Dined with the Southern Commissioners and a small party at
Gautier's, a French restaurateur in Pennsylvania Avenue. The gentlemen present
were, I need not say, all of one way of thinking; but as these leaves will see
the light before the civil war is at an end, it is advisable not to give their
names, for it would expose persons resident in Washington, who may not be
suspected by the Government, to those marks of attention which they have not
yet ceased to pay to their political enemies. Although I confess that in my
judgment too much stress has been laid in England on the severity with which
the Federal authorities have acted towards their political enemies, who were
seeking their destruction, it may be candidly admitted, that they have
forfeited all claim to the lofty position they once occupied as a Government
existing by moral force, and by the consent of the governed, to which Bastilles
and lettrès
de cachêt, arbitrary
arrests, and doubtful, illegal, if not altogether unconstitutional, suspension
of habeas corpus and of trial by jury were unknown.
As Col. Pickett and Mr. Banks are notorious Secessionists,
and Mr. Phillips has since gone South, after the arrest of his wife on account
of her anti-federal tendencies, it may be permitted-to mention that they were
among the guests. I had pleasure in making the acquaintance of Governor Roman.
Mr. Crawford, his brother commissioner, is a much younger man, of considerably
greater energy and determination, but probably of less judgment. The third
commissioner, Mr. Forsyth, is fanatical in his opposition to any suggestions of
compromise or reconstruction; but, indeed, upon that point, there is little
difference of opinion amongst any of the real adherents of the South. Mr.
Lincoln they spoke of with contempt; Mr. Seward they evidently regarded as the
ablest and most unscrupulous of their enemies; but the tone in which they
alluded to the whole of the Northern people indicated the clear conviction that
trade, commerce, the pursuit of gain, manufacture, and the base mechanical
arts, had so degraded the whole race, they would never attempt to strike a blow
in fair fight for what they prized so highly in theory and in words. Whether it
be in consequence of some secret influence which slavery has upon the minds of
men, or that the aggression of the North upon their institutions has been of a
nature to excite the deepest animosity and most vindictive hate, certain it is
there is a degree of something like ferocity in the Southern mind towards New
England which exceeds belief. I am persuaded that these feelings of contempt
are extended towards England. They believe that we, too, have had the canker of
peace upon us. One evidence of this, according to Southern men, is the
abolition of duelling. This practice, according to them, is highly wholesome
and meritorious; and, indeed, it may be admitted that in the state of society
which is reported to exist in the Southern States, it is a useful check on such
men as it restrained in our own islands in the last century. In the course of
conversation, one gentleman remarked that he considered it disgraceful for any man
to take money for the dishonor of his wife or his daughter. “With us,” he said,
“there is but one mode of dealing known. The man who dares tamper with the honor
of a white woman, knows what he has to expect. We shoot him down like a dog,
and no jury in the South will ever find any man guilty of murder for punishing
such a scoundrel.” An argument which can scarcely be alluded to was used by
them, to show that these offences in Slave States had not the excuse which
might be adduced to diminish their gravity when they occurred in States where
all the population were white. Indeed, in this, as in some other matters of a
similar character, slavery is their summum bonum of morality, physical
excellence, and social purity. I was inclined to question the correctness of
the standard which they had set up, and to inquire whether the virtue which
needed this murderous use of the pistol and the dagger to defend it, was not
open to some doubt; but I found there was very little sympathy with my views
among the company.
The gentlemen at table asserted that the white men in the
Slave States are physically superior to the men of the Free States; and
indulged in curious theories in morals and physics to which I was a stranger.
Disbelief of anything a Northern man — that is, a Republican — can say, is a
fixed principle in their minds. I could not help remarking, when the
conversation turned on the duplicity of Mr. Seward, and the wickedness of the
Federal Government in refusing to give the assurance Sumter would not be relieved
by force of arms, that it must be of very little consequence what promises Mr.
Seward made, as, according to them, not the least reliance was to be placed on
his word. The notion that the Northern men are cowards is justified by
instances in which congressmen have been insulted by Southern men without
calling them out, and Mr. Sumner's case was quoted as the type of the affairs
of the kind between the two sides. I happened to say that I always understood
Mr. Sumner had been attacked suddenly and unexpectedly, and struck down before
he could rise from his desk to defend himself; whereupon a warm refutation of
that version of the story was given, and I was assured that Mr. Brooks, who was
a very slight man, and much inferior in height to Mr. Sumner, struck him a
slight blow at first, and only inflicted the heavier strokes when irritated by
the Senator's cowardly demeanor In reference to some remark made about the
cavaliers and their connection with the South, I reminded the gentleman that,
after all, the descendants of the Puritans were not to be despised in battle:
and that the best gentry in England were worsted at last by the train-bands of
London, and the “rabbledom” of Cromwell's Independents.
Mr., or Colonel, Pickett, is a tall good-looking man, of
pleasant manners, and well-educated. But this gentleman was a professed
buccaneer, a friend of Walker, the gray-eyed man of destiny — his comrade in
his most dangerous razzie. He was a newspaper writer, a soldier, a filibuster; and
he now threw himself into the cause of the South with vehemence; it was not
difficult to imagine he saw in that cause the realization of the dreams of
empire in the south of the Gulf, and of conquest in the islands of the sea,
which have such a fascinating influence over the imagination of a large portion
of the American people. He referred to Walker's fate with much bitterness, and
insinuated he was betrayed by the British officer who ought to have protected
him.
The acts of Mr. Floyd and Mr. Howell Cobb, which must be
esteemed of doubtful morality, are here justified by the States' Rights
doctrine. If the States had a right to go out, hey were quite right in
obtaining their quota of the national property which would not have been given
to them by the Lincolnites. Therefore, their friends were not to be censured
because they had sent arms and money to the South.
Altogether the evening, notwithstanding the occasional
warmth of the controversy, was exceedingly instructive; one could understand
from the vehemence and force of the speakers the full meaning of the phrase of “firing
the Southern heart,” so often quoted as an illustration of the peculiar force
of political passion to be brought to bear against the Republicans in the
Secession contest. Mr. Forsyth, struck me as being the most astute, and perhaps
most capable, of the gentlemen whose mission to Washington seems likely to be
so abortive. His name is historical in America — his father filled high office,
and his son has also exercised diplomatic function. Despotisms and Republics of
the American model approach each other closely. In Turkey the Pasha unemployed
sinks into insignificance, and the son of the Pasha deceased is literally
nobody. Mr. Forsyth was not selected as Southern Commissioner on account of the
political status acquired by his father; but the position gained by his own
ability, as editor of “The Mobile Register,” induced the Confederate
authorities to select him for the post. It is quite possible to have made a
mistake in such matters, but I am almost certain that the colored waiters who
attended us at table looked as sour and discontented as could be, and seemed to
give their service with a sort of protest. I am told that the tradespeople of
Washington are strongly inclined to favor the Southern side.
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, p. 63-6
