Three Things to be Considered.

Before leaving the subject of Jewish servitude, there are three considerations of chief importance on which we wish you may fix your candid attention.

The first is, There is no sufficient proof to warrant belief, that the Hebrew laws ever authorized, or in any way recognized slavery in the American sense of that term. The assertion that they did, is gratuitous, and altogether incapable of establishment. The general tenor of these laws, fully acknowledging and vigilantly guarding several of the most important rights of humanity in the case of those in bondage, shows that they were not considered things, or mere property possession, like cattle; but men, who had sacred rights with which even those who had purchased them for permanent servants, might not, in any circumstances, interfere. Full evidence of this, we think, has already been exhibited; and in the course of our argument confirmatory facts will be incidentally accumulated.

Secondly, Those who claim authority, in virtue of the Hebrew laws, to hold slaves, have no right to violate their charter, by neglecting any thing which it requires, or doing any thing which it prohibits. In regard to a point so plain, let common sense speak out. Suppose you are all elected trustees of a college, duly chartered and of long standing: Are you at liberty, without regard to the original acts of incorporation, to remodel every thing, and make what disposition of the funds you please ? Is it enough that the mere name of the institution is preserved, while the original design of its founders, and of the government in its incorporation, is wholly defeated? Surely you would feel the necessity either of keeping strictly within your chartered limits, or of resigning your offices, if you did not approve of the duties they imposed. Or, suppose the government gives a daring commander letters of marque and reprisal to go forth on the high seas to capture and plunder the vessels of a nation with whom they are at war. He and his crew are legally authorized. But when this commander has been slain, and another has succeeded to his place, and the crew have undergone so many changes that none of the original number remain, have the successors authority under the original license to take more liberty, and proceed to capture and plunder the vessels of other nations, and to destroy their unoffending crews? The things done would indeed bear close resemblance to those which the original commission warranted, but would still be as completely unauthorized and outrageous as if no such commission had ever been given, and must expose the perpetrators of them to be executed as pirates. Provided then you claim the right of holding slaves under the authority of the Levitical laws, consistency requires that you manage the whole business in strict accordance with them.

The regulation of Hebrew servitude, was a business too delicate, involving interests too sacred, to be committed to the discretion of interested masters. Moses of himself was not competent to such legislation. The sovereign Lawgiver, through him as the interpreter of his will, prescribed the rules by which both masters and servants were to be governed, and required all the people to say Amen, to the imprecation, “Cursed be he who confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them.” And when in a certain case the masters ventured to act at their own discretion, and through covetousness refused to release their servants, when the law required them to be set free, they were most pointedly condemned by the Almighty for their unhallowed temerity. “Ye have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbor: behold I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine, and I will make you to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. Jer. 34:17. Does God give you greater power over the bodies and souls of your fellow men, than he gives to Moses and his peculiar people? license even to make void by your own enactments or customs his laws, while at the same time pleading their authority in vindication of your slaveholding? If you hold under the Jewish charter, you are bound to govern yourselves strictly by its provisions and limitations.

Instead of imprisoning colored people who come among you, and on their failure to substantiate the fact of their freedom or to pay their jail fees, selling them into hopeless bondage; you must suffer even such as you may know to be runaway slaves from other countries to enjoy liberty and to dwell in whatever part of your country they choose. You must in no case restore them again to their masters. Deut. 23; 15, 16.

Instead of marking your refractory slaves by knocking out teeth, chopping off fingers, or otherwise maiming them, and then unblushingly describe them by these marks in your advertisements when they run away, you must know that all such maimings are to the sufferers irrefragable evidence of their legal title to the liberty which they have taken. Exod. 21:27.

Southern slaveholders must not under any pretence hold in involuntary bondage, over six years, any whose complexion proves them to be of white paternity, especially when they have reason to believe that they may be very nearly related to themselves. Deut. 15:12–14,

All your slaves must be consecrated to God; be required to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, and to rest from their secular labors one whole year in every seven; and to share fully with you in all other religious privileges.— Exod. 12:49. Exod. 20:10. Lev. 25:4–6.

On every fiftieth year from the commencement of the practice of slaveholding in this country, the enslaved should all have been, and should all hereafter be, set free. As slavery was introduced in the year 1620, there should have been three Jubilees already. The next should occur in thirty one years. Then must liberty be proclaimed throughout the land, to all the inhabitants thereof, and all the millions of your down trodden servants, stand erect in the complete enjoyment of civil and religious freedom. Lev. 25:10.

In the meanwhile, there must be equal laws, in the execution of which the rights of servants, as well as those of masters, shall be duly protected, and impartial justice weighed out in the same balances. “He that killeth a man, he shall be put to death. Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country.”— Lev. 2:21, 22. Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great: ye shall not be afraid of the face of man, for the judgment is God’s.” Deut. 1:17. See also, Exod. 22:21–24.

Do you object to slavery under such regulations as these? Then do not refer to Jewish laws, as the foundation of your claim. Either obey their laws, or do not seek protection under them.

3. Another point of importance is this, That in as much as the political laws of the Hebrews both permitted and required them to do various things, which others, undeniably, have no right to do, without similar express authority, it follows, that even if those laws did authorize the modified form of slaveholding in that nation which has been described, it is no proof that you have a right to practice it in this. If the assumed right can be maintained on the ground of divine authority at all, entirely different evidence of the fact must be adduced.

The civil laws of the Hebrews permitted and regulated Polygamy. Exod. 21:10, 11. Deut. 17:17. This license the Jews Understood as giving countenance to concubinage also, or taking without ceremony secondary wives, who had no authority in the family and whose children could not inherit any portion of the father's estate. David, Solomon, and Rehoboam, all had many wives and concubines; and do not seem to have considered themselves as acting illegally, or as setting a bad example while so doing. These statutes also permitted any man without reference to any tribunal whatever, to divorce his wife, and send her away, whenever he became displeased with her. Deut. 21:14, 24:1. And they required the father and mother who had a rebellious son, who would not submit to parental discipline, to bring him forth to the elders of the city, at whose order all the people should stone him to death. Deut. 21:18–21. A married daughter, whose husband should convict her of having been unchaste in any instance before marriage must be publicly executed in the same terrible manner. Deut. 22:21. When the people made war upon any city, if it did not immediately open its gates and submit, the Hebrews on taking it by seige, were required by the laws of their country to “smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword.”— Deut. 20:13. They were commanded in general, respecting the inhabitants of Canaan, whom they were sent to dispossess, “Thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shalt deliver thee; thine eye shall have no pity upon them.” And having slain a people who had done them no previous injury, they were to possess their country and enjoy the fruit of their labors. Deut. 7:16. 8:7, 8.

Will you from these facts infer that men in this country have scriptural warrant for practising polygamy and concubinage, and to put away their wives whenever they dislike them?—That American fathers and mothers must bring forth their rebellious sons and seduced daughters to be stoned to death? Or that we as a nation are authorized to carry a war of extermination into the territories of our neighbors who have done us no injury and to take possession of their houses and lands for ourselves and posterity? You certainly will not maintain that the judicial statutes of Moses authorized us to do any of these things. But why not? Because these laws permitted and required the Hebrews to do things which we undeniably have no right to do without a warrant from God equally plain. Not the state laws of the Hebrew commonwealth, though given by divine authority, but those principles and precepts of the Bible which are evidently designed for men of all nations, are to be received by us as the proper rules of our conduct. Our ultimate appeal must be to the moral law written by the finger of God upon the tables of stone, to the gospel of our Lord Jesus, and those other portions of divine revelation which agree with them in having not a peculiar but general application. This is as true respecting slavery as it is in regard to polygamy, divorce or exterminating wars. We are no more bound or authorized by the mere political laws of the Hebrew commonwealth, excepting so far as by divine interpretation they are shewn to be of general application, than the people of Maine are bound b the laws of Mississippi. Whoever will maintain the contrary sentiment, must, to be consistent, receive circumcision, abstain from eating swine's flesh, perform the ablutions and offer the sacrifices required by the Levitical law, and take without opposition, the yoke of Judaism upon his neck, however heavy it may be for him to bear.

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Continued from: Reverend Silas McKeen to Thomas C. Stuart, August 20, 1839

SOURCE: Cyrus P. Grosvenor, Slavery vs. The Bible: A Correspondence Between the General Conference of Maine, and the Presbytery of Tombecbee, Mississippi, p. 65-75

John M. Forbes & William H. Aspinwall to Salmon P. Chase, April 18, 1863

London, April 18,1863.

SIR, — We beg leave to inform you that we have obtained a loan of £500,000, for the period of six months, from Messrs. Baring Brothers & Co., on the deposit of $4,000,000 of the 5-20 bonds handed us, and with the understanding that, in case of the issuing of letters of marque to cruise against British vessels, they shall have a right to claim a prompt reimbursement of their advance, by sale or otherwise, as you may elect. The existing agitation of the public mind, both in and out of Parliament, rendered this condition a sine quâ non, and we may safely express our doubt if any other house would have undertaken to make the loan; certainly none on terms so liberal. . . .

We wait impatiently the promised official statement of funded and floating debt, amount of currency notes, etc., and also of revenue from imports and from internal sources; they are much needed to remove the almost incredible misapprehensions which have been produced by false or undefined newspaper articles. . . .

Your obedient servants,

W. H. Aspinwall,

J. M. Forbes.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 2, p. 41-2

Gideon Welles to John M. Forbes, April 18, 1863

Navy Department, Washington, 18th April, 1863.

Your two favors of the 27th ult. and 1st inst. were duly received. We have been and are extra busy in consequence of results at Charleston,¹ etc., so that I seize a moment this Saturday evening to acknowledge them.

I do not believe it expedient to purchase machinery as suggested, nor do I think it advisable to buy either of the Cunarders.

If we can prevent the formidable craft which is being got up for the “Emperor of China” from getting into rebel hands, or get hold of any swift privateers which they are constructing or fitting out, the great purpose of your mission will have been accomplished. I am not over-sanguine of success in this matter, and shall not experience deep disappointment at your failure, — assisted as I know the rebels are by British neutrality as well as by British capital. There may be some fortunate contingency to aid you, but I do not rely upon it. When you left I had strong hopes that the English government might interfere to prevent the semi-piratical rovers from going abroad. Beyond any government or people on earth, it is the interest, and should be the policy, of Great Britain to maintain the police of the seas. She has so thought, and acted heretofore. If in encouraging, or acquiescing in the policy of sending abroad from her shores, these pirate steamers to prey upon the commerce of a friendly nation, we are to understand there is a change of policy, there is no country that will suffer more. With her immense commerce, and dependent colonies spread over the globe, she would be ruined by retaliatory measures. I have no doubt that it is a primary object with the rebel agents, enemies, and sympathizers, to create a misunderstanding between us and England, and hence forbearance, to its utmost limit, is with us a virtue.

On the subject of letters of marque, our views coincide, and I think will prevail, unless we shall be compelled to resist other Alabamas and Floridas, by letting loose similar vessels which may depredate on the commerce of that country, which, under the rebel flag, is devastating ours.

We have an impression that but limited means will be derived from the loan recently negotiated, yet it may for the moment give them some credit. The statement of Mr. Laird in Parliament that propositions had been made to him to build vessels for the United States is destitute of truth. Certainly nothing of the kind has ever come from me, directly or indirectly, nor from the Navy Department during my administration of its affairs; and there is no other branch of the government authorized or possessed of means to make such a proposition. All appropriations for constructing or purchasing naval vessels are by Congress confided to the Navy Department. I am therefore compelled to believe that Mr. L. states what he knew to be false to relieve himself in difficulty.

Perhaps it may be advisable to expose Mr. Laird, though of that you can best judge. Ordinarily I take little notice of false partisan statements, but an exhibition of the low moral standard of the rebel agents may not be without a beneficial influence on the British mind at this moment.

I am glad you have encouraged Mr. Dudley, our excellent and vigilant consul at Liverpool, to persevere in legal measures. . . .

. . . What we want is to prevent the rebels from getting out dangerous vessels; and if it means a necessity to buy and leave them, so be it. We would have neither you nor the government compromised by any illegal proceedings.

Our ironclad monitors proved their powers of resistance at Charleston, and for harbor defense and assault are a success. But we want chasers, — fast sailers for cruising, and must and will have them. The suggestion in regard to blockade runners, if successful, would, like almost every success, have great and general approval, but it would be attended with many difficulties. With regards to Mr. Aspinwall, and hoping to hear from you often, [etc., etc.].

_______________

¹ Probably referring to the attack on Fort Sumter, on the 7th of April, when the Union fleet under Admiral Dupont had had to retire discomfited. — Ed.

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 2, p. 23-6

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: August 30, 1863

The department companies and militia returned yesterday, through a heavy shower, from the wild-goose chase they were rushed into by Gen. Elzey's order.

Mr. Reagan, the Postmaster-General, informed me to-day (the government will not allow bad news to transpire) that at the second assault on Battery Wagner, Morris Island, the enemy captured and held the rifle-pits. This, perhaps, involves the loss of the battery itself — and indeed there is a report, generally believed, that it fell subsequently. I fear that the port of Charleston is closed finally — if indeed, as I hope, the city will be still held by Beauregard.

Letters from Wilmington, dated 21st instant, urgently ask the Secretary of War to have one of the Great Blakely guns for the defense of that city — and protesting against both being sent to Charleston. From this, I infer that one or both have been ordered to Beauregard.

Gen. Samuel Jones has had a small combat with the enemy in Western Virginia, achieving some success. His loss was about 200, that of the enemy much greater. This is a grain of victory to a pound of disaster.

The owners of several fast blockade-running steamers, in anticipation of the closing of all the ports, are already applying for letters of marque to operate against the commerce of the United States as privateers, or in the “volunteer navy” — still with an eye to gain.

Gen. Lee has returned to the Army of Northern Virginia — and we shall probably soon hear of interesting operations in the field. Governor Vance writes for a brigade of North Carolinians to collect deserters in the western counties of that State.

There must be two armies in Virginia this fall — one for defense, and one (under Lee) for the aggressive — 150,000 men in all — or else the losses of the past will not be retrieved during the ensuing terrible campaign.

Some good may be anticipated from the furious and universal outcry in the Confederate States against the extortioners and speculators in food and fuel. Already some of the millers here are selling new flour at $27 to families; the speculators paid $35 for large amounts, which they expected to get $50 for! But meat is still too high for families of limited means. My tomatoes are now maturing — and my butter-beans are filling rapidly, and have already given us a dinner. What we shall do for clothing, the Lord knows — but we trust in Him.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 27-8

John M. Forbes to Salmon P. Chase, April 1, 1863

London, April 1, 1863.

My Dear Sir, — . . . Our consul tells me that among the developments reached in searching evidence against privateers, this one is clear, that the robbers’ object in pushing that expedient is chiefly to get us into difficulty with England! To this end their efforts are directed here far more than to the mere injury of our commerce. We must not play their game for them by issuing letters of marque. . . .

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 2, p. 21

Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, April 6, 1863

Great interest is felt in the result of the Connecticut election, one of the most animated and exciting elections ever known. Issues broad and distinct. Thousands will vote for Seymour under the discipline and delusion of party who have not the remotest thought of being disloyal.

Senator Sumner called upon me this p.m. and gave a curious narrative concerning my letter to Seward on the subject of letters of marque, and of the difficulty the President had in getting it. When finally obtained, he informed and called in Sumner, and the two sat down and the President deliberately read it aloud. They then criticized it carefully, and when they were through, Sumner says the President spoke complimentarily of the letter and very complimentarily of me.

Rumors are current and thick respecting Charleston, but they are all conjectural. A movement against the place is expected about these days, but there has not been time to hear of it. I have great anxiety and great apprehension. Operations have gone on slowly and reluctantly.

The report of the “Committee on the Conduct of the War” is to-day published. This method of supervising military operations by legislative committee is of more than questionable utility. Little good can be expected of these partisan supervisors of the Government at any time. They are partisan and made up of persons not very competent to form correct and intelligent opinions of Army or Navy operations, or administrative purposes. In this instance, I think, from a slight look into a few pages, there is more truth from them than usual in these cases.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 261-2

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, April 4, 1863

Had a message from the President, who wished to see me and also Assistant Secretary Fox. Found the matter in hand to be the Prussian adventurer Sybert, who was anxious his vessel should be taken into the naval service. The President said Seward was extremely anxious this should be done and had sent Sybert to him. I inquired if he had seen Sybert. He replied that he had and that the man was now in the audience room. He learned from Seward and Sybert that he (Sybert) had a vessel of one hundred tons into which he would put a screw, if authorized, would go on blockade, and would do more than the whole squadron of naval vessels. I asked the President if he gave credit to the promises of this man, whom Mr. Seward had sent to me as coming from responsible parties, though I knew none of them, had seen or heard of none but this adventurer himself. [I told him] that he had first applied to me and I would not trust or be troubled with him after a slight examination, but that I had sent him to Seward, who was then pushing forward his regulations for letters of marque, to which he knew I was opposed; and the result was Mr. Seward wanted me to take his first case, and had asked that the Assistant Secretary, Fox, should be present with Sybert. After a little further conversation, the President, instead of sending Sybert back to Seward, said he would turn him over to the Navy Department to be disposed of. This ends Mr. Seward's first application, and probably it will be the last. Knowing my views, he had gone to the President with his protégé, and knowing my views but in the hope he might have some encouragement from Fox, had requested the President to consult with Fox as well as myself. I know not that he requested me to be excluded on account of my opposition, but he requested that the Assistant Secretary should be consulted. And Fox assures me he has never swerved from my views on this subject. It is a specimen of Seward's management.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 261

Diary of Gideon Welles: Friday, April 3, 1863

Had some side talk with Seward at the Cabinet-meeting, on letters of marque. He persists in the policy, but I think begins to have some misgivings. Insists on having a naval officer assigned him, on whom he can devolve the labor. I requested him to employ some of his own Department force or a civilian in whom he had confidence; told him the subject belonged exclusively to the State Department; the Secretary of State had it in charge in the War of 1812 by law, and I desired the Navy should not now be blended with the proceeding. He admitted his object in asking for a naval officer was to be relieved of responsibility and details. The truth is, he has pressed forward this measure without knowledge or examination, or practical experience, but has vague indefinite notions that privateers may be efficient against the Rebels, that they will constitute a force appendant to his Department, that there will be many of them, and that he will derive credit from their exploits. If his scheme fails, and a naval officer has charge of that part of his duties, the Navy and Navy Department will bear the censure. Foote, whom he most desires should be detailed, adroitly declines the honor of being attached to the State Department in this work, and has recommended Admiral Davis, who is acceptable and willing to take the position which Foote declines.

Seward tells me he already has an application from responsible parties who want a letter of marque, and assures me there will be a flood of applications, but I am still incredulous. Our merchants will not spend their money in the idle scheme of attempting to spear sharks for wool. In the case of this first application Seward wishes me, as he is not yet prepared and the parties are ready, to take the case as I have suggested might be done under the Act of July, 1861; says it will only be temporary.

Late in the day Davis came to me from the State Department with the papers in this case. I find they are not unknown to me. One Sybert, a Prussian, I believe, by birth but a citizen of South Carolina, wants to go privateering. He called on me some days ago for papers, and I sent him to the State Department. I warned Davis to beware of adventurers, and expressed my want of confidence in the man and the movement, though Seward declared the parties were responsible.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 259-60

Diary of Gideon Welles: April 2, 1863

Had a call last evening and again to-day from Senator Sumner. Our conversation was chiefly on our foreign relations, the unfortunate condition of public affairs, the inexcusable attitude of England, and the question of letters of marque. On the latter subject he is much dissatisfied with Mr. Seward. He informs me that he was opposed to the passage of the law at the late session, and is, I am glad to see, quite sensitive on the subject. I thought the law well enough as a precautionary measure, a warning to the mischievous spirits abroad, an authorization to the President in case of necessity, and especially as a weapon to coerce England into propriety. The power granted was extraordinary and to be used with discretion, but Mr. Seward, having obtained the authority, is disposed to exercise it. The merchants having been loud and profuse in their complaints and promises, he has taken it for granted that they would at once avail themselves of the law, and make a rush in a random search for a couple of lean and hungry wolves that are abroad, which would be difficult to catch and valueless when caught. I have questioned whether he could beguile merchants into such an investment, and he begins to feel uneasy that none have come forward as he expected.

In a letter which I commenced some days since and finished Saturday night, I put upon paper some of the suggestions, views, and doubts I have from time to time expressed in our discussions. This letter I gave out to be copied, and it was on my table for signature when I returned yesterday from Cabinet council. The English news was such that I laid it aside unsigned, and it was lying on the table when Sumner came in. He stated, among other things, he had been to the State Department and that Seward had given him the substance of the last dispatches. He asked if I had seen them. I answered that I had, and was so disgusted with them that I had laid by a letter which I had prepared in opposition to the current feeling which prevailed on the subject of letters of marque. He wished to read it, and after doing so complimented the letter with emphasis, and begged I would sign and send it.

Informed Admiral Foote that the Secretary of State desired he should go to New York in the service of the State Department, on the subject of letters of marque. He expressed his readiness to obey orders, but asked the object of detailing him. I gave him an outline of proceedings and what appeared to be the purpose of Mr. Seward, which was not very clear, or could not be plainly stated. No doubt he believes it will give importance to the Secretary of State to have a naval officer of the standing of Foote attached to the State Department and acting under its orders.

The President called at my house this evening, chiefly to see the letter which I had prepared concerning letters of marque. Senator Sumner had gone directly from the Navy Department to him, and so made known his gratification at my views and the manner in which I had stated them that the curiosity of the President was excited and he desired to read the letter. I informed him that the last thing I did before leaving the Department was to sign and send it to the Secretary of State; that I perhaps should not have done it, though, as he (the President) was aware, I had differed with him and others on this subject and looked upon it as a dangerous step, but since reading the last English dispatches, I was less opposed to the measure than I had been.

The opportunity being favorable and he disposed to converse and apparently interested in my remarks, I took occasion to enlarge upon the topic more fully than I had done in our Cabinet discussions. I started out with the proposition that to issue letters of marque would in all probability involve us in a war with England. [I said] that I had so viewed this question from the beginning, though he and Mr. Seward had not; that I was not prepared to deny that it might not be best for us to move promptly with that object in view, though it had not yet been urged or stated; but that if we were to resort to letters of marque we should do it understandingly and with all the consequences before us. The idea that private parties would send out armed ships to capture the Alabama and one, possibly two, other rovers of the Rebels was too absurd to be thought of for a moment. If privateers were fitted out for any purpose it would be to capture neutral vessels intended to run the blockade or supposed to be in that service. It was not difficult for us to foresee that such a power in private hands would degenerate into an abuse for which this Government would be held responsible. The Rebels have no commerce to invite private enterprise. So far as the Rebels were concerned, therefore, I had been opposed to committing the Government to the measure. But the disclosures recently made had given a different aspect to the question. There was little doubt the British Government and British capital were encouraging the rebellion; that that Government intended to interpose no obstacle to prevent the sending out of privateers from British ports to depredate upon our commerce; that these privateers, though sailing under the Confederate flag, would be the property of British merchants; that the rich plunder would repay the lawless English adventurer, knowing he had the sanction of his Government; that this combination of British capital with Rebel malignity and desperation would despoil our commerce and drive it from the seas. Our countrymen would not quietly submit to these wrongs and outrages, and allow Englishmen to make war upon us in disguise under the Rebel flag. We ought, therefore, to have an immediate and distinct understanding with the English Government. It should be informed in terms that could not be mistaken or misunderstood that if this policy was persisted in we should in self-defense be under the necessity of resorting to reprisals. In this view the law which authorized letters of marque had appeared to me proper, and might be made useful as a menace and admonition to England; and I repeated what I had said to the Secretary of State in reply to a remark of his that we must make more extensive naval operations against the Rebels by issuing letters of marque to annoy them, — that letters of marque, instead of annoying them, destitute as they were of commerce, would aid them, for that step would involve war with England. If the Secretary of State would be less yielding and more decisive in asserting our rights with that power, it would, I thought, be better for the country.

I then opened on the subject generally. England is taking advantage of our misfortunes and would press upon us just as far as we would bear to be pressed. She rejoiced in our dissensions and desired the dismemberment of the Union. With this rebellion on our hands we were in no condition for a war with her, and it was because we were in this condition that she was arrogant and presuming. A higher and more decisive tone towards her will secure a different policy on her part. A war with England would be a serious calamity to us, but scarcely less serious to her. She cannot afford a maritime conflict with us, even in our troubles, nor will she. We can live within ourselves if worse comes to worse. Our territory is compact, facing both oceans, and in latitudes which furnish us in abundance without foreign aid all the necessaries and most of the luxuries of life; but England has a colonial system which was once her strength, but is her weakness in these days and with such a people as our countrymen to contend with. Her colonies are scattered over the globe. We could, with our public and private armed ships, interrupt and destroy her communication with her dependencies, her colonies, on which she is as dependent for prosperity as they on her.

I was therefore in favor of meeting her face to face, asking only what is right but submitting to nothing that is wrong.

If the late dispatches are to be taken as the policy she intends to pursue, it means war, and if war is to come it looks to me as of a magnitude greater than the world has ever experienced, — as if it would eventuate in the upheaval of nations, the overthrow of governments and dynasties. The sympathies of the mass of mankind would be with us rather than with the decaying dynasties and the old effete governments. Not unlikely the conflict thus commenced would kindle the torch of civil war throughout Christendom, and even nations beyond. I desired no such conflict in my day, and therefore hoped and believed the policy and tone of England might be modified, but it would require energy, resolution, and a firm determination on our part to effect it.

The President listened, for I did most of the talking, as he evidently wished, and showed much interest and accord in what I said. He assented consequently to most that I uttered and controverted nothing. It was evident I suggested some ideas that had not before occurred to him, and I am not without hope that the tone of our foreign affairs, particularly with England, may be different.

The President spoke, as he always has done with me, doubtingly of Porter's schemes on the Mississippi, or rather the side movements to the Yazoo on the east and Red River on the west. Said the long delay of Du Pont, his constant call for more ships, more ironclads, was like McClellan calling for more regiments. Thought the two men were alike, and said he was prepared for a repulse at Charleston.

[The letter referred to above was signed and sent with date of March 31.]

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 251-9

Gideon Welles to William H. Seward, March 31, 1863

Navy Department.

31 Mar., 1863.

Sir,

When discussing the regulations concerning “Letters of Marque,” &c a few days since, I made certain suggestions, and you invited me to communicate any views I might entertain, in writing.

I have felt some delicacy, I may say disinclination, to take any active part in this matter, because I have from the beginning of our difficulties discouraged the policy of privateering in such a war as this we are now waging. The rebels have no commercial marine to entice and stimulate private enterprise and capital in such undertakings, provided the policy were desirable. We, however, have a commerce that invites the cupidity, zeal and spirit of adventure, which, once commenced, will be difficult to regulate or suppress. A few privateers let loose among our shipping, like wolves among sheep, would make sad havoc, as the Alabama and the Florida bear witness.

It is proposed to encourage private enterprize to embark in undertaking to capture the two wolves or privateers that are abroad devastating the seas, and it is said, in addition to the wolves they may be authorized to catch blockade runners. The inducement, I apprehend, will not meet a favorable response. There may be vessels fitted out to capture unarmed prizes, but not of sufficient force to meet and overcome the Alabama; if not, the great end and purpose of the scheme will fail of accomplishment.

To clothe private armed vessels with governmental power and authority, including the belligerent right of search, will be likely to beget trouble, and the tendency must unavoidably be to abuse. Clothed with these powers reckless men will be likely to involve the Government in difficulty, and it was in apprehension of that fact, and to avoid it, I encountered much obloquy and reproach at the beginning of the rebellion, and labored to institute a less objectionable policy.

Propositions for privateers, for yacht squadrons, for naval brigades, volunteer navy, &c., &c. were, with the best intentions in most instances, pressed upon the Dep't, regardless of the consequences that might follow from these rude schemes of private warfare. It was to relieve us of the necessity of going into these schemes of private adventure, that the “Act to provide for the temporary increase of the Navy,” approved July 24, 1861, was so framed as to give authority to take vessels into the Naval service and appoint officers for them, temporarily, to any extent which the President may deem expedient. Under other laws, seamen may be enlisted and their wages fixed by executive authority; and the officers and men so taken temporarily into the Naval service are subject to the laws for the government of the Navy. An “Act for the better government of the Navy,” approved July 17,1862, grants prize money to “any armed vessel in the service of the United States,” in the same manner as to vessels of the Navy.

These laws, therefore, seem, and were intended to provide all the advantages of letters of marque, and yet prevent in a great measure the abuses liable to spring from them. Private armed vessels, adopted temporarily into the Naval service, would be more certainly and immediately under the control of the government, than if acting only under a general responsibility to law.

It will be necessary to establish strict rules for the government of private armed vessels, as to some extent they will be likely to be officered and manned by persons of rude notions and free habits. Congress after authorizing Letters of Marque in the War of 1812, adopted the necessary legislation for the vessels bearing them, by the Act of June 26th of that year. This act has not been revived. The recent “Act concerning letters of marquee” &c. &c. authorizes the President to “make all needful rules and regulations for the government and conduct of private armed vessels, furnished with letters of marque.” In pursuance of this authorization, the “regulations” have been prepared, embracing the provisions of the statute enacted during the War of 1812. These regulations establish, as the statute did, a penal code. They impose fines and assume to authorize punishments, including even capital punishment.

As suggested in our interview, I question the validity of such proceedings. Can Congress delegate this power of penal legislation to the President? and if to the President, why may it not to any branch of the Executive?

If it can be granted for this special purpose — the government of private armed vessels — why not for any other purpose? And if it can delegate the power of penal legislation, why could it not delegate any other power, or powers, to the President, to Commissioners, or even to a Committee of its own body, to sit during the recess? Why could it not delegate to the Secretary of the Treasury to legislate respecting imports and foreign trade, or to the Post-Master General full power of legislation respecting post offices and post routes?

The power of imposing penalties and inflicting punishments is the essence of legislative power, for it is the penalty of transgression that gives force to law. These regulations also establish rewards as well as penalties. They provide that a large bounty shall be paid to private armed vessels in certain cases. But no fund is appropriated for the purpose by the Act, nor has any provision elsewhere been made for it. Can Congress delegate to the President the power to appropriate the public moneys, or to take them without specific appropriation, or pledge the public faith at his discretion for an indefinite amount?

As I have already said, I have doubts in these particulars. They are expressed with some reluctance, because in the uneasy condition of the public mind, growing out of the lawless depredations of the semi-piratical cruisers that are abroad, I am unwilling to interpose anything which may be construed into an obstacle, to repress public indignation, which is so justly excited. I did not regret that Congress enacted a law authorizing letters of marque; because I verily believe that, with it, England can be made to prevent her mercenary citizens from making war on our commerce under a flag that has no recognized nationality. If the police of the sea is to be surrendered, and rovers built by English capital and manned by Englishmen are to be let loose to plunder our commerce, let England understand that her ships will suffer, and her commerce also be annoyed and injured by private armed ships. With her distant and dependent colonies, no nation has greater cause to oppose maritime robbery and plunder, such as is being inflicted on us by Englishmen and English capital, than Great Britain.

The West Indies are, notoriously, harbors of refuge for the corsairs that are plundering our merchants, as well as for the infamous and demoralizing business of running our blockade, to encourage the insurgents who are waging war on our government. Of these ports, those of England are the worst, and a vast amount of English capital is engaged in illicit traffic, and her people and authorities exhibit sympathy for, and afford aid to, the insurgents and their abettors, and corresponding opposition to this Government.

The English ship-yards are filled with vessels built and building for the rebel service, and if measures are not taken to prevent, these will soon swarm the seas to capture, condemn and destroy American property, without a port into which they can send their captures for adjudication. Enjoying greater advantages than the corsairs and sea-rovers that once infested the ocean, because protected, harbored, & sheltered by governments in alliance with, and professedly friendly to us, while ordinary pirates are outlaws, this species of lawless outrage cannot be permitted to go on.

England should be warned that we cannot permit this indirect war to continue with impunity — that it will provoke and justify retaliation, and that if her people and government make war upon our commerce, by sending abroad rovers with no nationality, to prey upon the property of our citizens, it will be impossible to restrain our people from retaliatory measures.

I am, respectfully,

Your Obdt. Servt.

Gideon Welles,

Secty. of Navy.

Hon. Wm. H. Seward,

Secty. of State.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 252-6

Diary of Gideon Welles: March 31, 1863

For a fortnight I have been ill and really unfit for duty, yet have been absent from the Department but a single day, the only day I have lost in Washington since March 4,1861. But for the illness of Mr. Faxon, Chief Clerk, I should have abstained a day or two from labor. Fatigued and exhausted, I have not felt able to jot down current events from day to day.

With some effort, though with indifferent health, I have drawn up a communication to Mr. Seward on the subject of letters of marque. But after the council to-day he read a dispatch from Mr. Adams, communicating two letters from Earl Russell, which are insolent, contemptuous, and mean aggression if not war. It is pretty evident that a devastating and villainous war is to be waged on our commerce by English capital and English men under the Rebel flag with the connivance of the English Government, which will, and is intended to, sweep our commerce from the ocean. Only by a decided, firm, and resolute tone can the country be rescued, and I am by no means certain that will be sufficient. We are in no condition for a foreign war. Torn by dissensions, an exhausting civil war on our hands, we have a gloomy prospect, but a righteous cause that will ultimately succeed. God alone knows through what trials, darkness, and suffering we are to pass. There is a disinclination to look these troubles which threaten us boldly in the face. I felt oppressed, as did the others. A long vista of direful calamities opens before us. Mr. Seward is earnest to get out privateers to catch the Alabama and the blockade-runners. The President thinks they should try that policy. Chase has lately favored it. I have no faith in it as against the Rebels, who have no commerce to be injured, but if we are to have a conflict with England, letters of marque and every means in our power must be put in requisition against that faithless nation. I have, therefore, doubts about sending the letter which I have prepared.

Earl Russell gives us to understand the English Government do not intend to interpose to prevent the Rebels from building, buying, and sending out from England cruisers, semi-pirates, to prey upon our commerce. In plain language, English capital is to be employed in destroying our shipping interests. If we are silent and submissive, they will succeed, and we shall waken to our condition when our vessels and merchant seamen are gone.

The condition of affairs opens a vast field. Should a commercial war commence, it will affect the whole world. The police of the seas will be broken up, and the peaceful intercourse of nations destroyed. Those governments and peoples that have encouraged and are fostering our dissensions will themselves reap the bitter fruits of their malicious intrigues. In this great conflict, thus wickedly begun, there will be likely to ensue an uprising of the nations that will shatter existing governments and overthrow the aristocracies and dynasties not only of England but of Europe.

I close my book and this month of March with sad and painful forebodings. The conduct and attitude of Great Britain, if persisted in, foreshadow years of desolation, of dissolution, of suffering and blood.

Should April open, as we hope, with success at Charleston and Vicksburg, there will be a change in the deportment and conduct of England. Her arrogance and subtle aggression will be checked by our successes, and by that alone. She has no magnanimity, no sense of honor or of right. She is cowardly, treacherous, and mean, and hates and fears our strength. In that alone is our security.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 249-51

Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, March 17, 1863

Returned last evening from strictly confidential visit to New York.

Some discussion in Cabinet-meeting to-day on letters of marque. Seward and Chase are both strong advocates of the measure. Am surprised that Chase should favor it, for he must be sensible of the consequences. He has, I think, committed himself somewhat hastily to some of the indignant but inconsiderate men in the shipping interest who are sufferers. Seward has no knowledge on the subject, nor any conception of the effect of letting loose these depredators under government sanction. There is such a general feeling against the English, who are conniving with and aiding the Rebels, that privateering is becoming popular with the Administration and country. Statesmen who should check and restrain the excited, erring popular current are carried along with it. I suggested some doubts of the expediency of the proposed proceedings, and the principles involved. In the first place I queried whether Congress could depute legislative power to the Executive, as was assumed. I asked Seward if he had any money to pay the promised bounties, and if he was of opinion there could be fines and criminal punishment inflicted by Executive regulations merely. Seward said he had no money; knew not whether there was any appropriation from which funds could be taken; if not, he must pledge the Government. This I opposed, and no one sustained Seward or expressed an opinion on the subject. As regarded penal inflictions, fines, criminal punishment by regulation he had no doubt whatever, should not hesitate in the least. I could admit no such power on the part of the Executive. My doubts and suggestions, I perceived, set others thinking. Chase became silent.

These notions in regard to privateers and letters of marque, though crude, erroneous, and fraught with evil, have been maturing for some time, and I do not mistake in placing much of the mischief to the State Department, which would be irresponsible for Navy transgressions. The Times of New York and the Chronicle of this city and papers of that particular phase of partyism, which never [act] without prompting from a certain quarter, have been writing up the matter and getting the public mind excited. The Chronicle pronounces the privateers to be a volunteer navy like volunteer forces on land. The Times mixes up letters of marque with the Navy Department, which it blames for delaying to issue the necessary authority, innocently unaware that it is a subject pertaining to that Department of the Government whose head it would never intentionally injure.

Conflicting accounts concerning Farragut's command on the lower Mississippi. The Rebel accounts state he passed Port Hudson with his vessel, the others being driven back, with the exception of the steamer Mississippi, which all say was grounded and blown up. Our account represents that all the fleet passed up except the Mississippi.

The accounts from Porter, above Vicksburg, are not satisfactory. He is fertile in expedients, some of which are costly without adequate results. His dispatches are full of verbosity of promises, and the mail which brings them also brings ludicrous letters and caricatures to Heap, a clerk who is his brother-in-law, filled with laughable and burlesque accounts of amusing and ridiculous proceedings. These may be excusable as a means of amusement to keep up his spirits and those of his men, but I should be glad to witness, or hear of something more substantial and of energies employed in what is really useful. Porter has capabilities and I am expecting much of him, but he is by no means an Admiral Foote.

The progress of the squadron and troops at Charleston is slow and unsatisfactory. I apprehend the defenses are being strengthened much faster than the assailants. Du Pont has attacked Fort McAllister and satisfied himself that the turret vessels are strong and capable of great endurance, but at the same time he doubtless made the Rebels aware of these facts.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 247-9

Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, March 10, 1863

I saw last evening a communication from the State Department inclosing several pages of regulations for letters of marque. The subject was to-day before the Cabinet, and there is a stronger disposition for the policy than I expected. I told the President I had given the proposed regulations but a cursory examination. The subject was therefore postponed to our Friday meeting, with an understanding that I should in the mean time examine them and report if they were objectionable. On looking over the sections, I find they are a transcript of the laws of 1812 and 1813, which the Secretary of State has embodied in a series of regulations which he proposes to issue. The old laws of half a century ago have expired. It is not pretended they have vitality. But the Secretary of State legislates by regulations. I am not favorably impressed with the law or the regulations, nor with the idea of sending out privateers against a couple of piratical cruisers, even if there are private parties fools enough to go on that hunt, which he says there are, but I doubt. The law undertakes to delegate legislative power to the President, which is in itself wrong. But the subject is, I fear, a foregone conclusion. Both Seward and Chase favor it, and the commercial community is greatly exasperated against the robbers. If the subject goes forward, S. will turn the whole labor and responsibility over to the Navy Department.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 246-7

Diary of William Howard Russell: May [7]*, 1861

To-day the papers contain a proclamation by the President of the Confederate States of America, declaring a state of war between the Confederacy and the United States, and notifying the issue of letters of marque and reprisal. I went out with Mr. Wigfall in the forenoon to pay my respects to Mr. Jefferson Davis at the State Department. Mr. Seward told me that but for Jefferson Davis the Secession plot could never have been carried out. No other man of the party had the brain, or the courage and dexterity, to bring it to a successful issue. All the persons in the Southern States spoke of him with admiration, though their forms of speech and thought generally forbid them to be respectful to any one.

There before me was “Jeff Davis's State Department” — a large brick building, at the corner of a street, with a Confederate flag floating above it. The door stood open, and “gave” on a large hall whitewashed, with doors plainly painted belonging to small rooms, in which was transacted most important business, judging by the names written on sheets of paper and applied outside, denoting bureaux of the highest functions. A few clerks were passing in and out, and one or two gentlemen were on the stairs, but there was no appearance of any bustle in the building.

We walked straight up-stairs to the first floor, which was surrounded by doors opening from a quadrangular platform. On one of these was written simply, “The President.” Mr. Wigfall went in, and after a moment returned and said, “The President will be glad to see you; walk in, sir.” When I entered, the President was engaged with four gentlemen, who were making some offer of aid to him. He was thanking them “in the name of the Government.” Shaking hands with each, he saw them to the door, bowed them and Mr. Wigfall out, and turning to me, said, “Mr. Russell, I am glad to welcome you here, though I fear your appearance is a symptom that our affairs are not quite prosperous,” or words to that effect. He then requested me to sit down close to his own chair at his office-table, and proceeded to speak on general matters, adverting to the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny, and asking questions about Sebastopol, the Eedan, and the Siege of Lucknow.

I had an opportunity of observing the President very closely: he did not impress me as favorably as I had expected, though he is certainly a very different looking man from Mr. Lincoln. He is like a gentleman — has a slight, light figure, little exceeding middle height, and holds himself erect and straight. He was dressed in a rustic suit of slate-colored stuff, with a black silk handkerchief round his neck; his manner is plain, and rather reserved and drastic; his head is well formed, with a fine full forehead, square and high, covered with innumerable fine lines and wrinkles, features regular, though the cheek-bones are too high, and the jaws too hollow to be handsome ; the lips are thin, flexible, and curved, the chin square, well defined; the nose very regular, with wide nostrils; and the eyes deep-set, large and full — one seems nearly blind, and is partly covered with a film, owing to excruciating attacks of neuralgia and tic. Wonderful to relate, he does not chew, and is neat and clean-looking, with hair trimmed, and boots brushed. The expression of his face is anxious, he has a very haggard, careworn, and pain-drawn look, though no trace of anything but the utmost confidence and the greatest decision could be detected in his conversation. He asked me some general questions respecting the route I had taken in the States.

I mentioned that I had seen great military preparations through the South, and was astonished at the alacrity with which the people sprang to arms. “Yes, sir,” he remarked, and his tone of voice and manner of speech are rather remarkable for what are considered Yankee peculiarities, “In Eu-rope” (Mr. Seward also indulges in that pronunciation) “they laugh at us because of our fondness for military titles and displays. All your travellers in this country have commented on the number of generals and colonels and majors all over the States. But the fact is, we are a military people, and these signs of the fact were ignored. We are not less military because we have had no great standing armies. But perhaps we are the only people in the world where gentlemen go to a military academy who do not intend to follow the profession of arms.”

In the course of our conversation, I asked him to have the goodness to direct that a sort of passport or protection should be given to me, as I might possibly fall in with some guerrilla leader on my way northwards, in whose eyes I might not be entitled to safe conduct. Mr. Davis said, “I shall give such instructions to the Secretary of War as shall be necessary. But, sir, you are among civilized, intelligent people who understand your position, and appreciate your character. We do not seek the sympathy of England by unworthy means, for we respect ourselves, and we are glad to invite the scrutiny of men into our acts; as for our motives, we meet the eye of Heaven.” I thought I could judge from his words that he had the highest idea of the French as soldiers, but that his feelings and associations were more identified with England, although he was quite aware of the difficulty of conquering the repugnance which exists to slavery.

Mr. Davis made no allusion to the authorities at Washington, but he asked me if I thought it was supposed in England there would be war between the two States? I answered, that I was under the impression the public thought there would be no actual hostilities. “And yet you see we are driven to take up arms for the defence of our rights and liberties.”

As I saw an immense mass of papers on his table, I rose and made my bow, and Mr. Davis, seeing me to the door, gave me his hand and said, “As long as you may stay among us you shall receive every facility it is in our power to afford to you, and I shall always be glad to see you.” Colonel Wigfall was outside, and took me to the room of the Secretary of War, Mr. Walker, whom we found closeted with General Beauregard and two other officers in a room full of maps and plans. He is the kind of man generally represented in our types of a “Yankee” — tall, lean, straight-haired, angular, with fiery, impulsive eyes and manner — a ruminator of tobacco and a profuse spitter — a lawyer, I believe, certainly not a soldier; ardent, devoted to the cause, and confident to the last degree of its speedy success.

The news that two more States had joined the Confederacy, making ten in all, was enough to put them in good humor. “Is it not too bad these Yankees will not let us go our own way, and keep their cursed Union to themselves? If they force us to it, we may be obliged to drive them beyond the Susquehanna.” Beauregard was in excellent spirits, busy measuring off miles of country with his compasses, as if he were dividing empires.

From this room I proceeded to the office of Mr. Benjamin, the Attorney-General of the Confederate States, the most brilliant perhaps of the whole of the famous Southern orators. He is a short, stout man, with a full face, olive-colored, and most decidedly Jewish features, with the brightest large black eyes, one of which is somewhat diverse from the other, and a brisk, lively, agreeable manner, combined with much vivacity of speech and quickness of utterance. He is one of the first lawyers or advocates in the United States, and had a large practice at Washington, where his annual receipts from his profession were not less than £8,000 to £10,000 a year. But his love of the card-table rendered him a prey to older and cooler hands, who waited till the sponge was full at the end of the session, and then squeezed it to the last drop.

Mr. Benjamin is the most open, frank, and cordial of the Confederates whom I have yet met. In a few seconds he was telling me all about the course of Government with respect to privateers and letters of marque and reprisal, in order probably to ascertain what were our views in England on the subject. I observed it was likely the North would not respect their flag, and would treat their privateers as pirates. “We have an easy remedy for that. For any man under our flag whom the authorities of the United States dare to execute, we shall hang two of their people.” “Suppose, Mr. Attorney-General, England, or any of the great powers which decreed the abolition of privateering, refuses to recognize your flag?” “We intend to claim, and do claim, the exercise of all the rights and privileges of an independent sovereign State, and any attempt to refuse us the full measure of those rights would be an act of hostility to our country.” “But if England, for example, declared your privateers were pirates?” “As the United States never admitted the principle laid down at the Congress of Paris, neither have the Confederate States. If England thinks fit to declare privateers under our flag pirates, it would be nothing more or less than a declaration of war against us, and we must meet it as best we can.” In fact, Mr. Benjamin did not appear afraid of anything; but his confidence respecting Great Britain was based a good deal, no doubt, on his firm faith in cotton, and in England's utter subjection to her cotton interest and manufactures. “All this coyness about acknowledging a slave power will come right at last. We hear our commissioners have gone on to Paris, which looks as if they had met with no encouragement at London; but we are quite easy in our minds on this point at present.”

So Great Britain is in a pleasant condition. Mr. Seward is threatening us with war if we recognize the South, and the South declares that if we don't recognize their flag, they will take it as an act of hostility. Lord Lyons is pressed to give an assurance to the Government at Washington, that under no circumstances will Great Britain recognize the Southern rebels; but, at the same time, Mr. Seward refuses to give any assurance whatever, that the right of neutrals will be respected in the impending struggle.

As I was going down stairs, Mr. Browne called me into his room. He said that the Attorney-General and himself were in a state of perplexity as to the form in which letters of marque and reprisal should be made out. They had consulted all the books they could get, but found no examples to suit their case, and he wished to know, as I was a barrister, whether I could aid him. I told him it was not so much my regard to my own position as a neutral, as the vafri inscitia juris which prevented me throwing any light on the subject. There are not only Yankee ship-owners but English firms ready with sailors and steamers for the Confederate Government, and the owner of the Camilla might be tempted to part with his yacht by the offers made to him.

Being invited to attend à levée or reception held by Mrs. Davis, the President's wife, I returned to the hotel to prepare for the occasion. On my way I passed a company of volunteers, one hundred and twenty artillerymen, and three fieldpieces, on their way to the station for Virginia, followed by a crowd of “citizens” and negroes of both sexes, cheering vociferously. The band was playing that excellent quick-step “Dixie.” The men were stout, fine fellows, dressed in coarse gray tunics with yellow facings, and French caps. They were armed with smooth-bore muskets, and their knapsacks were unfit for marching, being water-proof bags slung the shoulders. The guns had no caissons, and the shoeing of the troops was certainly deficient in soling. The Zouave mania is quite as rampant here as it is in New York, and the smallest children are thrust into baggy red breeches, which the learned Lipsius might have appreciated, and are sent out with flags and tin swords to impede the highways

The modest villa in which the President lives is painted white, — another “White House,” — and stands in a small garden. The door was open. A colored servant took in our names, and Mr. Browne presented me to Mrs. Davis, whom I could just make out in the demi-jour of a moderately-sized parlor, surrounded by a few ladies and gentlemen, the former in bonnets, the latter in morning dress à la midi. There was no affectation of state or ceremony in the reception. Mrs. Davis, whom some of her friends call “Queen Varina,” is a comely, sprightly woman, verging on matronhood, of good figure and manners, well-dressed, ladylike, and clever, and she seemed a great favorite with those around her, though I did hear one of them say, “It must be very nice to be the President's wife, and be the first lady in the Confederate States.” Mrs. Davis, whom the President C. S. married en secondes noces, exercised considerable social influence in Washington, where I met many of her friends. She was just now inclined to be angry, because the papers contained a report that a reward was offered in the North for the head of the arch rebel Jeff Davis. “They are quite capable, I believe,” she said, “of such acts.” There were not more than eighteen or twenty persons present, as each party came in and staid only for a few moments, and, after a time, I made my bow and retired, receiving from Mrs. Davis an invitation to come in the evening, when I would find the President at home.

At sundown, amid great cheering, the guns in front of the State Department, fired ten rounds to announce that Tennessee and Arkansas had joined the Confederacy.

In the evening I dined with Mr. Benjamin and his brother-in-law, a gentleman of New Orleans, Colonel Wigfall coming in at the end of dinner. The New Orleans people of French descent, or “Creoles,” as they call themselves, speak French in preference to English, and Mr. Benjamin's brother-in-law labored considerably in trying to make himself understood in our vernacular. The conversation, Franco-English, very pleasant, for Mr. Benjamin is agreeable and lively. He is certain that the English law authorities must advise the Government that the blockade of the Southern ports is illegal so long as the President claims them to be ports of the United States. “At present,” he said, “their paper blockade does no harm; the season for shipping cotton is over; but in October next, when the Mississippi is floating cotton by the thousands of bales, and all our wharves are full, it is inevitable that the Yankees must come to trouble with this attempt to coerce us.” Mr. Benjamin walked back to the hotel with me, and we found our room full of tobacco-smoke, filibusters, and conversation, in which, as sleep was impossible, we were obliged to join. I resisted a vigorous attempt of Mr. G. N. Sanders and a friend of his to take me to visit a planter who had a beaver-dam some miles outside Montgomery. They succeeded in capturing Mr. Deasy.

_______________

* This entry is dated May 9, 1861 in the published work, which is chronologically out of order, May 6th preceding it, and May 8 & 9 following it. Since there is an entry for May 9 in its proper order, I surmise May 7th is the logical and true date of the entry above in Mr. Russell’s Diary.

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 171-8

Diary of William Howard Russell: May 6, 1861

I forgot to say that yesterday before dinner I drove out with some gentlemen and the ladies of the family of Mr. George N. Sanders, once United States consul at Liverpool, now a doubtful man here, seeking some office from the Government, and accused by a portion of the press of being a Confederate spy — Porcus de grege epicuri — but a learned pig withal, and weatherwise, and mindful of the signs of the times, catching straws and whisking them upwards to detect the currents. Well, in this great moment I am bound to say there was much talk of ice. The North owns the frozen climates; but it was hoped that Great Britain, to whom belongs the North Pole, might force the blockade and send aid.

The environs of Montgomery are agreeable — well-wooded, undulating, villas abounding, public gardens, and a large negro and mulatto suburb. It is not usual, as far as I can judge, to see women riding on horseback in the South, but on the road here we encountered several.

After breakfast I walked down with Senator Wigfall to the capitol of Montgomery — one of the true Athenian Yankeeized structures of this novo-classic land, erected on a site worthy of a better fate and edifice. By an open cistern, on our way, I came on a gentleman engaged in disposing of some living ebony carvings to a small circle, who had more curiosity than cash, for they did not at all respond to the energetic appeals of the auctioneer.

The sight was a bad preparation for an introduction to the legislative assembly of a Confederacy which rests on the Institution as the corner-stone of the social and political arch which maintains it. But there they were, the legislators or conspirators, in a large room provided with benches and seats, and listening to such a sermon as a Balfour of Burley might have preached to his Covenanters — resolute and massive heads, and large frames — such men as must have a faith to inspire them. And that is so. Assaulted by reason, by logic, argument, philanthropy, progress directed against his peculiar institutions, the Southerner at last is driven to a fanaticism—a sacred faith which is above all reason or logical attack in the propriety, righteousness, and divinity of slavery.

The chaplain, a venerable old man, loudly invoked curses on the heads of the enemy, and blessings on the arms and councils of the New State. When he was done, Mr. Howell Cobb, a fat, double-chinned, mellow-eyed man, rapped with his hammer on the desk before the chair on which he sat as speaker of the assembly, and the house proceeded to business. I could fancy that, in all but garments, they were like the men who first conceived the great rebellion which led to the independence of this wonderful country — so earnest, so grave, so sober, and so vindictive — at least; so embittered against the power which they consider tyrannical and insulting.

The word "liberty" was used repeatedly in the short time allotted to the public transaction of business and the reading of documents; the Congress was anxious to get to its work, and Mr. Howell Cobb again thumped his desk and announced that the house was going into “secret session,” which intimated that all persons who were not members should leave. I was introduced to what is called the floor of the house, and had a delegate's chair, and of course I moved away with the others, and with the disappointed ladies and men from the galleries; but one of the members, Mr. Rhett, I believe, said jokingly: “I think you ought to retain your seat. If the ‘Times’ will support the South, we'll accept you as a delegate.” I replied that I was afraid I could. not act as a delegate to a Congress of Slave States. And, indeed, I had been much affected at the slave auction held just outside the hotel, on the steps of the public fountain, which I had witnessed on my way to the capitol. The auctioneer, who was an ill-favored, dissipated-looking rascal, had his “article “ beside him, on, not in, a deal packing-case — a stout young negro badly dressed and ill-shod, who stood with all his goods fastened in a small bundle in his hand, looking out at the small and listless gathering of men, who, whittling and chewing, had moved out from the shady side of the street as they saw the man put up. The chattel character of slavery in the States renders it most repulsive. What a pity the nigger is not polypoid — so that he could be cut up in junks, and each junk should reproduce itself.

A man in a cart, some volunteers in coarse uniforms, a few Irish laborers in a long van, and four or five men in the usual black coat, satin waistcoat, and black hat, constituted the audience, whom the auctioneer addressed volubly: “A prime field hand! Just look at him — good-natered, well-tempered; no marks, nary sign of bad about him! En-i-ne hunthered — only nine hun-ther-ed and fifty dol'rs for 'em! Why, it's quite rad-aklous! Nine hundred and fifty dol'rs! I can't raly

That's good. Thank you, sir. Twenty-five bid — nine huntherd and seventy-five dol'rs for this most useful hand. The price rose to one thousand dollars, at which the useful hand was knocked down to one of the black hats near me. The auctioneer and the negro and his buyer all walked off together to settle the transaction, and the crowd moved away.

“That nigger went cheap,” said one of them to a companion, as he walked towards the shade. “Yes, Sirr! Niggers is cheap now — that's a fact.” I must admit that I felt myself indulging in a sort of reflection whether it would not be nice to own a man as absolutely as one might possess a horse — to hold him subject to my will and pleasure, as if he were a brute beast without the power of kicking or biting — to make him work for me — to hold his fate in my hands: but the thought was for a moment. It was followed by disgust.

I have seen slave markets in the East, where the traditions of the race, the condition of family and social relations divest slavery of the most odious characteristics which pertain to it in the States if but the use of the English tongue in such a transaction, and the idea of its taking place among a civilized Christian people, produced in me a feeling of inexpressible loathing and indignation. Yesterday I was much struck by the intelligence, activity, and desire to please of a good-looking colored waiter, who seemed so light-hearted and light colored I could not imagine he was a slave. So one of our party, who was an American, asked him: “What are you, boy — a free nigger?” Of course he knew that in Alabama it was most unlikely he could reply in the affirmative. The young man's smile died away from his lips, a flush of blood embrowned the face for a moment, and he answered in a sad, low tone: “No, sir! I b'long to Massa Jackson,” and left the room at once. As I stood at an upper window of the capitol, and looked on the wide expanse of richly-wooded, well-cultivated land which sweeps round the hill-side away to the horizon, I could not help thinking of the misery and cruelty which must have been borne in tilling the land and raising the houses and streets of the dominant race before whom one nationality of colored people has perished within the memory of man. The misery and cruelty of the system are established by the advertisements for runaway negroes, and by the description of the stigmata on their persons — whippings and brandings, scars and cuts — though these, indeed, are less frequent here than in the border States.

On my return, the Hon. W. M. Browne, Assistant-Secretary of State, came to visit me — a cadet of an Irish family, who came to America some years ago, and having lost his money in land speculations, turned his pen to good account as a journalist, and gained Mr. Buchanan's patronage and support as a newspaper editor in, Washington. There he became intimate with the Southern gentlemen, with whom he naturally associated in preference to the Northern members; and when they went out, he walked over alongwith them. He told me the Government had already received numerous — I think he said 400 — letters from ship-owners applying for letters of marque and reprisal. Many of these applications were from merchants in Boston, and other maritime cities in the New England States. He further stated that the President was determined to take the whole control of the army, and the appointments to command in all ranks of officers into his own hands.

There is now no possible chance of preserving the peace or of averting the horrors of war from these great and prosperous communities. Thy Southern people, right or wrong, are bent on independence and on separation, and they will fight to the last for their object.

The press is fanning the flame on both sides: it would be difficult to say whether it or the telegraphs circulate lies most largely; but that as the papers print the telegrams they must have the palm. The Southerners are told there is a reign of terror in New York — that the 7th New York Regiment has been captured by the Baltimore people — that Abe Lincoln is always drunk — that General Lee has seized Arlington Heights, and is bombarding Washington. The New York people are regaled with similar stories from the South. The coincidence between the date of the skirmish at Lexington and of the attack on the 6th Massachusetts Regiment at Baltimore is not so remarkable as the fact, that the first man who was killed at the latter place, 86 years ago, was a direct descendant of the first of the colonists who was killed by the royal soldiery. Baltimore may do the same for the South which Lexington did for all the Colonies. Head-shaving, forcible deportations, tarring and feathering are recommended and adopted as specifics to produce conversion from erroneous opinions. The President of the United States has called into service of the Federal Government 42,000 volunteers, and increased the regular army by 22,000 men, and the navy by 18,000 men. If the South secede, they ought certainly to take over with them some Yankee hotel keepers. This “Exchange” is in a frightful state — nothing but noise, dirt, drinking, wrangling

SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and South, p. 167-71

Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, September 29, 1862

Seward brought me to-day a long dispatch from Dudley, consul at Liverpool. Although his fears were somewhat simulated, I saw he was really excited and alarmed. He is easily frightened. I therefore talked on general subjects, but he turned away, said there were terrible combinations in Europe to break the blockade, that there was evidence of it in the documents he brought and wished me to read. They were getting eight or ten steamers ready to break the blockade. I told him I had no apprehensions from any general concerted attack, such as he dreaded, but that I was annoyed by the sneaking method which the Englishmen practiced of stealing into Charleston in the darkness of the night. On reading the principal dispatch, I assured him there was no evidence in that document of any purpose to break the blockade, that there was no mention of an armed vessel by Consul Dudley, that there was activity among the merchant adventurers of Great Britain, stimulated by the Bull Run tidings, which they had just previously received. I did not doubt that British merchants were actively preparing to try to run the blockade, but we would be active in trying to catch them.

He seemed relieved yet not perfectly satisfied. We had some conversation in relation to letters of marque, which he favors. Wishes me to purchase the Baltic and give Comstock the command. Told him I trusted our naval cruisers, though some were not as fast as I wished, would perform the service, and that were we to buy and arm the Baltic, a naval officer must command her.

This scheme for Comstock and the Baltic is a key to the affected alarm. It has been concocted by Thurlow Weed, who has a job in view for himself or friends, perhaps both. Though Seward was somewhat frightened, his fears may have been greater in appearance than reality. He did not alarm me. It is shameful that an old profligate party-debaucher like Weed should have such influence, and Seward is mistaken in supposing I could be deceived by this connivance. His own fears of breaking the blockade were in a degree simulated. Weed is the prompter in this Comstock and Baltic intrigue. It is a job. Wrote Seward a letter of some length on the subject of cruising to suppress the slave trade under the treaty which he, without consulting the Cabinet, had recently negotiated with Great Britain. The letter is in answer to one addressed to him by Mr. Stuart, the British Chargé d’Affaires. The treaty looks to me like a trap, and as if the Secretary of State had unwittingly “put his foot in it.” He thinks it would be popular to make a demonstration against slavery and the slave trade, — would conciliate the Abolitionists, who distrust him, and be a feather in his administration of the State Department. But he has been inconsiderate or duped, perhaps both. I declined to furnish cruisers as requested, for it would weaken our position, and I cannot consent to cripple our naval strength at this time, but prefer to retain, and to act under, the belligerent right of search, to that of restricted right conferred by the treaty.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 154-6