Volume Iii Part 18 (2/2)
The secession of South Carolina was greeted with joy in most of the other slave States. Montgomery and Mobile, Ala., each fired one hundred guns. At Richmond, Va., a palmetto banner was unfurled, while bells, bonfires, and processions celebrated the event all over the South. The other cotton States, spurred on by the bold deed of South Carolina, rapidly followed her lead. Mississippi seceded January 9th, Florida the 10th, Alabama the 11th, Georgia the 19th, Louisiana the 26th, Texas February 1st.
It is probable that only in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Florida were the majority of whites in favor of secession. The South was after all full of Union sentiment. The ordinance of secession proceeded in each State from a convention, and the election of delegates to this witnessed the earnest work. The n.o.ble efforts of those Union men in their fierce struggle have never yet been appreciated. But they fought against great odds, and were inevitably overborne. The opposition was organized, ably led, and white-hot with zeal. The political power and the wealth of the South lay in the hands of the secessionists. The clergy threw their weight on that side, preaching that slavery, G.o.d's ordinance, was in danger. Union proclivities were crushed out by force.
Vigilance committees were everywhere on the alert. In the rougher States of the Southwest abolitionists were tarred and feathered. Some were shot. In all the States Union men were warned to keep quiet or leave the South. One of the most powerful agents of intimidation was the Knights of the Golden Circle, a vast secret society which extended throughout the southern States.
Yet, in spite of all, the vote was close even in several of the cotton States. The Georgia people wanted new safeguards for slavery, but did not at first desire secession. Alexander H. Stephens, who headed the anti-secession movement, declared that Georgia was won over to take the fatal step at last only by the cry, ”Better terms can be made out of the Union than in it.” Even then the first vote for secession stood only 165 to 130. In Louisiana the popular vote for convention delegates was 20,000 for secession and 17,000 against.
The border States held aloof. Kentucky and Tennessee refused to call conventions. So, for long, did North Carolina. The convention of Virginia and of Missouri each had a majority of Union delegates. When the Confederate Government was organized in February, only seven of the fifteen slave States had seceded. Their white population was about 2,600,000, or less than half that of the entire slave region. But Arkansas and North Carolina were soon swept along by the current, and seceded in May. Virginia and Tennessee were finally carried (the former in May, the latter in June) by the aid of troops, who swarmed in from the seceded States, and turned the elections into a farce. Unionists in the Virginia Convention were given the choice to vote secession, leave, or be hanged. Missouri, Kentucky, Delaware, and Maryland resisted all attempts to drag them into the Confederacy, though the first two, after the United States began to apply force, appeared neutral rather than loyal.
The seizure of United States property went hand in hand with secession.
Most of the government works were feebly garrisoned, and made no resistance. By January 15th the secessionists had possession of a.r.s.enals at Augusta, Ga., Mount Vernon, Ala., Fayetteville, N. C, Chattahoochee, Fla., and Baton Rouge, La., of forts in Alabama and Georgia, of a navy-yard at Pensacola, Fla., and of Forts Jackson and St. Philip, commanding the mouth of the Mississippi. At one a.r.s.enal they found 150,000 pounds of powder, at another 22,000 muskets and rifles, besides ammunition and cannon, at another 50,000 small arms and 20 heavy guns.
The whole South had been well supplied with military stores by the enterprising foresight of J. B. Floyd, of Virginia, Buchanan's Secretary of War, who had sent thither 115,000 muskets from the Springfield a.r.s.enal alone.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]
Major Robert Anderson.
Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor, was held by Major Robert Anderson, of Kentucky, with a garrison of some seventy men. On December 27th the whole country was thrilled, and the South enraged, by the news that on the previous night Anderson had secretly transferred his whole force to Fort Sumter, a new and stronger work in the centre of the harbor, leaving spiked cannon and burning gun-carriages behind him at Moultrie.
The South Carolina militia at once occupied the deserted fortress with the other harbor fortifications, and began to put them into a state of defence. At Pensacola, Fla., Lieutenant Slemmer, by a movement similar to Anderson's, held Fort Pickens.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Several soldiers loading boats by moonlight.]
Major Anderson removing his Forces from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter, December 26, 1861.
The seizure of government property went on through January and February.
In Louisiana all the commissary stores were confiscated, and the revenue cutter McClelland surrendered. The mint at New Orleans, containing over half a million in gold and silver, was seized. More than half of the regular army were stationed in Texas, under General Twiggs. In February, at the demand of a secessionist committee of public safety, he surrendered his entire force, together with eighteen military posts. The troops were sent to a Gulf port and there detained.
This wholesale seizure of government property, worth some $20,000,000, has brought down upon the South much scathing rebuke. The conduct of Floyd, stabbing his country under the cloak of a cabinet office, cannot be too strongly condemned; but with the seceding States the case was different. Having (so they thought) established themselves as independent republics, they could not allow the military works within their borders to remain in the hands of a foreign power. As to the Government's property right, they recognized it, and proposed to pay damages. The provisional const.i.tution of the Confederacy, adopted in February, provided for negotiations to settle the claim of the United States.
The southern leaders were not more anxious to get the slave States out of the Union than to get them into a grand Southern Confederacy. Early in January a caucus of secession congressmen was held at Was.h.i.+ngton, and arrangements made for a const.i.tutional convention.
February 4, 1861, delegates from the States which had left the Union met at Montgomery, Ala., and formed themselves into a provisional Congress.
A temporary government, styled ”The Confederate States of America,” was soon organized. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, was chosen President by the Congress, and Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, Vice-President.
Davis was born in Kentucky in 1808. He graduated at West Point, fought as colonel in the Mexican war, served three terms as congressman from Mississippi, the last two in the Senate, and was Secretary of War under Pierce. After Calhoun's death, in 1850, he became the most prominent of the ultra southern leaders. The new President was brought from Jackson, Miss., to Montgomery by a special train, his progress a continual ovation. Cheering crowds gathered at every station to see and hear him.
February 18th Davis was inaugurated. In his address, which was calm and moderate in tone, he declared that reunion was now ”neither practicable nor desirable;” he hoped for peace, but said that if the North refused this, the South must appeal to arms, secure in the blessing of G.o.d on a just cause.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Portrait.]
Jefferson Davis.
The Confederate President was intrusted with very large powers, including supreme control of military affairs. He was authorized to muster into the service of the central government the regiments which had been forming in the various States. A call was issued for 100,000 volunteers, and provision made for organizing a regular army. President Davis appointed a cabinet, with state, treasury, war, navy, and post-office departments. Robert Toombs, of Georgia, a rabid secessionist, became Secretary of State.
March 11th the Confederate Congress adopted a permanent const.i.tution. It reproduced that of the United States, with some important changes. State sovereignty was recognized in the preamble, which read, ”We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character,” etc. Slavery was called by name, and elaborate safeguards fixed for it in the States and Territories. Slave-trade from beyond the sea, or with states not in the Confederacy, was, however, prohibited. Protective tariffs were absolutely forbidden. The president and vice-president were to serve six years, and the former could not be re-elected. Some valuable features were inserted. Members of the cabinet might discuss matters pertaining to their departments in either house of congress. The president could veto one part of an appropriation bill without killing the whole, and was required to lay before the senate his reasons for the removal of any officers from the civil service.
<script>