Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Rose O’Neal Greenhow to William H. Seward, November 17, 1861

Washington, November 17, 1861.
398, 16th Street.
HON. WM. H. SEWARD, SEC. OF STATE.

Sir, — For nearly three months I have been confined a close prisoner, shut out from air and exercise, and denied all communion with family and friends.

“Patience is said to be a great virtue,” and I have practised it to my utmost capacity of endurance.

I am told, sir, that upon your ipse dixit the fate of citizens depends, and that the sign-manual of the ministers of Louis XIV. and XV. was not more potential in their day than that of the Secretary of State in 1861.

I therefore most respectfully submit that on Friday, August 23rd, without warrant or other show of authority, I was arrested by the detective police, and my house taken in charge by them: that all my private letters and papers of a life-time were read and examined by them: that every law of decency was violated in the search of my house and person, and by the surveillance over me.

We read in history that the poor Marie Antoinette had a paper torn from her bosom by lawless hands, and that even a change of linen had to be effected in sight of her brutal captors. It is my sad experience to record even more revolting outrages than that, for during the first days of my imprisonment, whatever necessity forced me to seek my chamber, a detective stood sentinel at the open door. And thus, for a period of seven days, I, with my little child, was placed absolutely at the mercy of men without character or responsibility; that during the first evening a portion of those men became brutally drunk, and boasted in my hearing of the nice times they expected to have with the female prisoners, and that rude violence was used towards a servant girl during that first evening. For any show of decorum afterwards practised towards me I was indebted to the detective called Captain Dennis.

In the careful analysis of my papers I deny the existence of a line that I had not a perfect right to have written or to have received. Freedom of speech and of opinion is the birthright of Americans, guaranteed to us by our charter of liberty — the Constitution of the United States. I have exercised my prerogative, and have openly avowed my sentiments. During the political struggle I opposed your Republican party with every instinct of self-preservation. I believed your success a virtual nullification of the Constitution, and that it would entail upon us all the direful consequences which have ensued. These sentiments have doubtless been found recorded among my papers, and I hold them as rather a proud record of my sagacity.

I must be permitted to quote from a letter of yours, in regard to “Russell of the London Times,” which you conclude with these admirable words: Individual errors of opinion may be tolerated, so long as good sense is left to combat them.

By way of illustrating theory and practice, here am I — a prisoner in sight of the executive mansion — in sight of the Capitol, where the proud statesmen of our land have sung their pagans to the blessings of our free institutions. Comment is idle. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, every right pertaining to the citizen, has been suspended by what, I suppose, the President calls a “military necessity. A blow has been struck by this total disregard of all civil rights against the present system of government far greater in its effects than the severance of the Southern States. The people have been taught to contemn the supremacy of the law, to which all have hitherto bowed, and to look to the military power for protection against its decrees. A military spirit has been developed which will only be subordinate to a military dictatorship. Read history, and you will find that the causes which bring about a revolution rarely predominate at its close, and no people have ever returned to the point from which they started. Even should the Southern States be subdued, and forced back into the Union (which I regard as impossible, with a full knowledge of their resources), a different form of government will be found needful to meet the new developments of national character. There is no class of society, no branch of industry, which this change has not reached, and the dull plodding methodical habits of the past can never be resumed.

You have held me, sir, to a man's accountability, and I therefore claim the right to speak on subjects usually considered beyond a woman's ken, and which you may class as “errors of opinion. I offer no excuse for this long digression, as a three months’ imprisonment, without formula of law, gives me authority for occupying even the precious moments of a Secretary of State.

My object is to call your attention to the fact, that during this long imprisonment I am yet ignorant of the causes of my arrest; that my house has been seized and converted into a prison by the Government; that the valuable furniture it contained has been abused and destroyed; that during some period of my imprisonment I have suffered greatly for want of proper and sufficient food. Also, I have to complain that more recently a woman of bad character —  recognised as having been seen in the streets of Chicago as such, by several of the guard — calling herself Mrs. Onderdunk, was placed here in my house in a room adjoining mine.

In making this exposition, I have no object of appeal to your sympathies. If the justice of my complaint and a decent regard for the world’s opinion do not move you, I should but waste time to claim your attention on any other score.

I may, however, recall to your mind that but a little while since you were quite as much proscribed by public sentiment here, for the opinions and principles you held, as I am now for mine.

I could easily have escaped arrest, having had timely warning. I thought it possible that your statesmanship might prevent such a proclamation of weakness to the world as even the fragment of a once great Government turning its arms against the breasts of women and children. You have the power, sir, and may still further abuse it. You may prostrate the physical strength, by confinement in close rooms and insufficient food. You may subject me to harsher, ruder treatment than I have already received; but you cannot imprison the soul. Every cause worthy of success has had its martyrs. The words of the heroine Corday are applicable here: “C’est le crime qui fait la honte, et non pas l’échafaud. My sufferings will afford a significant lesson to the women of the South, that sex or condition is no bulwark against the surging billows of the “irrepressible conflict.

The “iron heel of power may keep down, but it cannot crush out, the spirit of resistance in a people armed for the defence of their rights; and I tell you now, sir, that you are standing over a crater whose smothered fires in a moment may burst forth.

It is your boast that thirty-three bristling fortifications surround Washington. The fortifications of Paris did not protect Louis Philippe when his hour had come.

In conclusion, I respectfully ask your attention to this my protest, and have the honour to be, &c,
&c, &c,

ROSE O'N. Geeenhow.

SOURCE: Rose O'Neal Greenhow, My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition rule at Washington, p. 118-24

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