Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession: A Novel

by Benjamin Wood

"Do you not think," interrupted Oriana, "that a large proportion of your Northern population are ready at least to listen to terms of separation?"

"No," replied Harold, firmly. "Or if there be any who entertain such thoughts, we will make them outcasts among us, and the finger of scorn will be pointed at them as recreant to their holiest duty."

"That is hardly fair," said Oriana. "Why should you scorn or maltreat those who honestly believe that the doctrine in support of which so many are ready to stake their lives and their fortunes, may be worthy of consideration? Do you believe us all mad and wicked people in the South—people without hearts, and without brains, incapable of forming an opinion that is worth an argument? If there are some among you who think we are acting for the best, and Heaven knows we are acting with sincerity, you should give them at least a hearing, for the sake of liberty of conscience. Remember, there are millions of us united in sentiment in the South, and millions, perhaps, abroad who think with us. How can you decide by your mere impulses where the right lies?"

"We decide by the promptings of our loyal hearts, and by our reason, which tells us that secession is treason, and that treason must be crushed."

"Heart and brain have been mistaken ere now," returned Oriana. "But if you are a type of your countrymen, I see that hard blows alone will teach you that God has given us the right to think for ourselves."

"Do you believe, then," asked Haralson, "that there can be no peace between us until one side or the other shall be exhausted and subdued?"

"Not so," replied Harold. "I think that when we have retrieved the disgrace of Bull Run and given you in addition, some wholesome chastisement, your better judgment will return to you, and you will accept forgiveness at our hands and return to your allegiance."

"You are mistaken," said the Southron. "Even were we ready to accept your terms, you would not be ready to grant them. Should the North succeed in striking some heavy blow at the South, I will tell you what will happen; your abolitionists will seize the occasion of the peoples' exultation to push their doctrine to a consummation. Whenever you shall hear the tocsin of victory sounding in the North, then listen for the echoing cry of emancipation—for you will hear it. You will see it in every column of your daily prints; you will hear your statesmen urging it in your legislative halls, and your cabinet ministers making it their theme. And, most dangerous of all, you will hear your generals and colonels, demagogues, at heart, and soldiers only of occasion, preaching it to their battalions, and making converts of their subordinates by the mere influences of their rank and calling. And when your military chieftains harangue their soldiers upon political themes, think not of our treason as you call it, but look well to the political freedom that is still your own. With five hundred thousand armed puppets, moving at the will of a clique of ambitious epauletted politicians and experimentalists, you may live to witness, whether we be subdued or not, a coup d'etat for which there is a precedent not far back in the annals of republics."

"Have you already learned to contemplate the danger that you are incurring? Do you at last fear the monster that you have nursed and strengthened in your midst? Well, if your slaves should rise against you, surely you cannot blame us for the evil of your own creation."

"It is the hope of your abolitionists, not our fear, that I am rehearsing. Should your armies obtain a foothold on our soil, we know that you will put knives and guns into the hands of our slaves, and incite them to emulate the deeds of their race in San Domingo. You will parcel out our lands and wealth to your victorious soldiery, not so much as a reward for their past services, but to seal the bond between them and the government that will seek to rule by their bayonets. You see, we know the peril and are prepared to meet it. Should you conquer us, at the same time you would conquer the liberties of the Northern citizen. You will be at the mercy of the successful general whose triumph may make him the idol of the armed millions that alone can accomplish our subjugation. In the South, butchery and rapine by hordes of desperate negroes—in the North anarchy and political intrigue, to be merged into dictatorship and the absolutism of military power. Such would be the results of your triumph and our defeat."