House Divided

by Ben Ames Williams

  Yet to him, through the newspapers or by the occasional report of some visitor, came the distant grumbling thunder of debate and discussion which gave warning of nearing storm. The Virginia Convention elected in February was by a count of delegates two to one against secession; yet for weeks they reached no decision. The seceding states sent emissaries to urge that Virginia withdraw from the Union; and Faunt read some of their speeches. Fulton Anderson of Mississippi, Henry Benning of Georgia, John Preston of South Carolina; the words of each fell into the same pattern. The Republican party was committed to the abolition of slavery, and now the Republicans had elected Lincoln and would control the national government. Therefore, since only by doing so could they keep their slaves, the Gulf States had seceded. Thus said each man, and each orator in turn offered Virginia the leadership of the Confederacy if she would but join the seceding states.

  Mr. Benning’s speech was in some passages so ridiculous that it made Faunt smile as he read. “Separation from the North,” said Mr. Benning, “was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of slavery.” And he went on to describe what abolition would mean: suffrage for the Negro, and therefore Negro government; inevitable white resistance to that Negro rule; a call from the Negroes to the general government for support against that white resistance; the extermination or expulsion of all Southern white men, and the forced mating of white women to Negroes; the descent of the whole South under black control into a howling wilderness. “And then,” concluded Mr. Benning, the Republican North “will take possession of our territory and exterminate the blacks. Thus the end will be that the Yankees will walk our soil as sole lord, having exterminated both us and our slaves. That is what abolition in the Cotton States would be.” He went on to picture the happy results of secession; the establishment of customs guards, supported by the army, along the frontier; domination not only of the North but of Europe by withholding cotton or exporting it as a reward for good behavior; separation of the North into fragments by fortifying Virginia’s wedge of territory between Ohio and Pennsylvania ...

  Faunt at length ceased to find Mr. Benning’s nonsense amusing. After all, the man was Georgia’s accredited emissary to the Convention; he had been heard, and presumably with attention and respect. You could not laugh him aside. Dining that evening with Judge Tudor and Anne, Faunt read aloud some portions of the speech; till the Judge almost exploded.

  “The man’s either a fool or a scoundrel.”

  “I’d rather think him plain scoundrel,” Faunt remarked. “Fools, if they have the gift of tongues, are much the more dangerous.” He added reluctantly: “Mr. Anderson’s speech, and Mr. Preston’s, were respectable enough. Of course they both say their states seceded to prevent the abolition of slavery, but Mr. Anderson said something that struck me; that Northerners have been taught to believe we are inferior to them in morality and civilization. It occurs to me that we’ve been taught the same thing about the North.”

  “To be sure, to be sure,” the Judge agreed. “And I’m afraid these long years of mutual recriminations and abuse have built up a tension only war can ease.”

  “I sometimes suspect,” Faunt suggested, “that it’s because we secretly know ourselves wrong that we defend ourselves so vehemently.”

  The other reluctantly assented. “Yes, I suppose that’s true. Wrong about slavery, and wrong to secede. Yet perhaps it’s as well to settle that point once and for all. As long as the right of secession is admitted, the Union can never be accepted as permanent.”

  Anne said surprisingly: “It’s like a girl getting married and always thinking that if she doesn’t like it she can go home to her mama. Till she gets over that idea, she never becomes a good wife.”

  Faunt smiled affectionately. “It’s a pity, Judge Tudor, that we can’t all see as clearly as Anne. Yet—didn’t New York when she ratified the Constitution reserve the right to secede?”

  “I believe so. And of course Massachusetts used secession as a threat in the Louisiana controversy, and again when Texas sought statehood.”

  “Will Mr. Lincoln use force against the seceding states?”

  The Judge strongly shook his head. “No authority to do so rests in the executive. The Constitutional Convention expressly refused to grant it. President Buchanan, yes, and even the New York Tribune have admitted that there is no coercive power. Lincoln himself in his inaugural disclaimed such power. No, sir, there will be no coercion.”

  Faunt hoped the other was right. That Black Republican in the White House was not to be trusted. He would make himself a dictator if he could. But Congress would tie his hands. Certainly in Congress and in the North there was no readiness to follow Lincoln to war.

  Yet suppose the South took arms? What then? The Convention in Richmond, under the leadership of Governor Letcher, still stood firm against secession; but against that firmness an outcry everywhere began to rise. Faunt decided to go to watch events at close range. The first week of April was steadily rainy, so he delayed; but the rains persisted till he would wait no longer. He went to the hidden chapel to make his farewells. Always before now he could say in his whispering good-bys: “I will return, my dear. I will return.” But today he could not surely make this promise. In the times ahead, no man setting out upon a journey could be sure of journey’s end.

  He lingered, reluctant and sorrowing; and the rain beat hard and pitiless on the roof of rifted slabs above his head. But at last he returned to the house where Zeke had his horse ready. He rode through a downpour to Port Conway and ferried across the swollen river to Port Royal and took the river road to Fredericksburg. He would leave his horse there and travel on the cars to Richmond.

  He had not realized the seriousness of this flood. Every little creek was out of its banks, and at Fredericksburg the raging river had wrecked the railroad bridge. Also, in the region around the headwaters of the Mattapony on the way to Richmond, the tracks were reported under water, with many lesser bridges gone; so he could only wait, a day and then another. But when the first cars started through to Richmond, he was aboard.

  In Fredericksburg he had listened much and spoken little, weighing the rising clamor for secession; and on the cars he heard all around him voices truculent and boastful, cursing the laggard Convention and damning Governor Letcher for his stand. Faunt while he listened watched the passing scene outside the windows; the receding waters of the flood, the sedge and pine which overran the old fields, the impoverished farms, the occasional mansion dimly seen through screening woodlands. Tobacco was a crop that paid rich dividends, but it left exhausted lands. Like a vice, it gave brief feverish pleasure yet exacted a high price in the end.

  Here before his eyes poverty now dwelt everywhere; and between the world of which he was a part, wealthy, mannered, leisurely, and the world inhabited by these wretched men and women whom he saw from the windows of the train there was a wide gulf. In his small house at Belle Vue he lived alone, surrounded by devoted servants. Even in that slack-kept establishment, if he wished to dine, fine damask and delicate china and gleaming silver were spread on the rich mahogany; the most delicious viands, the choicest wines were set before him. If he wished to read, his shelves were stocked with all the treasures of the world’s literature, and every worth-while periodical of the day lay there at hand. If he wished to ride abroad, his stables held sleek-groomed horses; if he would drive, his carriage made. by Mr. Brewster of New York was ready for his use. He had—unless it was the old loneliness, the heart-weariness of life without Betty and their baby who died so long ago—no want he could not satisfy.

  But how many were there in Virginia who lived thus graciously? And suppose war came? Virginia would be the battle ground. The storm about to break would destroy this fine world of which he and his like were all a part, this Virginia. Anywhere in the Tidewater, in the Piedmont, on the South Side, he could count on riding up to a hospitable doorway and finding a welcome from old friends, or from friends of old friends. But how many were they? In Richmond
there were thirty-five thousand people; but how many of those thousands lived as he did, in soft and gentle ways? A hundred? Five hundred? Hardly more. In all of Virginia how many? A thousand? Five thousand? Not many, certainly.

  But how many hundreds of thousands were there of these others: small planters with half a dozen or a dozen slaves, small farmers with one or two? Probably no more than fifty thousand men in Virginia owned any slaves at all. The rest were the yeoman farmers and the teeming poor whites, crowded into wretched hovels, living narrow lives, often hungry, often cold, unschooled, not even taught to read and write. How many thousands were like these men and women he saw today in the fields, in the doorways of their wretched homes, clustered at the stations. to see the cars go by? There were thousands of them, certainly, to every individual like himself; and between the heights where he dwelt and the gulf that was their world a deep chasm lay.

  His eyes had never before been so fully open to the sordid poverty of the countryside he knew so well. A day’s ride west, in Fauquier, and Loudoun, there were fertile valleys and thrifty farms; but here in the Tidewater the land was worked out. Yet he had always thought of the Tidewater as Virginia, and Virginia was the very flower of the South. Colonel Lee had said, in a letter which Custis Lee quoted to Faunt the other day, that if the Union were dissolved he would return to Virginia and share her miseries. Loyal to the Union, he was loyal first to Virginia; to this Virginia where atop a cauldron of men and women lost in hopeless poverty and ignorance there floated a thin skimming of such men as he.

  Was there any other place in the world today where so few lived richly, so many dwelt in abject poverty? Yet love for Virginia outweighed with Colonel Lee love for the Union; and in these shabby crowds at every station and here on the rattling, dingy train, packed with a gabbling throng, the aisle slippery with expectorated tobacco juice, a like love for Virginia shone in every eye, sounded in every voice. For Virginia, these men were ready to fight, quite possibly to die.

  Was he as ready as they? Yes; no doubt of it. But he would be fighting to preserve the fine way of life which was the life he knew. For what would these others fight? For what gain?

  Why, they had nothing to gain; but equally they had nothing to lose—no slaves, no property worth the name, no leisure, no gracious homes, nothing but their lives.

  Yet they would offer their lives; no doubt of that. At Polecat Station someone in the car saw displayed a secession flag, and pointed it out, and hoarse shouts of high pride greeted the sight. Yes—they would fight—and die!

  What impelled them to that self-immolation? What was this battle madness which moved them all? He would fight with his class, with his own kind, to preserve the world he loved; but for what would these others fight? To preserve what? Why should they wish to preserve their world as it was? For them, would not any change be gain?

  No, clearly not; for in war there was no gain for anyone. In war there was no victory; in war there was only universal sorrow, loss of loved ones, loss of loved things, loss, loss, loss. Surely, surely somehow the catastrophe would be averted. Almost he reassured himself.

  But in Richmond newsboys met the train with extras. The bombardment of Sumter had begun!

  Faunt bought one of the papers and took it with him. He put up at the Spottswood, which was still fresh and new, and went at once to his room, feeling as he always did in crowds oppressed and ill at ease. He tried to read the paper; but even the advertisements had a warlike flavor, offering for sale military manuals and textbooks and swords and guns and field glasses, and announcing the need for men of military education to serve as drill masters. The Convention had not yet acted, but clearly those first guns far away in South Carolina had set the pitch; the public mind was tuned for war.

  Faunt laid the paper aside. For once he was not content to be alone. When he came down to the lobby, Jennings Wise crossed to greet him. Young Wise had returned from Paris and Berlin four years before, after a period of diplomatic service abroad; he had become an associate editor of the Enquirer in order to further his father’s political career, and by so doing he had stepped into the bitter brawl of local politics. Many Tidewater men felt that Henry Wise had betrayed his class by supporting the demands of Western Virginia for the universal suffrage which would destroy the planter’s dominance in state affairs; but his partial victory in that fight had lifted him to the Governor’s chair, which he had yielded now to Governor Letcher. Jennings Wise, fighting his father’s battles in the columns of the Enquirer, made a thousand enemies; but Faunt held for Governor Wise a high respect, and he liked the Governor’s brilliant son. At once gallant—the fact that he remained a bachelor was a constant challenge to every belle in Richmond—and gentle, so that children loved him, Jennings Wise was also as ready as any bravo to receive a challenge or to send one. Any editor in the South had to be prepared to support his published utterances on the field of honor, so young Wise was not unique in this; but his encounters usually ended bloodlessly, and the fact that he himself more often than not received the enemy’s fire and then withheld his own increased the love his friends felt for him. He was the complete pattern and perfection of the young Virginian, cultivated, courtly, recklessly brave, living by a high personal code, lending himself to no vices yet readily embracing the charming follies peculiar to his class.

  It was inevitable that just now such a man should be afire with a happy intoxication, drunk with the certainty that war was imminent. “Father’s convinced of it,” he told Faunt. “I’ve tried to send him home—he has a bad cold, next door to pneumonia—but he won’t be moved.” Jennings Wise had been recently elected Captain of the Blues; and he said: “See here, sir, you’ll want a share in the fun that’s coming. If you join the Blues I’ll promise you action.”

  Faunt smiled. “I haven’t thought so far ahead. Where is your father? I’d like to pay my respects.”

  “At the Exchange,” Jennings told him. “He’ll be glad to see you. But don’t forget the Blues when the time comes. If you wait too long we may not have room for you. A week from now we’ll be off for Washington!” He laughed in audacious certainty. “Why sir, in sixty days our flag will fly over the White House. We’ll establish the capital of the Confederacy there.”

  Faunt did not dissent. Youth would always nurse its dreams. Yet he found the former Governor as ready for battle as his son. When Faunt reached his room, a number of gentlemen were with the Governor, deep in conversation. There were some thoughtful suggestions that Virginia might still remain neutral; but Governor Wise, through spasms of coughing, brushed them aside.

  “Ridiculous, gentlemen; ridiculous! Even assuming that that was our desire, here’s the North on one side of us, the South on the other, like two dogs each eager to get at the other’s throat. We’re the fence between. Even if we wished to keep them apart, we couldn’t do it. No, either Virginia will fight with Jeff Davis or she’ll fight with Lincoln. That’s certain!”

  “Suppose she chose to fight with Lincoln?”

  “Sir,” the Governor retorted, his deep-set eyes blazing, “if Virginia did that I would renounce my loyalty to her—and so would every other honorable man—and offer my sword to the Confederacy.”

  The talk ran on, visitors came and went. Ex-President Tyler appeared; and Faunt and the others heard his opinion that the attack on Sumter would lead to the secession of Virginia.

  “And Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina—all will follow us,” the former chief executive predicted. “But I believe that if we stand firm, no general war need ensue.”

  Governor Wise, his deeply cleft chin jutting defiantly, instantly dissented. He was a spare man, so lean that he seemed taller than he was; his cheeks were sunken, his skin yellow. There was no moderation in him, no halfway between right and wrong; and in private conversation or in public utterances his passionate certainties sometimes thinned his tones to an almost feminine slenderness. Those who did not know him might at such times suspect he was intoxicated; but actually col
d water was his only potation, tobacco his only vice. As he spoke now the corners of his mouth were stained.

  “No, sir!” he cried. “No sir, you are wrong. The North has gone too far to withdraw. They’ve been made drunk with abolitionist doctrine. Garrison and his like, this Black Republican clown from Illinois, Uncle Tom, Helper’s book—sixty-eight Republican Congressmen, you remember, recommended that atrocious and bloodthirsty production to the attention of their followers—all these influences have moved them to maniacal frenzy. Whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad! The North had warning enough during the campaign that to elect this gangling Illinois ruffian would be taken as a declaration of war; but they persisted in their folly. They elected a sectional administration, the first this nation has ever seen. In ten Southern states Abe Lincoln got not a single vote!” He threw up his hands, his fists clenched. “The crime is on their heads!”

  “There need not be war,” President Tyler urged. “Mr. Lincoln is a self-confessed coward, skulking into Washington in disguise, delivering his inaugural from behind a hedge of bayonets. If the South presents a steady and united front, his fears will restrain him, and he will restrain his followers.”

  “He wants war,” the Governor insisted. “When he sent a fleet to provision Sumter, it was a deliberate move to provoke us into action. Mark my word, that fleet will make no effort to relieve the Fort. They will allow Sumter to fall; and then Lincoln will call us aggressors and the North will follow him to war.”

  “The Northerners are not a warlike people,” President Tyler urged. “In our last war with England, South Carolina alone furnished more soldiers than all New England; the South furnished almost twice as many as the whole North. In the Mexican war all New England sent only a thousand men. Lincoln will find few ready to take up the sword. Governor, you heard me say a month ago in the Convention that Virginia should present an ultimatum, demand guarantees. To do so now, in concert with our sister states, will still serve.”