The religious observance of the day was not quite as strict
as it would be in England. The Puritan aversion to ceremonials and formulary
observances has apparently affected the American world, even as far south as
this. The people of color were in the streets dressed in their best. The first
impression produced by fine bonnets, gay shawls, brightly-colored dresses, and
silk brodequins, on black faces, flat figures, and feet to match, is singular;
but, in justice to the backs of many of the gaudily-dressed women, who, in
little groups, were going to church or chapel, it must be admitted that this
surprise only came upon one when he got a front view. The men generally
affected black coats, silk or satin waistcoats, and parti-colored pantaloons.
They carried Missal or Prayer-book, pocket-handkerchief, cane, or parasol, with
infinite affectation of correctness.
As I was looking out of the window, a very fine, tall young
negro, dressed irreproachably, save as to hat and boots, passed by. “I wonder
what he is?” I exclaimed inquiringly to a gentleman who stood beside me. “Well,”
he said, “that fellow is not a free nigger; he looks too respectable. I dare
say you could get him for 1500 dollars, without his clothes. You know,”
continued he, “what our Minister said when he saw a nigger at some Court in
Europe, and was asked what he thought of him: ‘Well, I guess,’ said he, ‘if you
take off his fixings, he may be worth 1000 dollars down.’” In the course of the
day. Mr. Banks, a corpulent, energetic young Virginian, of strong Southern
views, again called on me. As the friend of the Southern Commissioners he
complained vehemently of the refusal of Mr. Seward to hold intercourse with
him. “These fellows mean treachery, but we will balk them.” In answer to a
remark of mine, that the English Minister would certainly refuse to receive
Commissioners from any part of the Queen's dominions which had seized upon the
forts and arsenals of the empire and menaced war, he replied: “The case is
quite different. The Crown claims a right to govern the whole of your empire;
but the Austrian Government could not refuse to receive a deputation from
Hungary for an adjustment of grievances; nor could any State belonging to the
German Diet attempt to claim sovereignty over another, because they were members
of the same Confederation.” I remarked “that his views of the obligations of
each State of the Union were perfectly new to me, as a stranger ignorant of the
controversies which distracted them. An Englishman had nothing to do with a
Virginian and New Yorkist, or a South Carolinian — he scarcely knew anything of
a Texan, or of an Arkansian; we only were conversant with the United States as
an entity; and all our dealings were with citizens of the United States of
North America.” This, however, only provoked logically diffuse dissertations on
the Articles of the Constitution, and on the spirit of the Federal Compact.
Later in the day, I had the advantage of a conversation with
Mr. Truman Smith, an old and respected representative in former days, who gave
me a very different account of the matter; and who maintained that by the
Federal Compact each State had delegated irrevocably the essence of its
sovereignty to a Government to be established in perpetuity for the benefit of
the whole body. The Slave States, seeing that the progress of free ideas, and
the material power of the North, were obtaining an influence which must be
subversive of the supremacy they had so long exercised in the Federal
Government for their own advantage, had developed this doctrine of States'
Rights as a cloak to treason, preferring the material advantages to be gained
by the extension of their system to the grand moral position which they would
occupy as a portion of the United States in the face of all the world. It is on
such radical differences of ideas as these, that the whole of the quarrel,
which is widening every day, is founded. The Federal Compact, at the very
outset, was written on a torn sheet of paper, and time has worn away the
artificial cement by which it was kept together. The corner-stone of the
Constitution had a crack in it, which the heat and fury of faction have widened
into a fissure from top to bottom, never to be closed again.
In the evening I had the pleasure of dining with an American
gentleman who has seen much of the world, travelled far and wide, who has read
much and beheld more, a scholar, a politician, after his way, a poet, and an
ologist — one of those modern Groeculi, who is unlike his prototype in Juvenal
only in this, that he is not hungry, and that he will not go to heaven if you
order him.
Such men never do or can succeed in the United States; they are
far too refined, philosophical, and cosmopolitan. From what I see, success here
may be obtained by refined men, if they are dishonest, never by philosophical
men, unless they be corrupt — not by cosmopolitan men under any circumstances
whatever; for to have sympathies with any people, or with any nation in the
world, except his own, is to doom a statesman with the American public, unless
it be in the form of an affectation of pity or good will, intended really as an
offence to some allied people. At dinner there was the very largest naval
officer I have ever seen in company, although I must own that our own service
is not destitute of some good specimens, and I have seen an Austrian admiral at
Pola, and the superintendent of the Arsenal at Tophaneh, who were not unfit to
be marshals of France. This Lieutenant, named Nelson, was certainly greater in
one sense than his British namesake, for he weighed 260 pounds.
It may be here remarked, passim and obiter, that
the Americans are much more precise than ourselves in the enumeration of
weights and matters of this kind. They speak of pieces of artillery, for
example, as being of so many pounds weight, and of so many inches long, where
we would use cwts. and feet. With a people addicted to vertical rather than lateral
extension in everything but politics and morals, precision is a matter of
importance. I was amused by a description of some popular personage I saw in
one of the papers the other day, which after an enumeration of many high mental
and physical attributes, ended thus, “In fact he is a remarkably fine
high-toned gentleman, and weighs 210 pounds.”
The Lieutenant was a strong Union man, and he inveighed
fiercely, and even coarsely, against the members of his profession who had
thrown up their commissions. The superintendent of the Washington Navy Yard is
supposed to be very little disposed in favor of this present Government; in
fact, Capt. Buchanan may be called a Secessionist, nevertheless, I am invited
to the wedding of his daughter, in order to see the President give away the
bride. Mr. Nelson says, Sumter and Pickens are to be reinforced. Charleston is
to be reduced to order, and all traitors hanged, or he will know the reason
why; and, says he, “I have some weight in the country.” In the evening, as we
were going home, notwithstanding the cold, we saw a number of ladies sitting
out on the door-steps, in white dresses. The streets were remarkably quiet and
deserted; all the colored population had been sent to bed long ago. The
fire-bell, as usual, made an alarm or two about midnight
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, p. 46-9
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