The anger which is reported to exist in the North only adds to the fury and animosity of the Carolinians. They are determined now to act on their sovereign rights as a state, cost what it may, and uphold the ordinance of secession. The answers of several State Governors to President Lincoln’s demand for troops, have delighted our friends. Beriah Magoffin, of Kentucky, declares he won’t give any men for such a wicked purpose; and another gubernatorial dignitary laconically replied to the demand for so many thousand soldiers, “Nary one.” Letcher, Governor of Virginia, has also sent a refusal. From the North comes news of mass-meetings, of hauling down Secession colours, mobbing Secession papers, of military bodies turning out, banks subscribing and lending.
Jefferson Davis has met President Lincoln’s proclamation by a counter manifesto, issuing letters of marque and reprisal—on all sides preparations for war. The Southern agents are buying steamers, but they fear the Northern states will use their navy to enforce a blockade, which is much dreaded, as it will cut off supplies and injure the commerce, on which they so much depend. Assuredly Mr. Seward cannot know anything of the feeling of the South, or he would not be so confident as he was that all would blow over, and that the states, deprived of the care and fostering influences of the general Government, would get tired of their Secession ordinances, and of their experiment to maintain a national life, so that the United States will be re-established before long.
I went over and saw General Beauregard at his quarters. He was busy with papers, orderlies, and despatches, and the outer room was crowded with officers. His present task, he told me, was to put Sumter in a state of defence, and to disarm the works bearing on it, so as to get their fire directed on the harbour approaches, as “the North in its madness” might attempt a naval attack on Charleston. His manner of transacting business is clear and rapid. Two vases filled with flowers on his table, flanking his maps and plans; and a little hand bouquet of roses, geraniums, and scented flowers lay on a letter which he was writing as I came in, by way of paper weight. He offered me every assistance and facility, relying, of course, on my strict observance of a neutral’s duty. I reminded him once more, that as the representative of an English journal, it would be my duty to write freely to England respecting what I saw; and that I must not be held accountable if on the return of my letters to America, a month after they were written, it was found they contained information to which circumstances might attach an objectionable character. The General said, “I quite understand you. We must take our chance of that, and leave you to exercise your discretion.”
In the evening I dined with our excellent Consul, Mr. Bunch, who had a small and very agreeable party to meet me. One very venerable old gentleman, named Huger (pronounced as Hugeē), was particularly interesting in appearance and conversation. He formerly held some official appointment under the Federal Government, but had gone out with his state, and had been confirmed in his appointment by the Confederate Government. Still he was not happy at the prospect before him or his country. “I have lived too long,” he exclaimed; “I should have died ’ere these evil days arrived.” What thoughts, indeed, must have troubled his mind when he reflected that his country was but little older than himself; for, he was one who had shaken hands with the framers of the Declaration of Independence. But though the tears rolled down his cheeks when he spoke of the prospect of civil war, there was no symptom of apprehension for the result, or indeed of any regret for the contest, which he regarded as the natural consequence of the insults, injustice, and aggression of the North against Southern rights.
Only one of the company, a most lively, quaint, witty old lawyer named Petigru, dissented from the doctrines of Secession; but he seems to be treated as an amiable, harmless person, who has a weakness of intellect or a “bee in his bonnet” on this particular matter.
It was scarcely very agreeable to my host or myself to find that no considerations were believed to be of consequence in reference to England except her material interests, and that these worthy gentlemen regarded her as a sort of appanage of their cotton kingdom. “Why, sir, we have only to shut off your supply of cotton for a few weeks, and we can create a revolution in Great Britain. There are four millions of your people depending on us for their bread, not to speak of the many millions of dollars. No, sir, we know that England must recognise us,” &c.
Liverpool and Manchester have obscured all Great Britain to the Southern eye. I confess the tone of my friends irritated me. I said so to Mr. Bunch, who laughed, and remarked, “You’ll not mind it when you get as much accustomed to this sort of thing as I am.” I could not help saying, that if Great Britain were such a sham as they supposed, the sooner a hole was drilled in her, and the whole empire sunk under water, the better for the world, the cause of truth, and of liberty.
These tall, thin, fine-faced Carolinians are great materialists. Slavery perhaps has aggravated the tendency to look at all the world through parapets of cotton bales and rice bags, and though more stately and less vulgar, the worshippers here are not less prostrate before the “almighty dollar” than the Northerners. Again cropping out of the dead level of hate to the Yankee, grows its climax in the profession from nearly every one of the guests, that he would prefer a return to British rule to any reunion with New England. “The names in South Carolina show our origin—Charleston, and Ashley, and Cooper, &c. Our Gadsden, Sumter and Pinckney were true cavaliers,” &c. They did not say anything about Peedee, or Tombigee, or Sullivan’s Island, or the like. We all have our little or big weaknesses.
I see no trace of cavalier descent in the names of Huger, Rose, Manning, Chesnut, Pickens; but there is a profession of faith in the cavaliers and their cause among them because it is fashionable in Carolina. They affect the agricultural faith and the belief of a landed gentry. It is not only over the wine glass—why call it cup?—that they ask for a Prince to reign over them; I have heard the wish repeatedly expressed within the last two days that we could spare them one of our young Princes, but never in jest or in any frivolous manner.
On my way home again I saw the sentries on their march, the mounted patrols starting on their ride, and other evidences that though the slaves are “the happiest and most contented race in the world,” they require to be taken care of like less favoured mortals. The city watch-house is filled every night with slaves, who are confined there till reclaimed by their owners, whenever they are found out after nine o’clock, P.M., without special passes or permits. Guns are firing for the Ordinance of Secession of Virginia.