Social Felicity South

In the well-known conversations of Mr. Samuel Slick, that Philosopher describes a picture, the work of a Western artist, which represented an angel emigrating from Heaven to the State of Arkansas, with a bottle of whiskey in one hand and a bowie-knife in the other, while over the whole were blazoned the letters “A. P.,” which Mr. Slick interpreted to signify “Airthly Paradise.”  This charming morsel of artistic fancy has, in the opinion of Mr. Jefferson Davis, indurated to a solid piece of political reality; for in his dismally cheerful “Inaugural,” which may after all, be compelled to do service as a “Valedictory,” he informs us that the Confederacy, since it went into business, has inundated society with blessings. “Through all the necessities of an unequal struggle,” says he, “there has been no act to impair personal liberty, or the freedom of speech, of thought, or of the press.”  “The Courts,” he continues, “have been open, the judicial functions fully executed, and every right of the peaceful citizen maintained as securely as if a war of invasion had not disturbed the land.”  Quite an Arcadia, to be sure!  There has been no terrorism, no coercion, no conscription, no lynching of Yankee school-mistresses, no swindling of Northern mechanics!  “The Courts have been open.”  Whose Courts?  “The judicial functions have been fully executed.”  O yes! [corasa] LYNCH, J., who finds his Blackstone in a tar pot, and his pleas of the Crown in a bag of feathers!

One thing is certain.  If Davis, the Lachrymose-Jubilant, is right, the “freedom (from truth) of the (Southern) press” infringes slightly upon licentiousness.  Not long ago, in one of the capital cities of the Confederacy – for it has a number, in case of emergencies – the Richmond papers were complaining of rather more street assassinations than was found agreeable, especially to the assassinated; and some of them went so far as to intimate that Jefferson Davis was a kind of Old Man of the Mountain, and responsible for the multitudinous stickings and shootings.  Thus, too, we find the Wilmington (N. C.) Journal lamenting, and not unreasonable, we think, that “seven gentlemen have been assaulted in the streets at night within a short time, one of whom was severely stabbed.”  Seven assaulted gentlemen, assaulted, too, in the night time, would have done very well for any Italian city during the Middle Ages, and the fact leads us to suspect that the worshipful fraternity of Thugs have sent over a diplomatic deputation to congratulate the Confederacy, and to receive a few worthy spirits into the brotherhood.  If Mr. J. Davis be an alert and faithful custodian,  not merely of his people’s liberties, but of their brains, stomachs, and other organs liable to injuries by lead and steel empirically administered, he will make a few of the numerous Courts of Justice perambulatory.  A deputation of his Judges, in their robes of office, or even in their shirt sleeves, as they have been seen by travelers in the South-West, would have a fine effect in Wilmington, provided they did not introduce there the Ordeal of Battle, and begin by illustrating its striking beauties among themselves.

The great English poet has said that “suspicion ever haunts the guilty mind,” and from the amounts of “suspicion” which we find in the Southern papers, we argue that “guilty minds” are far from scarce in the regions in which they are printed.  Thus the Richmond Examiner bemoans “the disaffection of a large portion of the foreign population in Richmond,” and assures its trembling readers that “vigilance is to be the price of their safety from enemies in their midst.”  The trouble, we imagine, is, that many of their “foreign population” having sworn upon the Evangelists to support the Constitution of the United States, shrink just a little from that Confederate virtue which was once a vice, by which we mean perjury.  But really, they are too squeamish.  A man is out of fashion in Richmond unless he be forsworn.  When all the great men of the city have set an example of abjuration, why should the mob be delicate?  ‘Tis a most untimely squeamishness, and calls for ropes!  But we refer to it principally, because we are bothered by a great, gaping discrepancy between “President” Davis and the (aforesaid) Examiner.  That paper says: “We assure the public that vigilance is to be the price of safety from enemies in our midst,” and J. D. says: “Our people have rallied with unexampled unanimity to the support of the Government.”  The Examiner asserts that there are a great many snakes, of venomous varieties, in the Earthy Paradise, J. D. declares that there are no more snakes there than in Ireland. – Which is right?  We don’t pretend to say.  The answer to that question is of more importance to those who are liable to be bitten than it is to us.

An earthy Paradise ravaged by war, shrinking from starvation, convulsed by anarchy, bullied by drill-sergeants, full of the fumes of tar, infested by assassins, threatened by conspirators, periled by disaffection, and with Jefferson Davis for its President, and such angels as Floyd, Benjamin & Co., for its Guardian Spirits, isn’t the sort of Eden in which the Tree of Temptation will long remain unstripped of the no longer fatal burden; for if sensible men can get out of it by bolting a bushel of apples, they will risk all consequences, and fall upon the fruit at once. – {Tribune.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, March 8, 1862, p. 2