“It does seem that Davis thinks more of the Yankees than he does of us,” said Rhett. “I can remember reprinting his speeches during those summers when he vacationed in Massachusetts and Maine. He loved it up there. He went on and on praising the Yankees as being so smart and prosperous. I think he wants to win this war, get those people back in here with us, and and then reconstitute the Union along Douglas’ principle of Popular Sovereignty. I guess he figures that he’ll be able to keep a lid on the Abolitionists and we’ll be able to take our Negroes into the Territories.”
“He’s wrong about that,” retorted Yancey. “The Abolitionists will never recognize our right to take our Negroes with us into the territories. They stole Kansas right out from under us, didn’t they? If they can steal a territory right next to the Slave State of Missouri, you know damn well they’re going to beat us out of Colorado, Utah, and Nevada. Fat chance of us ever getting California either.” Yancey’s face grew red. “And the hell of it is, Horace Greeley was ready to broker a peace that gave us all of those territories! I consider it treason that Davis rejected the offer.”
Rhett leaned back and threw his feet over the coffee table, also cluttered with yellowed newspapers. “I suppose you’re right about Davis being crazy for wanting to fight to force the Yankees back in with us, when we could have had all the land we wanted and then some just for the asking.”
“Like you said, he’s a Unionist first and a Southerner second,” agreed Yancey. He got up and poured himself another whiskey. He was not a man whose nature craved strong drink, but he was afflicted with painful internal maladies that only alcohol could numb.
I am dying. I have only a short time left to complete my life’s work of creating an independent Southern Republic. If I fail in this, then I have failed myself and my people.
Yancey swigged his whiskey then poured another to sip slowly. It did ease the throbbing pain in his kidneys. It jogged his memory to another topic that bothered him.
“I’m afraid we’re getting some home-grown Abolitionists who might become as obnoxious as the Yankee breed. Crazy Alexander Stephens is running around foaming off at the mouth about a National Slave Code. ‘Slavery with a human face’ he calls it. He has the nerve to propose that the Federal Government should tell us how to run our Niggers!”
Rhett gritted his teeth. “That’s another thing I never thought I’d hear from a Southern man. I wouldn’t have believed it possible until I saw the speech with my own eyes. I almost threw up while I was setting the type print it — especially his words about ‘liberalizing the conditions of Negro servitude.’”
Yancey winced at the words “liberalizing the conditions of Negro servitude.” He took another swig of whiskey to calm himself. “The slave codes are exclusively the business of the states. Whenever this ‘Nigger Rights’ agitation is brought up to the national level it gets out of hand. Look at Dred Scott. The Abolitionists took that one all the way to the Supreme Court. Stephens has bitten off more than he can chew.”
“I imagine he’s trying to strengthen slavery by making it more palatable in the Free States,” postulated Rhett. Rhett poured himself a shot of whiskey and stirred it. “He’s cyphering that he can cut the ground out from under the Abolitionists. Could even be that he’s right about some of it — about slaves being able to marry and protect their families from being sold apart.”
“I don’t know,” replied Yancey. “I think it will cause us more problems. I never like to break my Nigger families up, but there are times when you don’t have any other choice. But the main point is that this is a question for the state governments. The national government has no business inserting itself into the issue.”
“Yes, that’s so,” replied Rhett. “The national government is inserting itself into all kinds of things it shouldn’t be.” He stood up and looked out the window into the streets. Soldiers wearing the blue of the National Army were everywhere. “What is a National Army doing in Charleston, South Carolina? We have oversubscribed our militia quotas on every call up. Why isn’t the South Carolina Militia good enough for Davis?”
“That worries me too,” said Yancey in a hushed voice. “The army is supposed to be composed of state militias. The Founders understood that a standing army is dangerous. It is prone to becoming loyal to the person of the President and not to the states. In that matter I don’t care whether the President is Davis or Lincoln. Your neighbor can be as much a tyrant as your enemy.”
Rhett looked out into the harbor. The dockyard was being prepared to begin construction on Atlantic and Poseidon, two seagoing battle cruisers of the modern armored-hull design.
“I also don’t understand why we need these warships. Most of the old U.S. Navy in New York and Norfolk stayed loyal to us. The Rebels can’t have more than a handful of ships and most of those are decommissioned in dry-dock in Boston and Philadelphia. We don’t need any more ships to deal with them. So who is Davis planning to use them against?”
“They’re insurance, I suppose,” said Yancey. “Davis wants to let Britain and France know that we can fight them on the high seas if they intervene on behalf of the Rebels. Lord, I hope it doesn’t come to that. The last thing we need is another war.”
Rhett turned away from the window and paced back into the middle of the office.
“I’m glad we’ve got the work building them here in Charleston. But we’re going to be taxed for the rest of our lives to pay for this war. Half of this war is being financed by bonds underwritten by the New York bankers. They’re taking their seven percent commission off the top and it has to be paid in gold! They’re getting filthy rich while our Southern boys are doing the fighting. Now Davis is planning to issue paper currency. We’ll be forced to take worthless paper money for our trade while the Yankee bondholders have to be paid their interest in gold. Davis is going to conquer the Yankees and then they’ll end up owning us!”
Yancey guzzled his whiskey to calm his building anger. “Where in the name of hell is the damn Congress! Why aren’t they putting the reins on Davis! We’re about to go over a cliff and they’re sitting on their rear ends doing nothing.”
“Too many northern men are there, I guess. Before he died Douglas made sure to pack the Congress with men of his own kind. We’ve got phantom senators and congressmen from Indiana, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. We might as well have Congressmen representing the moon.”
“This is not our country any more, no more than it would have been if Mr. Lincoln had been elected.” Yancey uttered the words “Mr. Lincoln” almost fondly, instead of spitting them out with his usual venom. He shuddered with a twinge of anguish while remembering the Douglas / Davis Compact that had saved the Democratic Party from defeat by Mr. Lincoln’s Republicans.
Mr. Lincoln is the enemy of every Southern man, but oh, how we needed him in the White House! Had he been elected President in 1860 we would have seceded into a Southern Republic. We would have steered our own course free and clear of the Yankees. I wanted a Southern Confederacy, a Confederacy where slaves are subservient to their masters, where states are governed by our plantation aristocracy, and where the national government serves the interests of the states. But, no, Douglas and Davis had to collaborate to murder the Southern Republic before it was born. They have given me a Confederate Union that is going to end up more Yankeefied than the old United States!
Yancey gulped another whiskey and this one wasn’t to dull his physical pain.