How it does rain! Last night there were torrents of water in
the streets literally a foot deep. It still runs in muddy whirling streams
through the channels, and the rain is falling incessantly from a dull leaden
sky. The air is warm and clammy. There are all kind of rumors abroad, and the
barbers' shops shook with “shaves” this morning. Sumter, of course, was the
main topic. Some reported that the President had promised the Southern
Commissioners, through their friend Mr. Campbell, Judge of the Supreme Court,
not to use force in respect to Pickens or Sumter. I wrote to Mr. Seward, to ask
him if he could enable me to make any definite statement on these important
matters. The Southerners are alarmed at the accounts they have received of
great activity and preparations in the Brooklyn and Boston navy yards, and
declare that “treachery” is meant. I find myself quite incapable of comprehending
their position.How can the United States Government be guilty of “treachery” toward subjects of States which
are preparing to assert their independence, unless that Government has been
guilty of falsehood or admitted the justice of the decision to which the States
had arrived?
As soon as I had finished my letters, I drove over to the
Smithsonian Institute, and was most kindly received by Professor Henry, who
took me through the library and museum, and introduced me to Professor Baird,
who is great in natural history, and more particularly in ornithology. I
promised the professors some skins of Himalayan pheasants, as an addition to
the collection. In the library we were presented to two very fine and lively
rock snakes, or pythons, I believe, some six feet long or more, which moved
about with much grace and agility, putting out their forked tongues and hissing
sharply when seized by the hand or menaced with a stick. I was told that some
persons doubted if serpents hissed; I can answer for it that rock snakes do
most audibly. They are not venomous, but their teeth are sharp and needle like.
The eye is bright and glistening; the red forked tongue, when protruded, has a
rapid vibratory motion, as if it were moved by the muscles which produce the
quivering hissing noise. I was much interested by Professor Henry's remarks on
the large map of the continent of North America in his study: he pointed out
the climatic conditions which determined the use, profits, and necessity of
slave labor, and argued that the vast increase of population anticipated in the
valley of the Mississippi, and the prophecies of imperial greatness attached to
it, were fallacious. He seems to be of opinion that most of the good land of
America is already cultivated, and that the crops which it produces tend to
exhaust it, so as to compel the cultivators eventually to let it go fallow or
to use manure. The fact is, that the influence of the great mountain-chain in
the west, which intercepts all the rain on the Pacific side, causes an immense
extent of country between the eastern slope of the chain and the Mississippi,
as well as the district west of Minnesota, to be perfectly dry and
uninhabitable; and, as far as we know, it is as worthless as a moor, except for
the pasturage of wild cattle and the like.
On returning to my hotel, I found a note from Mr. Seward,
asking me to visit him at nine o'clock. On going to his house, I was shown to
the drawing-room, and found there only the Secretary of State, his son, and
Mrs. Seward. I made a parti carré for a friendly rubber of whist, and Mr. Seward,
who was my partner, talked as he played, so that the score of the game was not
favorable. But his talk was very interesting. “All the preparations of which
you hear mean this only. The Government, finding the property of the State and
Federal forts neglected and left without protection, are determined to take
steps to relieve them from that neglect, and to protect them. But we are
determined in doing so to make no aggression. The President's inaugural clearly
shadows out our policy. We will not go beyond it — we have no intention of
doing so — nor will we withdraw from it.” After a time Mr. Seward put down his
cards, and told his son to go for a portfolio which he would find in a drawer
of his table. Mrs. Seward lighted the drop light of the gas, and on her
husband's return with the paper left the room. The Secretary then lit his
cigar, gave one to me, and proceeded to read slowly and with marked emphasis, a
very long, strong, and able despatch, which he told me was to be read by Mr.
Adams, the American Minister in London, to Lord John Russell. It struck me that
the tone of the paper was hostile, that there was an undercurrent of menace
through it, and that it contained insinuations that Great Britain would
interfere to split up the Republic, if she could, and was pleased at the
prospect of the dangers which threatened it.
At all the stronger passages Mr. Seward raised his voice,
and made a pause at their conclusion as if to challenge remark or approval. At
length I could not help saying, that the despatch would, no doubt, have an
excellent effect when it came to light in Congress, and that the Americans
would think highly of the writer; but I ventured to express an opinion that it
would not be quite so acceptable to the Government and people of Great Britain.
This Mr. Seward, as an American statesman, had a right to make but a secondary
consideration. By affecting to regard Secession as a mere political heresy
which can be easily confuted, and by forbidding foreign countries alluding to
it, Mr. Seward thinks he can establish the supremacy of his own Government, and
at the same time gratify the vanity of the people. Even war with us may not be
out of the list of those means which would be available for re-fusing the
broken union into a mass once more. However, the Secretary is quite confident
in what he calls “reaction.” “When the Southern States,” he says, “see that we
mean them no wrong — that we intend no violence to persons, rights, or things —
that the Federal Government seeks only to fulfil obligations imposed on it in
respect to the national property, they will see their mistake, and one after
another they will come back into the union.” Mr. Seward anticipates this
process will at once begin, and that Secession will all be done and over in
three months — at least, so he says. It was after midnight ere our conversation
was over, much of which of course I cannot mention in these pages.
SOURCE: William Howard Russell, My Diary North and
South, p. 68-71
