|
CHAPTER TWELFTH - CENTENNIAL SENTIMENTS
If
there is any truth in the old adage, that "the darkest hour always
precedes the dawn" then may South Carolina now begin to indulge some hope.
She has been brought low—very low—and even in the eyes of those who so
bitterly condemned her for inaugurating Secession, her punishment must
seem out of all proportion to her offense. The sufferings and atrocities
of those four long years of war—beginning with the fall of Port Royal, and
ending with the burning of Columbia—are yet to be written, with all their
terrible details. Her property in slaves, which constituted the great bulk
of her wealth, and which had descended from father to son for more than
two centuries, was made to vanish into thin air by the breath of a
proclamation. But worse than this, than these, than all, are her writhings
under the humiliation, the spoliation, and the unremitting efforts at
degradation, for the last ten years. Military rule, backed by an
unscrupulous majority in Congress, occasioned forebodings of evil, the
most fearful; but what pen can adequately describe the reality ? A
sovereign State trampled in the dust, with the
bayonet of the
conqueror ever at her throat, is a fit tableau of—Reconstruction
!
But if "the mills of the gods grind slowly, they grind exceeding
fine." In very many cases there would be " no answer?f to the long
roll-call of her oppressors; and time is still busy in unmasking the chief
agents in this horrid drama, in all their true colors and
deformity.
Take the President of this great Republic himself.
Elevated to a position where he "might have made a name for himself, for
all time to come, as " saviour of his country/' he has demonstrated that
he has never had the intellect, nor the soul of the statesman or patriot.
He cared nothing for his country, and his only care for the Republican
party was, through it, to secure for himself an indefinite lease of power.
It was a matter of indifference to him how the success of this party was
to be secured, and what means might be resorted to. Whether the rights of
individuals, of whole communities, or of sovereign States were to be
sacrificed, it gave him no concern. Success, at any and every cost, has
been his watchword from the first to the last.
And the most
mortifying fact to every American is, that an inordinate greed for gold
has been the governing motive through his whole administration. The head
being thus corrupt, can the student of history wonder at the wide-spread
demoralization of the whole body politic, for the last eight years at
least?
A hurling from power seems hardly a sufficient
retribution for the imprint of Grantism on our institutions in these
degenerate days. He has prostituted his high office to the undermining of
the great political fabric of the fathers; to trampling on the
time-honored rights of the great Anglo Saxon race ; and even to protecting
and shielding official rapacity and dishonesty, when about to be exposed
to an indignant people.
There was something grand in the gigantic
strides of the first of all the Caesars, when grasping for power; but the
equally gigantic strides of this modern imita-tator have been made in
pursuit of—the almighty dollar ! With the change of a single word, we,
too, might adopt the indignant denunciation of Cato, in these burning
words :
" Oh, Portius, is there not some chosen curse,
Some hidden thunder, in the stores of Heaven, Red with uncommon wrath,
to blast the wretch Who owes his (money) to his country's ruin!"
At one time the approach of the centennial year
seemed to have been the harbinger to the " dawn." Certainly hopes were
inspired in bosoms long estranged from any emotion of the kind, and some
indications of fraternal feelings began to develop. The review of the
scenes and events of the first "great rebellion" on this continent seemed
to have opened the Northern mind to a new light, and to have inspired
their breasts with a charity equally new.
They began to question one another whether these
Southern brethren, however mistaken, may not have been actuated by the
same sense of right, and resistance to wrongs, which characterized the
fathers in 1776. From their standpoint may not these brethren have
regarded their liberty, based, as they deemed it to be, upon their ideas
of States' Rights and State Severeignty, as having been as much imperilled
at the later date as in " the times that tried men's souls ?" Would not
these Northern brethren, in the same circumstances, have acted precisely
as they did ?
These wholesome questions began to be freely asked
and considered, and promised to bring forth peaceable fruits. Such terms
as "Wicked Rebellion" "Rule or Ruin Policy," and a long list of ugly words
engrafted upon their vernacular, by a life-long discussion of slavery,
began gradually to fall into disuse. The questions formerly at issue began
to lose their moral character, and to be viewed in their more appropriate
political aspect. A great point was gained, when they began to utter the
charitable sentiment, "Well, we are bound to admit that they thought they
were right?"
In the case of South Carolina, particularly, public
opinion began to tone down wonderfully. This review brought her
prominently forward as one of the leading Colonies of the " Old Thirteen."
Though the favorite Colony of the Crown, her magnanimity in so promptly
throwing herself on the side of her oppressed sisters was still
conspicuous after the lapse of an hundred years. Her lavish expenditure of
blood and treasure in the great cause she had espoused, was calculated to
arouse sentiments of veneration and gratitude, particularly on the part of
those younger sisters who had become prosperous and great under the very "
independence" to which she had so largely contributed.
Even her old
ally Massachusetts, seemed to have been drawn very near to her once more.
These ancient Commonwealths have long been regarded as representatives of
their respective sections Gradually, from viewing the same objects from
opposite standpoints, they had been driven very far apart—in fact to
opposite points of the diameter. The first great obstruction between them
was the " tariff question," and Massachusetts being on the side of it
nearest the sun, could see nothing in it but what was bright, wholesome
and life-giving, while South Carolina, from her cheerless side, saw all
that was gloomy, impoverishing and destructive. This, though at one time
so threatening, suddenly dissolved into empty gas before some big,
swelling words of Nullification.
But there was another mutual
eclipse, and though the obstacle this time was at first no bigger than a
man's hand, it gradually developed into proportions the most portentous
and awe-inspiring. This time South Carolina was on the sunny side, and she
could only see in the clear beneficent light of slavery an institution
recognized by God himself, under both dispensations, and guaranteed by the
fundamental law of the land.
From her standpoint, Massachusetts
could only see blackness of darkness, imperfectly veiling "the sum of all
villainies," and the "ragged edges of despair" around the sulphurous pits.
Gunpowder, not gas, was now the word, and, unfortunately for the country,
rifles of the most varied patterns were manufactured in the largest
abundance on her soil. After some preliminary skirmishing in Kansas and
Nebraska, and afterwards in the "John Brown Raid," the grand crashing came
at last, resulting in an explosion which shook the Continent to its
foundations.
However terrible the catastrophe, the obstacle was
gone forever, and now that the turmoil and din are over, and the smoke
almost blown away, these grim old antagonists can look one another once
more in the face, and to their mutual surprise they began to see
lineaments of real brotherhood. Each seemed almost ready to acknowledge
that the same spirit— the spirit of the olden time—has all along been
actuating them both, and had their standpoints been interchanged, each
might have acted the part of the other.
At any rate, Massachusetts
did not regard her programme for the grand centennial celebrations of her
Concord, Lexington, and, particularly, of her Bunker Hill, complete, until
she had assigned a conspicuous place to the old Palmetto
State.
Armed men, from Charleston, were received by the citizens
and soldiers of Boston, with the highest consideration and enthusiasm. The
" citizen soldiers ° of our "Washington Light Infantry," were welcomed,
even at the railroad depot, by such a crowd as they had never seen before.
At first they were a little nervous, not knowing what spirit might actuate
this vast assembly; but, when a wide passage was spontaneously made for
them through its very midst, and hats were waved, and cheers were given,
as from one throat, they then felt what it all meant; and many a manly eye
was seen to swim in tears. All along their march the side-walks were
crowded by eager spectators, and the beauty as well as the " solid men "
of this old metropolis turned out, in full force, to cheer and welcome
them. Bouquets, oranges, bananas, etc., came flying fast from fair hands,
which, those expert at the base ball, were not slow in catching and
storing away. The only criticism on this showering of favors was, that the
most soldierly-looking of the company received more than their due
proportion.
The participants themselves have already given the
public glowing accounts of this ever-to-be-remembered visit.
From
the first moment they touched the soil of Massachusetts, to the hour of
their departure, the most cordial welcome, the most hearty greetings,, the
most generous hospitality, and the highest consideration awaited them;
even to the "post of honor," on the day of the Bunker Hill pageant. How,
then, could they feel like " strangers, in a strange land ? " It was a
home reception, and they were proud to feel at home. And, when they heard
the patriotic, liberal sentiments of Gen. Bartlett and others of these
Northern men, responded to by the ex-Confederate, Gen. Fitz Hugh Lee—who
was cheered to the echo by enthusiastic crowds—is to be wondered at, that
they should, for the time, forget all about State lines, and only remember
their country, their whole country, and nothing but their
country?
The tidings from Bunker Hill soon spread over the land,
and produced a profound impression; and the magnanimous, whole-souled
sentiments there uttered found a response in every generous bosom. It was
seen that even extremists could meet at the graves of their revolutionary
sires; could there look one another in. the eye, and find that they were
brethren after all. And if Massachusetts and South Carolina could so
easily and heartily coalesce, who would dare, thereafter, to preach the
"Gospel of Hate".
Alas, for our unhappy land! This "dawn," so
auspiciously heralded in by the centennial era, is now suddenly overcast
in gloom.
Party spirit, and, worst of all, sectional party spirit,
seems now stronger than patriotism ; and the call of the mere political
party leader more potent than the voice of the Christian
statesman.
Already, in the halls of Congress, have those leaders
stirred up a war of words to check this tidal wave of good feeling and
reconciliation, so opposed to their selfish party interests, and to open
afresh the wounds, just beginning to heal.
From the beginning the "
father of his country " warned his fellow-citizens, and their posterity,
against causing party lines to coincide with geographical lines; and
intelligent foreign writers have pointed to this deadly sectional hate,
thus engendered, as the hidden rock on which our glorious institutions are
yet to founder.
Will these reckless political leaders succeed in
carrying out their selfish schemes ?
Is there common sense enough in the country to see
through the transparent purposes of these political brawlers?
Is there patriotism enough in the country to
postpone mere party triumph to the glory of the Reunited States
?
As the once famous "Tom" Ritchie used to say, in
days of yore, "Nous verronsy" |
