a little gallery, inhabited just now by two ladies in faded mourning.

In the middle of the hall, a tarnished brass chandelier, with pendants of glass, is suspended from the ceiling by a rod festooned with cobwebs. This medieval relic is purely ornamental, for the room is lighted with gas. The walls are high, pierced with small windows, whose faded blue curtains, flowered and bordered with white, are suspended from a triple bar of gilded Indian arrows.

Chairs of cane, rush, wood and leather seats—chairs with backs, and chairs without backs, are scattered through the hall and lobby, in pleasing illustration of that variety which is the spice of life. The walls are faded, cracked, and dingy, pervaded by the general air of mustiness, and going to "the demnition bow-wows" prevalent about the building.

The members are in all sorts of social democratic positions. In the open spaces about the clerk's desk and fire-places, some sit with chairs tilted against the wall, some upon stools, and three slowly vibrate to and fro in pre-Raphaeliterocking-chairs. These portions of the hall present quite the appearance of a Kentucky bar-room on a winter evening.

A Free and Easy Convention.

Two or three members are eating apples, three or four smoking cigars, and a dozen inspect their feet, resting upon the desks before them. Contemplating the spectacle yesterday, I found myself involuntarily repeating the couplet of an old temperance ditty:

"The rumseller sat by his bar-room fire,With his feet as high as his head, and higher,"

and a moment after I was strongly tempted to give the prolonged, stentorian shout of "B-o-o-t-s!" familiar to ears theatrical. Pardon the irreverence, O decorousTribune! for there is such a woful dearth of amusement in this solemn, funereal city, that one waxes desperate. To complete my inventory, many members are reading this morning'sMississippian, orThe New Orleans PicayuneorDelta, and the rest listen to the one who is addressing the Chair.

They impress you by their pastoral aspect—the absence of urban costumes and postures. Their general bucolic appearance would assure you, if you did not know it before, that there are not many large cities in the State of Mississippi. Your next impression is one of wonder at their immense size and stature. Of them the future historian may well say: "There were giants in those days."

All around you are broad-shouldered, herculean-framed, well-proportioned men, who look as if a laugh from them would bring this crazy old capitol down about their ears, and a sneeze, shake the great globe itself. The largest of these Mississippi Anakim is a gigantic planter, clothed throughout in blue homespun.

The Mississippi Convention Viewed by a Tribune Correspondent.The Mississippi Convention Viewed by a Tribune Correspondent.J.P. Davis EdThe Mississippi Convention Viewed by a Tribune Correspondent.Click for larger image.

J.P. Davis Ed

The Mississippi Convention Viewed by a Tribune Correspondent.

Click for larger image.

You might select a dozen out of the ninety-nine delegates, each of whom could personate the Original Scotch Giant in a traveling exhibition. They have large, fine heads, and a profusion of straight brown hair, though here and there is a crown smooth, bald, and shining. Taken for all in all, they are fine specimens of physical development, with frank, genial, jovial faces.

Southern Orators—Anglo-African Dialect.

The speaking is generally good, and commands respectful attention. There is littlebadinageor satire, a good deal of directness and coming right to the point, qualified by the strong southern proclivity for adjectives. The pungent French proverb, that the adjective is the most deadly enemy of the substantive, has never journeyed south of Mason & Dixon's line.

The members, like all deliberative bodies in this latitude, are mutual admirationists. Every speaker has the most profound respect for the honest motives, the pure patriotism, the transcendent abilities of the honorable gentleman upon the other side. It excites his regret and self-distrust to differ from such an array of learning and eloquence; and nothing could impel him to but a sense of imperious duty.

He speaks fluently, and with grammatical correctness, but in the Anglo-African dialect. His violent denunciations of the Black Republicans are as nothing to the gross indignities which he offers to the letterr. His "mo's," "befo's," and "hea's" convey reminiscences of the negress who nursed him in infancy, and the little "pickaninnies" with whom he played in boyhood.

The custom of stump-speaking, universal through the South and West, is a capital factory for converting the raw material into orators. Of course there are strong exceptions. This very morning we had an address from one member—Mr. D. B. Moore, of Tuppah county—whichis worthy of more particular notice. I wish I could give you a literal report. Pickwick would be solemn in comparison.

A Speech worth Preservation.

Mr. Moore conceives himself an orator, as Brutus was; but in attempting to cover the whole subject (the Montgomery Constitution), he spread himself out "very thin." I will "back" him in a given time to quote more Scripture, incorrectly, irreverently, and irrelevantly, than any other man on the North American continent.

His "like we" was peculiarly refreshing, and his history and classics had a strong flavor of originality. He quoted Patrick Henry, "LetCæsar have his Brutus;" piled "Pelion uponPelion!" and made Sampson kill Goliah!! He thought submitting the Secession ordinance to the people in Texas had produced an excellent effect. Previous to it, theNew York Tribunesaid: "Secession is but a scheme of demagogues—a move on the political chess-board—the people oppose it." But afterward it began to ask: "How is this? What does it all mean? The people seem to have a hand in it, and to be in earnest, too." The tone of Mr. Seward also changed radically, he observed, after that election.

Mr. Moore spoke an hour and a half, and the other members, though listening courteously, betrayed a lurking suspicion that he was a bore. In person he resembles Henry S. Lane, the zealous United States Senator-elect from Indiana. The sergeant-at-arms, who, in a gray coat, and without a neckerchief, walks to and fro, with hands in his pockets, looks like the unlovely James H. Lane, Senator-expectant from Kansas.

Shall I give you a little familiar conversation of the members, as they smoke their post-prandial cigars in thehall, waiting for the Convention to be called to order? Every mother's son of them has a title.

Familiar Conversation of Members.

Judge.—Toombs is a great blusterer. When speaking, he seems determined to force, to drive you into agreeing with him. Howell Cobb is another blusterer, much like him, but immensely fond of good dinners. Aleck Stephens is very different. Whenhespeaks, you feel that he desires to carry you with him only by the power of reason and argument.

Colonel.—I knew him when he used to be a mail-carrier in Georgia. He was a poor orphan boy, but a charitable society of ladies educated him. He is a very small man, with a hand no wider than my three fingers, and as transparent as any lady's who has been sick for a year. He always looked like an invalid. If you were to cut his head off, I don't believe he would bleed a pint.4

Major.—Do you know what frightened Abe Lincoln out of Baltimore? Somebody told him that Aleck Stephens was lying in wait for him on a street corner, with a six-pounder strapped to his back. When he heard that, hesloped. [Loud laughter from the group.]

Judge.—Well, Lincoln has been abused immensely about his flight through Baltimore; but I believe the man acted from good motives. He knew that his partisans there meant to make a demonstration when he arrived, and that they were very obnoxious to the people; he had good reason to believe that it would producetrouble, and perhaps bloodshed; so he went through, secretly, to avoid it.

New Orleans Again—Reviewing Troops.

New Orleans,April 5, 1861.

The Second Louisiana Zouaves were reviewed on Lafayette Square last evening, before leaving for Pensacola. They are boyish-looking, and handle their muskets as if a little afraid of them, but seem to be the raw material of good soldiers. They are luridly grotesque, in closely-fitting, blue-tasseled, red fez caps, blue flannel jackets and frocks, faced with red, baggy red breeches, like galvanized corn-sacks, and gutta-percha greaves about their ankles.

April 6.

All the Secession leaders except Senator Benjamin declare there will be no war. He asserts that war is sure to come; and in a recent speech characterized it as "by no means an unmixed evil."

The Fire-Eaters are intensely bitter upon the border States for refusing to plunge into the whirlpool of Secession. They are bent on persuading or driving all the slave States into their ranks. Otherwise they fear—indeed, predict frankly—that the border will gradually become Abolitionized, and extend free territory to the Gulf itself. They are quite willing to devote Kentucky and Virginia to the devastation of civil war, or the embarrassment of a contiguous hostile republic, which would not return their run-away negroes.5But theywill move heaven and earth to save themselves from any such possible contingency.

April 8.

The recent warlike movements of the National Government cause excitement and surprise. At last, the people begin to suspect that they have invoked grim-visaged war. The newspapers descant upon the injury to commerce and industry. Why did they not think of all this before?

Three Obnoxious Northerners.

It is vouchsafed to few mortals to learn, before death, exactly what their associates think of them; but your correspondent is among the favored few. The other evening, I was sitting with a Secession acquaintance, in the great exchange of the St. Charles Hotel, when conversation turned upon the southern habit of lynching people who do not happen to agree with the majority. He presumed enough upon my ignorance to insist that any moderate, gentlemanly Republican might come here with impunity.

"But," he added, "there are three men whose safety I would not guarantee."

"Who are they?"

"Governor Dennison, of Ohio, is one. Since he refused to return that fugitive slave to Kentucky, he would hardly be permitted to stay in New Orleans; at all events, I should oppose it. Then there is Andy Johnson. He ought to be shot, or hanged, wherever found. But for him, Kentucky and Tennessee would have been with us long ago. He could not remain here unharmed for a single hour."

"And the third?"

"Some infernal scoundrel, who is writing abusive letters about us toThe New York Tribune."

"Is it possible?"

"Yes, sir, and he has been at it for more than a month."

"Can't you find him out?"

"Some think it is a Kentuckian, who pretends to be engaged in cattle-trading, but only makes that a subterfuge. I suspect, however, that it is an editor ofThe Picayune, which is a Yankee concern through and through. If he is caught, I don't think he will write many more letters."

I ventured a few words in palliation of the Governor and the Senator, but quite agreed that this audacious scribbler ought to be suppressed.

Attack on Sumter—Rebel Boasting.

April 12.

Telegraphic intelligence to-day of the attack upon Fort Sumter causes intense excitement.The Deltaoffice is besieged by a crowd hungry for news. The universal expectation of the easy capture of the fort is not stronger than the belief that it will be followed by an immediate and successful movement against the city of Washington. The politicians and newspapers have persuaded the masses that the Yankees (a phrase which they no longer apply distinctively to New Englanders, but to every person born in the North) mean to subjugate them, but are arrant cowards, who may easily be frightened away. Leading men seldom express this opinion; yetThe Crescent, giving the report that eight thousand Massachusetts troops have been called into the field, adds, that if they would come down to Pensacola, eighteen hundred Confederates would easily "whip them out."

God help them if the tempest swingsThe pine against the palm!"

—— Thou sure and firm-set earth,Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fearThy very stones prate of my whereabout.Macbeth.

—— Thou sure and firm-set earth,Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fearThy very stones prate of my whereabout.

Macbeth.

Abolition Tendencies of Kentuckians.

There were two of my acquaintances (one very prominent in the Secession movement) with whom, while they had no suspicion of my real business, I could converse with a little frankness. One of them desired war, on the ground that it would unite the inhabitants of all the border slave States, and overpower the Union sentiment there.

"But," I asked, "will not war also unite the people of the North?"

"I think not. We have a great many earnest and bold friends there."

"True; but do you suppose they could stand for a single week against the popular feeling which war would arouse?"

"Perhaps you are right," he replied, thoughtfully, "but it never occurred to me before."

My other friend also talked with great frankness:

"We can get along very well with the New England Yankees who are permanently settled here. They make the strongest Secessionists we have; but the Kentuckians give us a great deal of trouble. They were born and raised where Slavery is unprofitable. They have strong proclivities toward Abolitionism. The constituents of Rozier and Roselius, who fought us so persistently in the Convention, are nearly all Kentuckians.

Two Chief Causes of Secession.

"Slavery is our leading interest. Right or wrong, we have it and we must have it. Cotton, rice, and sugar cannot be raised without it. Being a necessity, we do not mean to allow its discussion. Every thing which clashes with it, or tends to weaken it, must go under. Our large German population is hostile to it. About all these Dutchmen would be not only Unionists, but Black Republicans, if they dared."

Perhaps it is the invariable law of revolutions that, even while the revolters are in a numerical minority, they are able to carry the majority with them. It is certain that, before Sumter was fired on, a majority in every State, except South Carolina, was opposed to Secession. The constant predictions of the Rebel leaders that there would be no war, and the assertions of prominent New York journals, that any attempt at coercion on the part of the Government would be met with armed and bloody resistance in every northern city and State, were the two chief causes of the apparent unanimity of the South.

The masses had a vague but very earnest belief that the North, in some incomprehensible manner, had done them deadly wrong. Cassio-like, they remembered "a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore." The leaders were sometimes more specific.

"The South," said a pungent writer, "has endured a great many wrongs; but the most intolerable of all the grievances ever thrust upon her was the Census Report of 1860!" There was a great deal of truth in this remark. One day I asked my New Orleans friend:

"Why have you raised all this tempest about Mr. Lincoln's election?"

Fundamental Grievance of the Rebels.

"Don't deceive yourself," he answered. "Mr. Lincoln'selection had nothing to do with it, beyond enabling us to rouse our people. Had Douglas been chosen, we should have broken up the Union just as quickly. Had Bell triumphed, it would have been all the same. Even if Breckinridge had been elected, we would have seceded before the close of his term. There is an essential incompatibility between the two sections.The South stands still, while the North has grown rich and powerful, and expanded from ocean to ocean."

This was the fundamental grievance. Very liberal in his general views, he had not apparently the faintest suspicion that Slavery was responsible for the decadence of the South, or that Freedom impelled the gigantic strides of the North.

Yet his theory of the Rebellion was doubtless correct. It arose from no man, or party, or political event, but from the inherent quarrel between two adverse systems, which the fullness of time had ripened into open warfare. His "essential incompatibility" was only another name for Mr. Seward's "Irrepressible Conflict" between two principles. They have since recorded, in letters of blood, not merely their incompatibility, but their absolute, aggressive, eternal antagonism.

During the second week in April, I began to find myself the object of unpleasant, not to say impertinent, curiosity. So many questions were asked, so many pointed and significant remarks made in my presence, as to render it certain that I was regarded with peculiar suspicion.

At first I was at a loss to surmise its origin. But one day I encountered an old acquaintance in the form of a son of Abraham, who had frequently heard me, in public addresses in Kansas, utter sentiments not absolutely pro-slavery;who knew that I once held a modest commission in the Free State army, and that I was a whilom correspondent ofThe Tribune.

Sudden Departure from New Orleans.

He was by no means an Israelite without guile, for he had been chased out of the Pike's Peak region during the previous summer, for robbing one of my friends who had nursed him in sickness. Concluding that he might play the informer, I made an engagement with him for the next afternoon, and, before the time arrived, shook from my feet the dust of New Orleans. Designing to make adétourto Fort Pickens on my way, I procured a ticket for Washington. The sea was the safer route, but I was curious to take a final look at the interior.

On Friday evening, April 12th, I left the Crescent City. In five minutes our train plunged into the great swamp which environs the commercial metropolis of the Southwest. Deep, broad ditches are cut for draining, and you sometimes see an alligator, five or six feet long, and as large as the body of a man, lying lazily upon the edge of the green water.

The marshy ground is mottled with gorgeous flowers, and the palmetto is very abundant. It does not here attain to the dignity of a tree, seldom growing more than four feet high. Its flag, sword-shaped leaves branch out in flat semicircular clusters, resembling the fan palm. Its tough bulbous root was formerly cut into fine fragments by the Indians, then bruised to a pulp and thrown into the lake. It produced temporary blindness among the fishes, which brought them to the surface, where they were easily caught by hand.

With rare fitness stands the palmetto as the device of South Carolina. Indeed, it is an excellent emblem of Slavery itself; for, neither beautiful, edible, nor useful, it blinds the short-sighted fish coming under its influence.

To them it is

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