House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  “Oh, we all change. Either from inside ourselves or from outside. We grow—or shrink. Or something happens to change us, some event, some force outside ourselves.”

  So they came back to the thought foremost in their minds. “This present event, for instance? It means changes, Brett.”

  Brett shook his head. “It’s just a piece of outlawry, to be handled like any other outrage done by violent and lawless men.”

  Faunt was not so sure. “You’re a man of business. Your instinct is to smooth over everything which disturbs the surface composure of the world.”

  “Possibly. Certainly after this, my South Carolina neighbors will be waving the bloody flag.”

  Faunt nodded. “I too felt at first just plain rage—till I realized that my anger was rooted in fear. As I said yesterday at Great Oak, this fear of a slave revolt lies somewhere deep in all of us in the South. I suppose basically it rests on an unadmitted sense of guilt. No man can honestly defend slavery—except perhaps upon the selfish ground that it shows a profit. In our hearts we know this; so we feel guilty, and so we fear the blacks, and so we are angry at anyone who reminds us of that fear.”

  Brett hesitated. “In England I was sometimes put in the position of defending slavery. Of course I was able to remind my English friends of conditions in England and Ireland, quoting their own authorities; the North British Review, Sir James Clarke, Douglas Jerrold. I could remind them of women and little girls in their coal mines, chained to the cars they dragged through those underground corridors; girl children put to such work at eight or nine years old, carrying coal up ladders on their backs, working twelve hours on end, day and night; no education, no religion. And the metal workers in Birmingham and Sheffield, children there too, whipped to their tasks. Children as young as seven set to lace making for as much as fourteen hours a day, living in terrible sinks and cellars, starving. Ireland’s worst of all, of course. But reminding the British that their white wage slaves were treated worse than our negroes neither convinced them nor satisfied me. Yes, I know that sense of guilt, and even a little of that fear.” He spoke reluctantly. “We’re so quick to boast, and threaten, and utter loud defiances. Probably the noisiest among us are the most afraid.”

  They were still deep in talk together when Clayton presently returned. He had gone with young Jennings Wise to the Marshall Theatre to see Maggie Mitchell. “She’s charming,” he told them. “The whole town’s wild about her. We were too late for the first piece—Milly, the Maid with the Milking Pail—but Beauty and the Beast is what we went to see. It’s a sort of fairy spectacle, and Miss Mitchell sings beautifully. Then afterward we went to the Powhatan Hotel. The actors live there, some of them. Jennings Wise knows them all, and two or three of them were with us. It was a mighty interesting evening for me.” He was full of talk, and Faunt saw with affectionate amusement the bright excitement in the younger man, stimulated by this new experience.

  Next morning Brett had business with Mr. Haxall at the Farmers’ Bank, and Clayton proposed to Faunt that they climb to the roof of the Capitol. “I always do, when I’m in Richmond,” he explained. “Jenny and I came here on our honeymoon, and we went there two or three times.”

  Faunt agreed, glad to escape for a while from the excited talk in the streets. He found that the vantage to which Clayton led him offered an outlook far across the rolling country, with the river a silver thread winding through meadowland and forests. The city itself was spread below them, and Clayton like a proud proprietor pointed out this landmark and that: the scattering houses of Manchester across the river, Belle Isle, the waterworks dam, the slate roofs of Tredegar Iron Works under a black smoke pall. “It’s mighty beautiful, isn’t it, Uncle Faunt?” His eyes were shining.

  “Everything but the city itself,” Faunt agreed. “The world’s a beautiful place, Clayton, except where men have herded together and produced their special ugliness.”

  The younger man laughed. “We’ll never agree on that, sir. People interest me. I like them, whatever they do.”

  Clayton and Brett delayed a few days their departure for the Plains; and after they were gone Faunt stayed on, listening to the talk he heard. John Brown’s plans had been elaborate: his store of arms was found and seized; it was said he had written out a constitution for the political community he expected to organize; he had a supply of commissions in blank to be issued to the officers of the armed force he hoped to raise among the Negroes. The Dispatch in an editorial Thursday morning said of the Northern abolitionists: “They have, no doubt, their agents in every Southern state, and if this lesson at Harper’s Ferry is lost upon the South it cannot say in the future that it was not forewarned.” It called upon “the reflecting men of the North” to “deplore such calamities and to exert their best energies in preventing their recurrence.” The editorial seemed to Faunt surprisingly temperate; certainly it did not mirror the angry vehemence of the utterances he heard on every hand, where each new rumor provoked new rage. He met Redford Streean in Capitol Square and found him afire with the most recent report.

  “There’s an abolitionist plot started to attack the jail and free the rascals,” Streean declared. “Word came from Harrisburg last night.” Tilda’s husband was sweating with excitement, his voice harsh. “By the Almighty, we’ll know how to meet that! Unless we act, they’ll set the red cock crowing all across the South!” Faunt wondered whether Streean believed his own words. “Our wives, our children helpless on lonely plantations everywhere; and the North wants to turn the blacks loose on us. Afraid to fight us themselves, they’ll rouse the niggers, arm them against us. But we’ll crush the egg before it hatches!”

  Others, attracted by his excited tones, had paused to listen; and Faunt drew clear of the crowd, yet stayed to hear their talk. At once —and he guessed that everywhere, in many another group, the same seed began to root itself—the obvious counter measure was proposed. A rescue? Why then, act before that rescue could be attempted! A few determined men, a few lengths of stout rope, a convenient tree!

  Faunt thought what they threatened was worse than what had happened. This John Brown and his band, they in themselves were nothing. Even in the North, he was sure, responsible opinion would condemn them. But to answer lawless violence with lawless violence could only provoke new violence in turn; like ripples from a chance-tossed pebble, death would be spread in all directions. Redford Streean, talking to these men here, was dangerous; such men as he were dangerous everywhere, as dangerous as poor, crazy, blood-drunk John Brown himself.

  He moved down toward the Exchange, threading his way past other groups like this which had gathered around Redford Streean; and as he approached the hotel he saw a larger crowd collected and heard a man’s voice declaiming words at once familiar.

  “‘... swell and rage and foam

  ‘To be exalted with the threatening clouds;

  ‘But never till tonight, never till now

  ‘Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.

  ‘Either there is a civil strife in Heaven

  ‘Or else the world, too saucy with the Gods,

  ‘Incenses them to send destruction.’”

  He paused to listen, and Jennings Wise greeted him and made way so that Faunt saw the speaker, a darkly handsome little man in a fur-trimmed overcoat—for the day was chill—which seemed too big for him. But Faunt forgot this, caught by the magnetic quality of the other’s voice and the extraordinary way in which, by simply changing his tone, he became another speaker.

  “‘Why, saw you anything more wonderful?’”

  And again that instant change, so that it was as though they listened not to one man but to two who were met in awed, half-frightened conversation.

  “‘A common slave—you know him well by sight—

  ‘Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn

  ‘Like twenty torches joined, and yet his hand,

  ‘Not sensible of fire, remained unscorched.’”

  An angry murmur ran
among his listeners, and the words evoked in Faunt’s imagination the picture of a Negro with a blazing torch of lightwood racing through the darkest night, touching his torch to homes and barns and corn cribs, planting everywhere a swift-growing seed of flame. The voice was half-whispering now, hushed terror in its tones.

  “‘Against the Capitol I met a lion

  ‘Who glared upon me and went surly by

  ‘Without annoying me, and there were drawn

  ‘Upon a heap a hundred ghostly women

  ‘Transformed with their fear, who swore they saw

  ‘Men all in fire walk up and down the streets.

  ‘And yesterday the bird of night did sit

  ‘Even at noon day upon the market place

  ‘Hooting and shrieking. . . .’”

  Some country man, drawn to the fringes of the little crowd, cried delightedly: “That’s right! I heared a squinch owl yesterday!” Two or three men laughed, nervous tension in their tones; but the speaker laid his spell on them again, his voice this time a woman’s, shaken with deep terror.

  “‘A lioness hath whelped in the streets;

  ‘And graves have yawned, and yielded up their dead;

  ‘Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds

  ‘In ranks and squadrons and right forms of war

  ‘Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol.

  ‘The noise of battle hurtled in the air,

  ‘Horses did neigh and dying men did groan,

  ‘And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets.’”

  He paused, and now he held them all breathlessly waiting till he spoke. When he did, his tone had become natural, conversational, deprecating—and this made his words the more impressive.

  “And I believe these are portentous things. Portentous to the people upon whom they descend. That was a day in Rome; but in Richmond today there are omens in the sky for any eye to read.”

  A stir almost of relief ran among his listeners, the tension slackened, each man spoke to his neighbor; Faunt to Jennings Wise. “That’s a remarkable young man. Who is he?”

  “You don’t know him? I’ll present you.” Wise led Faunt forward. “Mr. Booth, may I present Mr. Currain, of Belle Vue. Mr. Currain is looking forward to the pleasure of witnessing one of your performances.”

  Booth bowed. “Your servant, Mr. Currain.”

  “Sir!” Faunt returned the other’s greeting; and he said courteously: “I was impressed, a moment ago, by your remarks. You are a Virginian?”

  “By sympathies only. I was born in Maryland, in Harford County; but my ambition since childhood has been to become the most beloved actor in the South. Last winter, and again this, I have come to feel toward Richmond as though it were my home.”

  “And won our friendship,” Jennings Wise graciously assented. “Mr. Booth will always find a ready welcome here.”

  Someone else came to grasp Booth’s hand, and Faunt went thoughtfully to his room; but he found himself remembering that little man, faintly ridiculous in his big fur-trimmed coat until you heard him speak and warmed to the fire in him. Yet he was amused by his own susceptibility to the impression the other had made. The man was only an actor, after all, playing a part by rote.

  Monday Faunt set out for Belle Vue. His horse, stabled during these days in Richmond, was in lively humor; and on the long gentle rise from the last houses of Richmond to the crest of the low ridge toward Mechanicsville, he let the beast work off its first zeal. They came down toward the Chickahominy at an easier pace, paused at the toll gate and went on by the many wooden bridges that leapfrogged from one patch of hard ground to the next across the wide marsh to the river itself. Faunt was in no hurry. When he reached the Old Church, he remembered that Edmund Ruffin, of whom Trav so often spoke admiringly, lived at Marlbourne not far ahead; and Ruffin these ten years and more, using the written word—for the man was no orator—had been a violent advocate of Southern independence. Curious to hear his comments on Brown’s enterprise, Faunt watched for Mr. Ruffin’s gateway. It was at the crest of a long hill where the road broke down to the Pamunkey bottoms, and Faunt turned aside to call upon the old gentleman.

  He lodged there that night. Marlbourne was set a quarter of a mile off the highway, a compact and comfortable frame house with a wide hallway and lofty ceilings and a white-pillared double balcony that looked across the well-drained lowlands toward the trees that marked the river two or three miles away. The house was on a bold bluff perhaps a hundred feet high, with terraced walks and plantings down the steep slope to the levels below. Mr. Ruffin, a frail little man inches shorter than Faunt, with a wide mouth and curiously gentle deep-set eyes, and long spidery white hair hanging uncut below his shoulders, received him with a gracious hospitality; and these two had, that evening and next morning, long hours of talk. Faunt was the listener, prompting the other with a question now and then.

  But Mr. Ruffin had little need of prompting. He was hot with words. “Harper’s Ferry, sir? Why, the outrage there is but the beginning—premature, to be sure—of a campaign long prepared. This butcher from Kansas, self-blinded to the universal affection throughout the South between master and slaves, driven by his own hatred, thought he need only sound the tocsin to rouse every slave in that part of Virginia. The Northern papers justify and applaud everything about this invasion of Virginia’s sacred soil except its rashness. You will see Massachusetts sending her ablest pleaders to try to avert from these murderers the doom they have earned; the prayers of Northern pulpits will go with them to their shameful graves; yes, they will be canonized as martyrs. Had Brown succeeded in setting the slaves at our throats, the North would have held a jubilee of gladness!”

  Faunt thought this unlikely, and he urged: “Not responsible men, surely, sir.”

  “If there were men of courage, responsible men, in the North, they would have silenced the abolitionists long ago,” Mr. Ruffin retorted, and he added: “The South should welcome this incursion as proof that the North is ready to support treason, murder, open insurrection, to destroy slavery. Henry Clay and his damnable compromise postponed the inevitable conflict, made our victory more difficult. Had we struck in 1850, there would be two nations on this continent now. But it is not too late. They call me a radical. Well sir, I accept that designation proudly; yes and triumphantly. For me John Brown is the answer to prayer, to the prayer of the Southern radicals that the South awake to its danger.”

  He planned, he said, to go at once to Harper’s Ferry. “I hope the abolitionists will try a rescue,” he declared. “Let every would-be rescuer be put to death like a rabid wolf. For ten years it has been my holy purpose to reveal the North in its true character; to prepare the South for independence. Now my goal is in sight. It is still necessary to rouse the people of the South; but John Brown has given me the means. I shall take possession of the pikes with which he intended to arm the negroes and send one to be displayed as an object lesson in every state capital in the South. The way to rouse the people is to play upon their fears, spread rumors of negro bands preparing to attack their homes, fan their anger. Do you know Yancey?” Faunt did not. “He’s a useful instrument, an eloquent and powerful public speaker,” the old man said. “Too wordy for my taste, to be sure. I have heard him, full of liquor and obviously so, speak for four hours on end. But he is effective. I used him to start the ‘League of United Southerners.’ With that as a nucleus, we can move mountains! If Yancey and the League will but stiffen Alabama into a resolute demand for independence, the Cotton States will follow her.” His eyes burned with a strong fire. “Yancey will control the League; the League will control Alabama; Alabama’s leadership will inspire the rest. The lower South, safe against Northern invasion behind the bulwark of the Border States, will erect a new nation, to which one by one the Border States will then adhere.”

  Faunt, recognizing the profound sincerity in the other, saw too his unscrupulous readiness to adopt any device to serve his ends. This was a frightening old man. W
as he not in his way as mad as John Brown—and more dangerous? He asked quietly: “Would that not mean war, sir, with the North?”

  The other said hotly: “So be it! The South can face the prospect without fear. If Northern armies invade our soil, every Southerner of military age will leap to arms, well mounted, to meet them. Leaving our slaves to their labors, we will be free to fight. Victory will be quick and sure.”

  They talked, or rather Mr. Ruffin talked and Faunt listened, till late at night; and in the morning the old gentleman was reluctant to let his guest depart. He thrust into Faunt’s hands four pamphlets.

  “Read them, sir,” he urged. “I wrote them. They have been printed by the thousands at my expense, franked out to every corner of the South by Mr. Hammond, Mr. Mason, and others. Here, for instance, is The Influence of Slavery, or its Absence, on Manners, Morals and Intellect. Read it! Do you realize that in the industrial North, fattened by the tariff at the expense of every farmer in the North and in the South, the farmer has been forced to a life of endless toil, of mental and economic poverty! Only in the South under slavery is the farmer still a gentleman.” He added: “Then here is The Political Economy of Slavery, and then African Colonization Unveiled and finally, Slavery and Free Labor Described and Compared.” He laid the four, with a gesture almost affectionate, in Faunt’s hand. “I’m proud of them, sir. I believe you will find them worthy of your closest attention.”

  When Faunt took the road again, his eyes were grave. Was it conceivable that this sincere, violent, unscrupulous old man—and others like him—could precipitate the whole nation, North and South, into terrible and bloody war? Faunt nodded grimly. Yes, for it was thus that wars were made. Passionate men obsessed with an idea could by long reiteration persuade even the calmest of their fellows to take arms, to attack, to resist, to kill, to die! Ideas were devils, men became possessed, they raced to their own destruction. Mr. Ruffin and such men as he, in the North and in the South, were springs to set in motion forces which once started no man could control.