Unlike the scene in Capitol Square, no unseemly brawl followed here. Some men claimed seats; others stood and peered over their shoulders. All the books had markers inserted at the pages that gave their publication dates. A few derisive snorts arose from skeptical lawmakers, but those soon faded. Many of the volumes were illustrated, and illustrated with photographs and lavish color impossible to match in the mundane world of 1868. And every work had the dizzying effect of being written with the hindsight of a hundred years and more. Within moments, the only sounds in the room were soft grunts of wonder.
Louis T. Wigfall heaved his bulk out of a chair, advanced on Lee. “I owe you an apology. Mr. President, and I am man enough to give it. I thought you’d put together some humbug here to befool us, but I see it is not so. You could not have manufactured so much, and in such detail.” Shaking his head like a bedeviled bear, he shambled back to the desk from which he had come and, without complaint, took a place behind Congressman Gartrell, who had occupied his chair.
Lee leaned against the hard, cold side of a closed file cabinet, let the lawmakers look as long as they would. This was the second such delegation he had led into the AWB sanctum; eventually, he planned to allow the entire Confederate Congress to see the books and papers assembled here.
As had happened with the first group of legislators, wonder began to give way to indignation as senators and congressmen moved from one volume to the next, compared one account of the, lost Civil War and its aftermath with another. “Every one of these things sounds as if a damnyankee wrote it,” Congressman Lamar exclaimed. Someone else—Lee did not notice who—added, “Not just a damnyankee, but a damned abolitionist Yankee.”
Where Lee had quoted Matthew, Judah P. Benjamin chose Bobbie Burns: “ ‘Oh wad some power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as others see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us, An’ foolish notion.’” He did his best to turn his soft accent to broad, harsh Scots. A thoughtful silence descended when he was through.
Into it, Lee said, “Unique among men, my friends, we have been granted that, ah, giftie. We always remained faithful to our peculiar institution despite the censure of those outside our bounds, confident posterity would thank us for that fidelity. But here before us we have the verdict of posterity, which condemns us for maintaining the ownership of one man by another and is convinced that that system, if ever it were justifiable, had in our time long since outlived such justification.” This time he picked words from the Book of Danieclass="underline" “ ‘Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.’ Only God knows His judgments, but we may see for ourselves the verdict which history has brought in against us.”
“Did you know of this when during your Presidential campaign you spoke of ending slavery?” Congressman Kenner asked.
“No, sir, I did not,” Lee said. “Indeed, the Rivington men painted for me quite a different picture of the future, a picture in which white and black remained forever at each other’s throats. The pages in this room serve to give the lie to that picture, as I, think you will agree, yet it was the one they ‘offered, as Mr. Benjamin and, I think, Senator Wigfall will attest.”
Judah Benjamin’s massive head moved up and down. Wigfall also nodded, though his expression was anything but sanguine; Lee wondered whether the fierce frown was aimed at himself for having forced the Texan to make that admission or at the AWB men for having misled him.
L. Q. C. Lamar said, “What of the Rivington men, then? If this love feast between Negroes and whites be the way of the future (and so it would seem, startling and, I must say, repugnant though I find it), how do the Rivington men fit into it?”
“Poorly, I suspect.” Lee held up a hand. “No, I do not intend to be flippant. By their own words, as rendered into English by Mr. Benjamin’s coreligionist Mr. Goldfarb, they show themselves to be zealots at strife with virtually the entire world of their time. Let me offer you an analogy which quite offended Andries Rhoodie: the Rivington men are as mad in their support of whites in their times as John Brown was in support of blacks in ours.”
The Confederate legislators looked at each other. One by one, they began to nod. The same thing had happened with the first delegation to see the evidence from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Few men were brazen enough to withstand their great-grandsons’ scorn.
Louis T. Wigfall came close. “Damn me to hell, sir, if I can stomach that stinking black Republican of an Abe Lincoln being made into some plaster saint. And damn me to hell if I want to live in a country where the man who blacks my boots and curries my horse is my equal.”
“A measure of equality before the law by no means creates of itself equality in society,” Lee said. “The United States make that abundantly clear. And let me ask you a different question, Senator, if I may: Having seen the means the AWB employs to reach its ends, do you yet find those ends deserving of your support?”
Wigfall’s glower grew black as his boots. But he had been in the middle of the Capitol Square massacre. At last he shook his heavy head.
“Nor do I.” Lee raised his voice, spoke to the entire congressional delegation: “Am I to construe from this, then, that you shall vote in the affirmative when a bill arranging for the gradual, compensated emancipation of Negro slaves, the terms to be along the lines of those I outlined before becoming President, is introduced into the Senate and House of Representatives?”
Again, the lawmakers looked at one another, some of them as if they hoped one of their number would have the nerve to say no. Lee watched them all, especially Wigfall and Lamar, whom he judged likeliest to oppose him, the one from stubbornness, the other out of principle.
Lamar cleared his throat. Several congressmen beamed. The representative from Mississippi said, “Retreating from a long-held position is apt to be as dangerous in politics as in war; in so doing, I fear I look down into the open grave of any future aspirations. Yet given the evidence you have presented to us today, I have no choice but to support such legislation as you suggest, and justify my vote to my constituents as well as I may thereafter.”
Lee’s nod was the next thing to a bow. “If not the immediate gratitude of the voters in your district, you will gain your country’s lasting thanks.”
After the Mississippian declared himself in favor of Lee’s program, the rest of the lawmakers fell in line. Even Wigfall nodded gruffly, though Lee, knowing his volatility, did not take that as a firm promise. Judah Benjamin said, “You know, Mr. Lamar, what with the atrocities of March 4 and the insurrection currently being mounted in North Carolina, your vote in favor of emancipation may yet redound to your advantage, provided you make your district aware that in so voting, you reject everything the Rivington men support.”
Lamar’s features, usually on the brooding side, lit up. “It could be so, sir; with your well-known acuity of judgment in matters political, it likely is so.”
“You flatter me, sir,” Benjamin said, and he contrived to appear flattered, but flattery, Lee thought, was best defined as overfulsome praise, and, having seen Benjamin in action, he was more than willing to concede the former Secretary of State’s reputation was deserved.
Congressman Gartrell said, “How fare we against the rebels, sir?”
“Not so well as I would wish,” Lee answered. “The Rivington men are few in numbers, but possessed of the advantage of a century and a half of progress in the mechanic arts, progress we of course lack. The repeaters they furnished us for use against the United States are one example of such progress; unhappily, we have discovered that they are only one example. The Rivington men have on the whole succeeded in maintaining the positions they seized when fighting broke out after March 4. Were it not for the AK-47s in our arsenal, I fear they might have managed to do much more than merely hold those positions.”