February 2, 1861.—Another grand page of portraits—not of Lincoln and Seward, but of “The Seceding Mississippi Delegation in Congress,” followed by a page in small type of fulsome praise of the seven members—Jefferson Davis, Brown, Barksdale, Lamar, R. Davis, Singleton, and McRae. With the praise we also have copious and labored arguments for slavery and secession, thus:
“Personally, Senator Davis is the Bayard of Congress, sans peur et sans reproche; a finished scholar; a high-minded gentleman; a devoted father; a true friend. He is emphatically one of those ‘born to command,’ and is doubtless destined to occupy a high position either in the Southern Confederacy or in the United States.” On which we would merely remark that as to the non-fulfilment of this prophecy there has been some disappointment in the first-named country, and great dissatisfaction in the second. This Mississippi article closes with the assurance from one of the seven that slavery is not only national, but “a universal institution of God and man, nature and Christianity, earth and heaven—having its origin in the law of God, sustained by the Bible, sustained by Christianity,” etc., etc.
We continue turning the leaves. And now that we have had quite enough of “the Seceding Delegations,” we naturally hope that room may be found for a portrait of the President-elect. At page 76 we come to “Portrait of the South Carolina Minister of War,” which is not the object of our search.
February 9.—What, again? “The Seceding Alabama Delegation in Congress.” A full-page of portraits of nine gentlemen who do not look at all amiable. Following this comes the regulation two and a half columns of praise in small type, interspersed with extracts from their speeches. Of one of these delegates—a party by the name of Curry—we are assured that
“Nature has endowed him with a mind so active that he can apparently discover, by a glance so rapid as to seem intuition, those truths which common capacities struggle hard to comprehend, while his genius enables him to enforce by argument, and his accomplishments to
illustrate, those topics upon which he addresses the House.”
Naturally enough follows, on page 88, a View of the City of Montgomery, showing the state-house where “The Congress of the Southern Confederacy Meets.”
February 16, 1861.—Concerning so-called stay-laws passed in the South, which were at the time generally understood to mean practical repudiation of mercantile debts due to the North, hark how sweetly sings the Northern secession siren with elaborate Harp accompaniment: “We trust that our Southern friends will believe that we have no partisan purpose in view if we direct their attention to the fatal consequences of the stay-laws, etc., etc. For many years our Southern States have enjoyed first-rate credit, both at the North and abroad. Southern obligations have always been preferred in New York to obligations from the East or West.... Southern men have been considered here as good under all circumstances. Their honor has been relied on to any extent. Houses which would not trust Western or Eastern dealers a hundred dollars have been delighted to give credits of thousands to Southerners. The simple reason was that people have had an undying faith in the honor of the Southern people—a firm conviction that under no circumstances would they seek to evade payment of their debts.” And here the siren’s song is broken by a gush of tears—“Is this faith, is this conviction to be demolished now by the passage of stay-laws?” Then follow the perennial “View of Sumter,” double-page Paris fashions, etc., until we reach (p. 109) Views of the “Mint and the New Custom House,” New Orleans, “of which the United States have had only a brief occupancy”—“both
of which have been seized by the state authorities.” There is no comment on this “seizure” by the state authorities, but more than three months afterward we shall find “civilization” waking up in wrath and fulminating thus: “All that the rebels of New Orleans wanted when they stole the mint was to be let alone.” In this same number (p. 112) we have the sneering caricature of the calamity of the country which at the time afforded the enemies of the American Union exquisite delight and “prolonged shouts of laughter.” It is entitled “The Crippled American Eagle, the Cock, and the Lion.” To the eagle, dilapidated, lame, and on crutches: “Lion.—Why, Brother Jonathan, you don’t look so fierce as you used. How about the Monroe Doctrine now? Cock.—Yes, my good Jonathan, what you tink of Privateering under de present circumstance?”
At last, in the number of February 23, we reach portraits of “President and Vice-President”—what? surely we must be mistaken! No—the print is very clear in its large capitals—“Of the Southern Confederacy.” And very good portraits they are, too, but not of the President and Vice-President we were expecting to see. The number of March 2 gives us a full-page woodcut of “The President-elect Addressing the People.” The “people” are represented by twenty-six hats and the scanty outlines of eleven men, but in compensation we have a thrilling view of two gigantic lamp-posts, and, in exaggerated disproportion, the pillars of the balcony over the centre of whose summit appears the upper half of a small, lean figure supposed to be that of A. Lincoln. This is somewhat disappointing, but, by way of consolation, the next page enlightens us on the subject of patriotism: