The Victim: A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis Part 20

"s.h.!.+" the girl whispered.

CHAPTER II

THE PARTING

The breathless galleries leaned forward to catch the slightest sound from the arena below.

One by one the Senators from the seceding Southern States rose and renounced their allegiance to the United States in obedience to the voice of their people.

With each solemn exit the women of the galleries grew hysterical, waved their perfumed handkerchiefs and shouted their approval with cries of sympathy and admiration.

David Yulee, Stephen K. Mallory and Benjamin Fitzpatrick had each closed his portfolio and with slow measured tread marched down the crowded aisle and out of the Chamber never again to enter its doors.

All eyes were focused now on the brilliant young Senator from Alabama, Clement C. Clay, Jr. It was understood that he had prepared an eloquent defense of his action and would voice the pa.s.sionate feeling of the ma.s.ses of the Southern people in this his last utterance in the crumbling temple of the old Republic.

He rose in his place, lifted his strong head with its leonine locks and broad, high forehead, paused a moment and began his speech in the clear steady tones of the trained orator, master of himself, his theme and his audience. The Northern Senators met his gaze with scorn and he answered with a look of bold defiance.

The formal announcement of the secession of his State he made in brief sharp sentences and plunged at once into the reasons for their solemn act.

"Forty-two years ago, Alabama was admitted into the Union," he declared in ringing tones. "She entered it as she goes out, with the Republic convulsed by the hostility of the North to her domestic inst.i.tutions.

Not a decade has pa.s.sed, not a year has elapsed since her birth as a State that has not been marked by the steady and insolent growth of the mob violence of the North which has demanded the confiscation of her property and the destruction of the foundations of her civilization.

"Who are the leaders of these mobs who seek thus to overthrow the Const.i.tution? Who are these hypocrites who claim the champions.h.i.+p of freedom and the moral leaders.h.i.+p of the world?

"The men who sold their own slaves to us because they could not use them with profit in a northern climate; the men who built and manned every American slave s.h.i.+p that ever sailed the seas; the sons of old Peter Faneuil of Boston who built Faneuil Hall, their cradle of liberty, out of the profits of slave s.h.i.+ps whose trade the Southern people had forbidden by law; the men who have flooded Congress for two generations with pet.i.tions to dissolve the Union; the men who threatened to secede with the addition of every foot of territory we have added to our Republic!

"These are the men who have denied to the manhood of the South Christian Communion because they could not endure what they have been pleased to style the moral leprosy of Slavery! These are the men who refuse us permission to sojourn or even pa.s.s through the sacred precincts of a Northern State and dare to carry our servants with us. These are the men who deny to the South equal rights in the lands of the West bought by Southern blood and brains and added to our inheritance against their furious protests. These are the men who burn the sacred charters of American Liberty in their public squares, and inscribe on their banners the foul motto:

"'The Const.i.tution is an agreement with Death, a covenant with h.e.l.l.'

"These are the men who dare to call us traitors! These are the men who have deliberately pa.s.sed laws in fourteen Northern States nullifying the provisions of the Const.i.tution of the Union which they have sworn to defend and enforce--"

The speaker paused and lifted high above his head a little morocco bound volume.

"Here in the presence of Almighty G.o.d--the G.o.d of our fathers, and these witnesses, I read its solemn provisions which the laws of fourteen Northern States have brazenly and openly defied!"

He opened the little book and slowly read:

"'Article 4, Section 2.

"'_No person held to service of labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor--but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due._'"

He turned suddenly to the Northern Senators:

"Your States have not only repudiated the Const.i.tution you have sworn to uphold, but your emissaries have invaded the peaceful South and sought to lay it waste with fire and sword and servile insurrection. You have murdered Southern men who have dared demand their rights on Northern soil. You have invaded the borders of Southern States, burned their dwellings and murdered their people. You have proclaimed John Brown, the criminal maniac who sought to murder innocent and helpless men, women and children in Virginia, a hero and martyr and then denounced _us_ in your popular meetings, your religious and legislative a.s.semblies as habitual violators of the laws of G.o.d and the rights of humanity! You have exerted all the moral and physical agencies that human ingenuity can devise or a devil's malice employ to heap odium and infamy upon us and make the very name of the South a by-word of hissing and of scorn throughout the civilized world--"

He paused overcome with emotion and lifted his hand to stay the burst of applause from the galleries.

"We have borne all this for long years and might have borne it many more under the a.s.surance of our Northern friends that such fanaticism does not represent the true heart of the Northern people. But the fallacy of these promises and the folly of our hopes have been too clearly proven in the late election. The platform of the political party on which you have swept every Northern State and elected a sectional President is a foul libel upon our character and a declaration of open war on the lives and property of the Southern people.

"In defiance of the Const.i.tution which protects our rights your mob has decreed the confiscation of three thousand million dollars' worth of our property. If we claim the protection of our common law, your mob solemnly burns the Const.i.tution in your public squares and denounces it as 'an agreement with Death and covenant with h.e.l.l.' We appeal to the Supreme Court of the Republic and when its Judges unanimously sustain our position on every point, your mob cries:

"'Down with the Supreme Court of the United States!'

"You have not only insulted us as unchristian and heathen, you have proclaimed that four million ignorant negroes but yesterday taken from the savagery of cannibal Africa are our equals and ent.i.tled to share in the solemn rights of American citizens.h.i.+p. Your declaration is an open summons that they rise in insurrection with the knife in one hand and the torch in the other.

"Your mob has declared the South outlawed, branded with ignominy, consigned to execration and ultimate destruction. Your mob has decreed the death of Slavery and sends the new President to execute their decree.

"All right--kill Slavery and then what? Kill Slavery and what will you do with its corpse? Who shall deliver us from the body of this death? We are not leaving this Hall to fight for the Inst.i.tution of African Slavery. The grim specter of a degraded and mongrel citizens.h.i.+p which lies back of your mob's programme of confiscation is the force that is driving the Southern people out of the Union to find peace and safety.

Whatever may be the sins of Slavery in the South they are as nothing when compared to the degradation of your life which must follow their violent emanc.i.p.ation. The Southern white man is slowly lifting the African out of barbarism into the light of Christian civilization. In our own good time we will emanc.i.p.ate him and start him on a new life beyond the boundaries of our Republic. Whatever may be the differences of opinion in the South on the inst.i.tution of slavery--there is no difference and there has never been on one point--it was true yesterday--it is true to-day--it will be true to-morrow--_Slavery is the only modus viviendi by which two such races as the Negro and the Aryan can live side by side in a free democracy with equality the law of its life_--"

Again a burst of tumultuous applause swept the gallery.

"The issue is clear cut and terrible in its simplicity--the South stands on the faith of our fathers who created this Republic. The South stands for Const.i.tutional freedom under the forms of established law. The North has lifted the red flag of revolution and proclaims the irresponsible despotism of an enthroned mob!

"For a generation your school mistresses have been training your boys to hate us and arming them to fight us. Make no mistake about this movement to-day. We who go are but the servants of those who sent us. They now recall their amba.s.sadors, and we obey their sovereign will. Make no mistake about it. They are not a brave and rash people, deluded by bad men, who are attempting in an illegal way to wreck the Union. They seek peace and safety outside driven by the Rebellion against Law and Order within.

"Are we more or less than men? Can we love our enemies and bless them that curse and revile us? Are we devoid of the sensibilities, the sentiments, the pa.s.sions, the reason, and the instincts of mankind? Have we no pride, no honor, no sense of shame, no reverence for our ancestors, no care for posterity, no love for home, or family or friends? Must we quail before the onion breath of an enthroned mob, confess our baseness, discredit the fame of our sires, degrade our children, abandon our homes, flee from our country and dishonor ourselves--all for the sake of a Union whose Const.i.tution you have publicly burned and whose Supreme Court you have spit upon?

"Shall we consent to live under an administration controlled by those who not only deny us justice and equality and brand us as infamous, but boldly proclaim their purpose to rob us of our property and destroy our civilization?

"The freemen of Alabama have proclaimed to the world they will not. In their sovereign power they have recalled me. As their servant I go!"

With a wave of his hand in an imperious gesture of defiance to the silent Senators of the North, amid a scene of unparalleled pa.s.sion, the speaker turned to his seat, gathered his books and papers and strode with quick firm step down the aisle.

Jennie had leaped to her feet and stood clapping her hands in a frenzy of excitement, unconscious of the existence of the strangely quiet young man by her side.

He rose and stood smiling into her flushed face as she gasped:

"A wonderful speech--wasn't it?"

"They say the South has never lacked audacity, Miss Barton. I'm wondering if they are really going to make good such words with deeds."

He spoke with a cold detachment that chilled and angered the impulsive girl. A hot answer was on her lips when she remembered suddenly that he was a foreigner.

"Of course, Signor, you can not understand our feelings!"

"On the other hand, I a.s.sure you, I do--I'm just wondering in a cold intellectual way whether the oratorical temperament--the temperament of pa.s.sion, of righteous wrath of the explosive type which we have just witnessed, will win in the trial by fire which war will bring--"

"You doubt our courage?" she interrupted, with a slight curve of the proud little lips.

"Far from it--I a.s.sure you! I'm only wondering if it has the sullen, dogged, staying qualities these stolid Northern men down there have exhibited while they listened--"

The girl threw him a quick surprised look and he stopped. His voice had unconsciously taken the tones of a soliloquy.