Page images
PDF
EPUB

80

IVERSON'S TREASONABLE SPEECH.

revealed to the country, in bold outlines, the plans and intentions of the plotters against the life of the nation, in speeches marked by a superciliousness of tone and manner exceedingly offensive at that time, but perfectly ridiculous when viewed in the light of history to-day. They evidently felt confident of success in all their treasonable undertakings. They knew how well their people were prepared for military operations, by means of the teachings of their State military schools for years, their drillings during the past year, and the wealth of the arsenals in the Slave-labor States, made so by the impoverishment of those of the North, by the Secretary of War. They had arranged deep plans, which were afterward carried out, for the subjugation of the people of the Slave-labor States to their will; and they felt well assured that the great party in the Free-labor States which had been in political sympathy with them would keep the sword of the Republic in its scabbard, while commerce, ever sensitive to the least disturbance of its peace and quiet, would join hands with the politicians in keeping bound in triple chains the fierce dogs of war...

Senator Iverson, a man over sixty years of age, and a member of the Military Committee of the Senate, startled that body by his boldness in seditious speech. He admitted that a State had no constitutional right to secede, but he claimed for all the right of revolution. He then announced that the Slavelabor States intended to revolt. "We intend to go out of this Union," he said. "I speak what I believe, that, before the 4th of March, five of the Southern States, at least, will have declared their independence. ... Although there is a clog in the way of the lone-star State of Texas, in the person of her Governor (Houston), who will not consent to call her Legislature together, and give the people of that State an opportunity to act, yet the public sentiment there is so decided in favor of this movement, that even the Governor will be overridden; and if he does not yield to public sentiment, some Texan Brutus

will arise to rid his country of the hoaryheaded incubus that stands between the people and their sovereign will. We intend to go out peaceably, if we can; forcibly, if we must. I do not believe there is going to be war. . . . If five or eight States go out of this Union, I would like to see the man who would propose a declaration of war against them, or attempt to force them into obedience to the Federal Government at the point of the bayonet or the sword. . . . We shall, in the next twelve months, have a Confederacy of the Southern States, and a government, inaugurated and in successful operation, which, in my opinion, will be a government of the greatest prosperity and power that the world has ever seen. There will be no war, in my opinion. . . . The fifteen Slave States, or the five of them now moving, banded together in one government, and united as they are soon to be, would defy the world in arms, much less the Northern States of this Confederacy. Fighting on our own soil, in defense of our own sacred rights and honor, we could not be conquered, even by the combined forces of all the other States; and sagacious, sensible men in the

[graphic]

ALFRED IVERSON.

SPEECHES OF DAVIS AND WIGFALL.

81

Northern States would understand that too well to make the effort." He said that if they were allowed to go in peace, they would condescend to consider the Free-labor States as "a favored nation, and give them all the advantages of commercial and amicable treaties." He referred to the hostile feeling in the Senate as a type of that of the sections. "You sit, upon your side," he said, "silent and gloomy. We sit, upon ours, with knit brows and portentous scowls ;" and added, wickedly or ignorantly, "I believe that the Northern people hate the South worse than ever the English people hated France; and I can tell my brethren over there, that there is no love lost upon the part of the South." He concluded with angry voice and gesture, saying, "I do not believe there will be any war; but if war is to come, let it come. We will meet the Senator from New Hampshire, and all the myrmidons of Abolitionism and Black Republicanism everywhere, upon our own soil; and, in the language of a distinguished member from Ohio in relation to the Mexican War, we will welcome you with bloody hands to hospitable graves.'

Senator Jefferson Davis followed with a few words, soft, but significant of treason in his purpose. "I am here," he said, "to perform the functions of a Senator of the United States. Before a declaration of war is made against the State of which I am a citizen, I expect to be out of this Chamber; that when that declaration of war is made, the State of which I am a citizen will be found ready and quite willing to meet it. While we remain here, acting as embassadors of Sovereign States, at least under the form of friendship, held together by an alliance as close as it is possible for Sovereign States to stand to each other, threats from one to the other seem to be wholly inappropriate." Wigfall, of Texas, a truculent debater, of ability and ready speech, of whom it might have been truthfully said, in Shakspeare's words:

"Here's a large mouth, indeed,

That spits forth death, and mountains, rocks, and seas;

Talks as familiarly of roaring lions

As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs,"

did not seem to agree with the cautious, wily, and polished Mississippi SenaAfter declaring that State after State

[graphic]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

would soon leave the Union, and that, so far as he was concerned, he chose not to give a "reason for the high sovereign act," he said, "Now, Sir, I admit that a constitutional majority has a right to govern. ..... If we proposed to remain in this Union, we should undoubtedly submit to the inauguration of any man who was elected by a constitutional majority. We propose nothing of that sort. We simply say that a man who is distasteful to us has been elected, and we choose. to, consider that as a sufficient ground for leaving the Union, and we intend to leave the Union. Then, if you desire it," he said, with a half sneering, half defiant tone, "bring us back. When you undertake that, and have accomplished it, you may be

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

LOUIS T. WIGFALL

VOL. I.-6

82

COTTON PROCLAIMED KING.

like the man who purchased the elephant-you will find it rather difficult to decide what you will do with the animal."

Some days later, the same speaker, in a few sentences, revealed the mainspring of the hopes of success in their treasonable work, entertained by the conspirators. It was the cotton crop of the planting coast States, upon which England, France, and the States north of the Potomac, chiefly depended for the supply of their mills. For fifty years the orators and publicists of the Cotton-growing States had proclaimed the power of cotton in the preservation of peace between the United States and Great Britain, because of the commanding influence of the commercial and manufacturing interests in the politics of the latter country, to which American cotton had become almost an indispensable commodity. It had, indeed, become a power, both social and political, yet not so absolutely omnipotent as the conspirators believed it to be. So palpable was its commercial importance, however, and so evident was it that the mills of Europe, and those of the Free-labor States in America, with their five millions of spindles, were, and must continue to be, mostly dependent upon the product of only an inconsiderable portion of ten of the States of our Republic, that its puissance was generally conceded. In the Senate of the United States, in March, 1858, Senator Hammond, of South Carolina, said, exultingly:-"You dare not make war upon Cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is KING. Until lately the Bank of England was king; but she tried to put her screws, as usual, the Fall before last, on the cotton crop, and was utterly vanquished. The last power has been conquered. Who can doubt, that has looked at recent events, that Cotton is supreme?"

Cotton is KING! shouted the great land and slave holders of the Gulf States, whose fields were hoary with his bounteous gifts, when they thought of rebellion, and revolution, and independent empire; for they believed that his scepter had made England and France their dependents, and that they must necessarily be the allies of the cotton-growers, in the event of war. Cotton is KING! echoed back submissively the spindles of Old and New England.

"Old Cotton will pleasantly reign
When other kings painfully fall,
And ever and ever remain

The mightiest monarch of all,"

sang an American bard1 years before; and now, a Senator (Wigfall) of the Republic, with words of treason falling from his lips, like jagged hail, in the very sanctuary where loyalty should be adored exclaimed:-"I say that Cotton is KING, and that he waves his scepter, not only over these thirtythree States, but over the Island of Great Britain and over Continental Europe; and that there is no crowned head upon that island, or upon the continent, that does not bend the knee in fealty, and acknowledge allegiance to that monarch. There are five millions of people in Great Britain who live upon cotton. You may make a short crop of grain, and it will never affect them; but you may cram their granaries to bursting; you may cram them

1 The late George P. Morris, whose son, Brigadier-General William H. Morris, gallantly fought some of the Cotton-lords and their followers on the Peninsula, in the "Wilderness," and in the open fields of Spottsylvania, in Virginia, where he was wounded.

THE COTTON KINGDOM.

83 until the corn actually is lifting the shingles from the roofs of their barns, and exhaust the supply of cotton for one week, and all England is starving." Then referring to threats of war, and expectations of negro insurrections that might follow, Wigfall said :-"I tell you, Sepators, that next year you will see the negroes working as quietly and contentedly as if their masters were not leaving that country for a foreign land, as they did, a few years ago, when they were called upon to visit the Republic of Mexico." The cotton crop, he said, was worth two hundred and fifty millions of dollars a year, and would never be less. That amount, the people of the new Confederacy would export, and it would bring the same amount of imports into the country,

[graphic][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

"not through Boston, and New York, and Philadelphia," but through their own ports. "What tariff we shall adopt as a war tariff," he said, "I expect to discuss in a few months later, in another chamber. I tell you that Cotton is KING!"

1 The production of cotton for commerce has hitherto been confined to a portion of ten States, as indicated on the accompanying map, the northern limit of the profitable culture of the plant being, it is said, the northern boundary of Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. The entire area of the ten Cotton-producing States, in 1800, was 666,196 square miles, of which only 10,8SS square miles were devoted to the cotton culture in that year. On those 10,888 square miles, 4,675,770 bales of cotton, weighing 400 pounds each, were raised in 1859-60. Of this amount Great Britain took 2,019,252 bales, or more than one-third of the entire crop; France took 450,696 balea, and the States north of the Potomac took 760,218 bales.

The accompanying map is a reduced copy of a part of one, prefixed to a Report to the Boston Board of Trade on the Cotton Manufacture of 1862, by Edward Atkinson. The solid black lines inclose the principal cotton regions in the ten States alluded to. The limit of cotton culture in 1860 is indicated by a dotted line, thus .... The isothermal line of mean summer temperature is shown by dotted lines, thus ...

It was the continual boast of the politicians in the Cotton-producing States, that the money value of their staple was greater than that of all the other agricultural productions of the whole country. This assertion went from lip to lip, uncontradicted, and fixed the impression on the public mind that Cotton really was King. Every census contradicted it, but the people in the Slave-labor States were allowed to know very little about the

84

THE INTENTIONS OF THE CONSPIRATORS.

How utterly fallacious were all the promises, hopes, and expectations founded upon the assumption that Cotton was KING, will be seen hereafter.

It was plain to some of the least discerning, that the whole scheme of revolt had been deliberately planned long before the assembling of Congress, and that the talk about guaranties, and concessions, and compromises, on the part of the conspirators, was sheer hypocrisy, intended to deceive their constituents, and to lull the suspicions of the loyal people of the Republic. “You talk about concessions," exclaimed the out-spoken Iverson. "You talk about repealing the Personal Liberty Bills, as a concession to the South! Repeal them all to-morrow, Sir, and it would not stop the progress of this revolution. . . . It is the existence and the action of the public sentiment of the Northern States that are opposed to this institution of Slavery, and are determined to break it down-to use all the power of the Federal Government, as well as every other power in their hands, to bring about its ultimate and speedy extinction. That is what we apprehend, and what, in part, moves us to look

for security and protection in secession and a Southern Confed• December 13, eracy."--" Before this day next week," said Wigfall," "I hazard the 1860. assertion that South Carolina, in convention assembled, will have revoked the ratification of the treaty which makes her one of these United States. Having revoked that ratification, she will adopt an amendment to her constitution, by which she will have vested in the government of South Carolina all those powers which she, conjointly with the other States, had previously exercised through this foreign department; and in the government of South Carolina will be vested the right to declare war, to conclude peace, to make treaties, to enter into alliances, and to do all other matters and things which Sovereign States may of right do. When that is done, a minister plenipotentiary and enyoy extraordinary will be sent to present his credentials; and when they are denied, or refused to be recognized by this Government, I say to you, that the sovereignty of her soil will be asserted, and it will be maintained at the point of the bayonet." Then, referring to a threat that "seceding States would be coerced into submission," he expressed a hope that such Democrats as Vallandigham, and Richardson, and Logan, and Cox, and McClernand, and Pugh, of Ohio-members of the House of Representatives-would stand by the Slave power in this matter, and pre

census. That of 1860 shows that the wheat crop alone (raised mostly in the Free-labor States), in that year, far exceeded in value, at the current price, that of the entire cotton crop. The aggregate value of the cotton was $183,000,000, and that of wheat was $240,000,000, or $57,000,000 greater. The aggregate value of the wheat, corn, hay, and oats crops alone, that year, was over $1,100,000,000. As an article of export, cotton was largely in excess of any other item of agricultural production. The total value of these productions of the United States exported to foreign countries, for the year ending the 30th of June, 1859, was $222,909,718. That of cotton was $161,434,923, or sixty-two and a half millions of dollars less than that of other agricultural exports. The value of the cotton crop was not an eighth part of that of the whole agricultural products of the country;, and yet, politicians, in order to deceive the Southern people with false notions of their strength and independence, and the absolute sovereignty of Cotton, declared it to be greater than all others. When the trial came, and the claim of Cotton to kingship was tested, the result justified the poet in writing, that—

"Cotton and Corn were mighty Kings,
Who differed at times on certain things,
To the country's dire confusion:

Corn was peaceable, mild, and just,
But Cotton was fond of saying. You must;'
So, after he'd boasted, and bullied, and cussed,
He got up a Revolution.

But, in course of time, the bubble is bursted,
And Corn is King, and Cotton is-worsted,"

« PreviousContinue »