"Tis grace hez fotched me safe dis fur.
Und grace gwine take me home."
He stopped abruptly and began to groan and mutter.
"Grate Jarryko!" he exclaimed, as he vigorously rubbed one foot against the other, "Ef yu"s spectin" dem rones to tote yu in de kerrige to Filadelfy meetin" house, hits ergwine ter be by und twixt mo better grace dan yu"s got, ur me udder."
The old negro looked up again over the broken rim of his beaver, and he began to mutter again, "Grate Jarryko! Ef dat fool n.i.g.g.e.r haint dun und gone und turned de house inside outtards! De debbil hez s...o...b..oke loose in de middle ships o" dis ole plantashun, und dem evil sperrets is in cohoot wid won ernudder."
At this point Hannah observed Joshua zigzagging across the field without horses or carriage, and her wrath was exceeding fierce.
"Pend upon it," she exclaimed, "dat ar ole n.i.g.g.e.r fool de werry eyeb.a.l.l.s outen yo hed. Gwine ter fetch de rones und de kerrige! Grate king! Ef de good Lawd spares me twell den, when de jedge c.u.ms er roun"
ter de kote, I"m ergwine ter git me er vorcement. Mont ez well go inter cohootnership wid a billy gote, widout ary moufful o" fodder ez dat ole black idgeot."
When Joshua came within hailing distance, Hannah halloed to him; "Whay hez yu been all dis nite Joshaway? Here I"se sot und sot ever sense daylite down, in de jam of de chimney und every now und den hit peeerd lak I heerd dem rones er plumputy plump down de rode, er c.u.mmin same ez a sho nuff harrykin, und bress Gord heer yu c.u.ms ergin wid de drunken reels lak er ole hoss, wid de bline staggers, mommucked up wusser dan a kadnipper; Look at dat ole bever hat, er layin" dare pine plank lak a turkle trap sot bottom uppards."
Joshua heaved one or more sighs as he blurted out in a drowsy way; "Dem dare hosses yu heerd down de rode, er blickerty blick, dun und got drownded to def in de crick last nite."
"Grate king!" exclaimed Hannah wrathfully; "ef de good Lord spares me twell den, when de jedge gits to de kote, I"m gwine to git me a vorcement."
"Und me too;" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Joshua as he stretched himself upon a plank for a nap.
CHAPTER V.
PATRIOTIC MEN DELIBERATING.
At the hour of 3 p. m., in the early autumn of 186--, several representative gentlemen met by previous agreement in the library of Colonel Seymour. This congress of Southern leaders of the old school, after the interchange of the usual courtesies, resolved themselves into "A Committee of the Whole upon the state of the Union," with Judge Bonham in the chair, and was addressed at length by Governor Ainsworth.
This gentleman had honored his state as one of its Senators in the Federal Congress; again as Secretary of the Navy, and had filled by successive elections the office of Governor for three terms. He had reached that mellow age when the intellect becomes largely retrospective. The manner of this distinguished statesman was singularly individual. In early life strongly inclined to the contemplation of perplexing political questions, he possessed a graphic, nervous force--a kind of untamed vigor--a raciness of flavor in speech that belonged only to the individual who thought for himself. There were few men more richly endowed; his intellect was of the highest order--clear, rapid and comprehensive--combined with an extraordinary facility of expressing and ill.u.s.trating his ideas, both in conversation and debate. He possessed a rich imagination, a rare and delicate taste, a gentle and sportive wit, and an uninterrupted flow of humor, that made him the delight of every circle. Nor were his moral qualities less deserving of respect and admiration. He was generous, brave, patriotic and independent. He was the slave of no ambitious or selfish policy; the hunter of no fact.i.tious or delusive popularity; he spoke the language of truth, justice and wisdom. A "throb of grat.i.tude beat in the hearts of the people," and the sentiment of an affectionate respect glowed in their bosoms for the "old man eloquent." His speeches, too, were essentially characteristic, abounding in keen satire, humor, and frequently in the most direct and idiomatic language. Given to intense conviction rather than to subtle discernment, and devoting his unusual ability to studied effort, he could, whenever he felt so inclined, "strip the mask from the hypocrite, and the cowl from the bigot."
This was the man toward whom the patriotic sentiment of the country was directed; the man who might, by possibility, lash the raging h.e.l.lespont into submission. "But what avail," said he as he leaned heavily upon his staff, "are arguments and protests? Can we charm the serpent into harmlessness by the feeble chirping of the wren? Can we tranquilize the country by indignant declamation?" Then with an effort he a.s.sumed a poise still more dignified and serious, as he continued:
"Gentlemen, when the seas are lashed into a rage, no matter who are the mad spirits of the storm, they cannot say to their tumultuous waters, "thus far shalt thou go, and no farther, and here shalt thy proud waves be stayed." There are other powers in motion beneath its surface, which they wist not of, and whose might they can neither direct or control. I have stood upon the sh.o.r.es of the mighty ocean, and observed the forerunners of the coming storm. I have heard the moan of its restless waters in the caverns of the great deep, and have seen the upheaving of the billows, which rose, and raged and tossed as foam from their bosoms, the wild spirits that gendered the tempest. I envy not the triumph of those who have troubled the waters; who have laid waste the South, who have beggared her proud people. I had rather stand with my countrymen powerless, but brave and unyielding, than to wield the thunderbolts of Jove, if I must employ their power and resource in wrong and oppression.
When the last spark of Roman liberty was extinguished; when no voice but that of Augustus was heard, and no power but that of Augustus was felt, his venal flatterers vied with each other in deifying their G.o.d, and degrading those firm, defiant spirits who stood for their country and its tranquility. Caesar had subjugated the world, all but the dark unbending soul of Cato. In a catastrophe, such as this, let that band of patriots to which it is my pride to belong, share in the spirit of the last of the Romans; that spirit which scorns to bow before any earthly power, save that of their beleaguered country.
The reconstruction government has purposely demoralized the economic conditions which contributed to the prosperity of the South. Full well it knew that the wealth of the people depended upon their labor. There was a time when plunder was the great resource of the nations of the earth. The first kingdom was sustained by pillage and conquest, and great Babylon, the glory of the Chaldean empire, was adorned by the spoils of all Asia; the a.s.syrian was plundered by the Persian, the Persian by the Macedonian, and it at last devoured by the Roman power.
The wolf which nursed its founder, gave a hunger for prey insatiable to the whole world. There was not a temple nor a shrine between the Euphrates and the salted sea that was not pillaged by these marauders.
The tide of ages, century after century, had rolled over the last fragment of Roman power; the light of science had broken upon the world, before mankind seemed to realize that our Creator, dead aeons ago had said: "By the sweat of his brow man should eat his bread all the days of his life."
Wealth is power, and the wealth of a nation is its labor, its abundant control of all the great agencies of nature employed in production. The products of human labor, its food and clothing, like the fruits of the earth are annual, and G.o.d in his wisdom has adjusted human wants to their power of production. Like the bread from heaven the dews of every night produce the crops, and the labors of every day gather the harvest.
What, but an almost boundless power of consumption and reproduction has given to the South its athletic vigor, and yet the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the negroes has been a fatal blow to every industrial interest. It has left our plows to rot in the furrow, and our plantations to grow up in briers and brambles.
That liberty, which ranks in our organic law next to life, is subjected to the caprice of those who happen in the ever varying conditions of human affairs to be placed over us as masters. The South believed that the theory of the government derived its chiefest captivation from its regard to the equal rights of all its citizens and from its pledge to maintain and preserve those rights. It a.s.sumed to proclaim the happiness of the people to have been the object of its inst.i.tution, and to guarantee to each and to all without limitation the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property.
It has been reserved for the power of oppression, in its active and diffused state, to give effect to the unhallowed innovation upon the rights of the South.
Reconstruction is the Gethsemane of southern life. G.o.d"s law is higher than man"s law. Man"s feeble statutes cannot annul the immutable ordinances of the Almighty. Those whom G.o.d has put asunder, let no man join together.
Who could have foreseen that in the first century of our existence African freedmen would rule sovereign commonwealths, and become the judges of the rights and property of a race who had ruled the destinies of the world since governments--patriarchal, monarchical or const.i.tutional--was known to man?
The true, sincere and rational humanitarian looks with sorrow upon the future state of the misguided negroes; for when this inst.i.tutional age shall have pa.s.sed away, he sees the exodus or extirpation of this disturbing element in the social and political conditions of the more powerful sovereign race. The authors of the infamous policy have written their _hic jacet_ against our civilization.
No where can there be found in the history of any country where the civil and military policy have been so basely prost.i.tuted, or where the safeguards of liberty, life and property were ever entrusted to freed slaves--human chattels; slaves who never for a moment have been in a state of pupilage. It is an epoch that marks the decadence of the manhood and civilization of a great nation--h.o.m.ogeneous, prosperous, enlightened and happy. The nearest approximation to this era of ruin--of social degradation--was when the slaves in Rome were enfranchised by order of the emperor, and conditions there were totally dissimilar.
Whilst they enjoyed certain rights and prerogatives of manumission, they were still held to duties of obedience and grat.i.tude. Whatever were the fruits of their toil and industry, their patrons shared or inherited the third part, or even the whole of their acquisitions. In the decline of this great empire, the proud mistress of the world, we are told that hereditary distinctions were gradually abolished, and the reason or instinct of Justinian completed the simple form of an absolute monarchy.
In the eye of the law all Romans were equal and all subjects were citizens. The inestimable character was degraded to an obsolete and empty name. The voice of a Roman could no longer enact laws or create the annual ministers of his power.
"It may take many generations perhaps, for moral changes are slow, to put out all our lights of knowledge that are now beaming from every cottage in the South; but one after another they will be extinguished, and with them the beacon torch of liberty. When the white men of the South shall come to see how things are, and to realize the downward tendency, physical, intellectual manhood will make a throe to regain the height it has lost, and if it fails, a storm will arise from the elements they are compounding, that will break somewhere and spend itself with desolating fury. They cannot degrade a people who have been enlightened and free, prosperous and happy, without igniting a ma.s.s which they can no more control, than they can the central fires of Vesuvius.
"Up to the commencement of hostilities between the North and the South, there were in the South millions of people employed directly or indirectly in the honest and wholesome avocation of agriculture, and by its great encouraging system, sustained in a condition of existence, both moral and physical, equally as prosperous and independent as any other agricultural people in any other region of the earth. They were white men who piece by piece built up the whole superstructure, and thereby reinforced the country with so much labor and skill; furnished so much mutual employment for that skill and labor, aided as they were by so many instrumentalities of toil and agents of production. What a country it was--supplied by this system from the labor of our own hands and workshops, with all the machinery, fruits of the earth, and all the needful fabrics of human skill. This great system comprehended every cla.s.s and every source of material wealth. Under this system our people prospered. The white population of the South came by descent from a parent stock, that from the foundation of society had governed in wisdom and moderation the most enlightened countries of the world; who had written every const.i.tution, fought every battle, endowed every charity, established every government, introduced every reform that has given to the world its christian development and progress.
"When these extra-hazardous reconstruction acts were submitted to the Legislature of the South, they refused to "chop logic" with the Reconstruction party. It would have been contrary to the experience of mankind, and an exception to all the teachings of history, if in the high excitement then prevailing--the exasperation of the people--the outrages threatened and inflicted, the South had yielded one jot or t.i.ttle or swerved from its honest, patriotic convictions. The transition was from a state in which the integrity and intelligence of the white race, enn.o.bled by centuries of meritorious service, had ruled; to a government by a black race that less than five generations before had been hunted like wild beasts in the jungles of the dark continent; who were handcuffed and decoyed into slave ships, and who had been slaves until the proclamation of President Lincoln emanc.i.p.ated them in the territory protected by the U. S. Army. The transition was to a condition of things in which white men to the number of three hundred thousand were disfranchised and deprived of the right to vote and to hold office, and the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of more than a corresponding number of benighted negroes with the right to vote and hold office. The transition of the slave, was too sudden--too alarming--too degrading. No people who were proud of their traditions, their inst.i.tutions, could have looked upon such a change with complacency; nor seen their local government pa.s.s into the hands of their slaves--irresponsible, illiterate, brutish, rapacious, without being goaded into violent resistance.
"It has been remarked "Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name." If the gift of the elective franchise enabled the negro to protect himself in his rights of person and property, the denial of it to the white man took away from him that protection and that right. They went even to lower depths, and by the election and registration laws basely surrendered into the hands of the carpet-baggers all power. The judiciary, the last refuge of the unfortunate and oppressed is stricken down and stripped of both ermine and respectability. The ballot box--the sanctuary of freedom--the ballot box--the only secure refuge of liberty--the ballot box, the armory where freedom"s weapons are wont to terrify tyrants, is made the charnel house in which the a.s.sa.s.sinated liberties of a defenceless, prostrated people are buried; is made the dice box in which are staked and played for by the freedmen of the South the revenues of plundered commonwealths. What wonder in this l.u.s.t for power men should become strangers to the people they govern, outlaws to honesty and patriotism.
"They know no law but that of force, and no G.o.d but Mammon. They ply their theft upon every citizen, enthrall him with taxation, deny him the right to be seen or heard or felt at the ballot box or before the court.
In the train of these outrages and indignities came a flood of unwholesome oppressive laws, creating new offices, increasing the salaries of incompetent and truculent officials, multiplying the cost and expenditures of government, and correspondingly increasing the burdens of taxation. Then came martial law, militia campaigns, loyal leagues, murders, arsons, burglaries, rapes, and a reign of terror and intimidation to make the way for the easy perpetration of the most monstrous and unparallelled wrongs, frauds and outrages that ever cursed the earth. The South, like a beautiful captive, was turned over to be deflowered and defiled. She could only cry in her desperation--"I am within your brutal power, and gagged and pinioned must submit."
"Our elective judiciary has contributed immeasurably to the vicious, demoralizing spirit of the age." The intelligent and upright judge is the representative of the law in its simplicity, sufficiency and learning. He is the living exponent of its justice. Whatever the law is will appear in him, and whatever it does will be done through him. The different departments of industrial activity center in him. The plowman in the field, the smith at his anvil, the miner in the earth, the operative in the factory, the banker at his desk, are all a vital part of his being. He is the foremost agent of providence in keeping up the natural distinction of race and position. His creed is that men are not to be antagonists, but friends. Differ they must in usages and inst.i.tutions, in habits and pursuits; but in his opinion they differ, not that they may be separated, but for a truer sympathy and a compacter union. Mountains and seas insulate, language and religion differentiate men, but the law in its economical administration corrects these things into the elements of a genuine brotherhood. The fortunes of the world, so far as they are delegated to human care, are in his hands. The peaceful progress of society is blended with his personal integrity.
Commonwealths, corporations and individuals vest their wealth, their reputation, their security in him, and if any one man more than another is under the most sacred of earthly obligations to be an example of the highest integrity, the most exact justice, the n.o.blest virtue of thought, word and action, it is the judge of our courts of record. No feudal baron--no courtly knight--ever had the power that may now be exercised by him.
"Our civilization pledges us to the sway of moral principles; its rule is imperative, because we have a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of men, domesticated our hearts, and accepted the religion of Jesus Christ. Judicial life, by the earnestness with which it has acted in the past crisis of our state and national history, by the patriotic devotion and interpretation of the const.i.tution and the laws made in pursuance thereof, by its conservative temper in resisting fanaticism, vice, corruption and fraud has shown itself a watchful guardian of the momentous trusts confided to its keeping. The honest, learned judge has pledged himself for the faith of contracts and treaties; he has jealously guarded the inst.i.tutions of the country and bravely upheld them as the embodiment of our doctrines and our hopes. The traditions, laws and customs of the country have been committed to him, and with the ever active jealousy of encroachment, he has not disguised his fears of centralization or oppression. Hitherto, irrespective of all party relations, the judicial system was slowly but surely working out the great problems of domestic prosperity. Times have changed, however, and we have changed with them. Our present elective judiciary is indeed the black vomit of reconstruction.
"It may be seriously questioned whether under any circ.u.mstances the elective system is adequate for the purpose designed. All cla.s.ses, high and low, sooner or later come before the tribunal of justice. Its judgments and decrees affect the humblest, as well as the most powerful individual and control the strongest combinations of men. We know that it is utterly impossible to keep the nomination and election clear of mere political influences and those of the worst kind. It is said that revolutions never go backward; nevertheless in the teeth of the adage I confess that I can see no better way of selecting judges than the mode pointed out by the unamended const.i.tutions and the laws and by the general good sense of mankind. I believe that this method is wise and conservative, in harmony with our inst.i.tutions and sufficiently democratic to satisfy the people. All the rest is faction, demagogism and cabal. The judge should represent no interest, no party, only the law; he is an umpire between man and man, between the individual and the body social.
"What is required in the judge is ability, learning, integrity. In public station it is as necessary to be thought honest as to be so, and the moment the popular mind once takes in the true position of the elective judge, the moment that it perceives the magistrate to be possessed of neither true power nor real dignity, and exposed perpetually to temptation, that moment the influence and usefulness of the judge will be destroyed. Their judgments in such cases will be received without respect and obeyed only so far as they can be enforced, and if the people shall ever break down and trample under foot the defences of unpopular power; the Judiciary will be scouted from their seats, their filthy and tattered ermine will be torn from their backs, and they will be driven out into hopeless ignominy as the meanest of sycophants, and the most truculent of demagogues.... A hundred and eighty years ago the English parliament, sick of the miseries resulting from a corrupt judiciary, changed the tenure of the office, abolished their dependence on the sovereign and made the tenure of their existence dependent on their good behavior alone. From that time to this the English judiciary has risen in character and influence. With us the system is elective. The judicial candidate, like a fish monger, goes with his wares into a market overt. He advertises his opinions--his promises, he makes his pledges, he puts a premium upon the ballot, he weighs to a nicety the purchasable value of negro electors. The rival candidate does the same, and hence the office is purchasable at the price of manhood, integrity, learning and capacity. Thus the whole machinery of the courts is run with an eye single to making political capital for the radical party and intensifying their hatred toward the South.
"And now gentlemen," the governor said in conclusion, "our meeting here to-day will be without its influence upon a power that can "kill and make alive.""
At the conclusion of the speech of the governor, it was resolved that messengers should be sent to the president with full power to enter into any treaty or compact for the maintenance of peace and order, and that Governor Ainsworth and Colonel Seymour shall be charged with the execution of the mission.
CHAPTER VI.
THE MILLS ARE GRINDING.
It was the hour of high noon that a gentleman and lady alighted from a carriage at the foot of the mansion of Colonel Seymour without previous announcement. The gentleman was a person of attractive presence and perhaps forty-five years of age. The lady was not attractive, a little patronizing in her manners, and perhaps thirty-five years of age. Their _patois_ was that of English people; to an artistic ear, however, this may have appeared feigned. Their manner in the presence of the host was unconstrained; indeed they expressed themselves with unusual freedom.
The gentleman gave his name as Mr. Jamieson, and the lady as his niece, Miss Harcourt, both of them lately arrived from London. He had interested himself, he said, in scientific researches for the past few years, and was now pursuing an inquiry that he hoped would be of practical use to the South. The "London Society," whose agent he was, was seeking from all available sources the most exhaustive information about the negro in his gradations from the savage to the citizen; and he took occasion to say that his princ.i.p.als had been greatly astonished because of the alarming strides the negro had made in a country that, less than a century ago, made the British power tremble in its very strong-holds. He would be pleased to ask if this sudden transition from slavery to freedom had not reversed the orderly procedure of the government in respect to its administration in the South. To this inquiry Colonel Seymour replied, quite epigrammatically, "that the world had no precedent for the revolutionary measures which were being enforced in the South."
The stranger continuing, observed that he had desired this interview before exploiting a field untried and perhaps dangerous; and he would be greatly obliged if his host would be as frank and communicative as possible.
In the course of this interview, the arguments employed by the stranger disarmed the old man"s suspicions, and in a confidential way the Colonel told Mr. Jamieson that he would communicate his knowledge of the matters as far as he could, but feared it would not be of much value, as he was under suspicion by the Federal authorities; having fought under Lee in the many battles of the South, he was still vehemently protesting against the invasion of his own country by the carpet bag government.
"You were, then, a Confederate soldier?" inquired the stranger.