Stars & Stripes Forever

by Harry Harrison

  “I understand that it was you who called this meeting?”

  “I did indeed. Matters of policy to discuss, serious ones. But first, if you please, I would like you to hear a personal report on the war that has affected me as no dispatch or written command has. A verbal report by one who has fought in it. Colonel Dupuy.”

  “Well then, speak up. What of the war, Colonel?”

  “I regret, ma’am, that I bring only bad news.”

  “I am sure of that!” she said shrilly. “There has been too much of this of late, far too much.”

  “I regret deeply that I must add to your disquiet. Your Majesty’s soldiers and matelots have fought most valiantly, I assure you of that. But we are outgunned on land, overwhelmed at sea. I assure Your Majesty that brave men have done their best, courage has not been lacking—but the material of war has . . .”

  His voice was even hoarser and he touched his throat with his fingertips as though in pain. The Queen raised her hand.

  “Enough! This man is injured and he should have attention— not an audience before the Queen. Have the colonel helped out, see that he is rested. It hurts Us to see a brave man who has suffered for his country, in this parlous state.”

  She was silent until the colonel had backed tremorously from the room, then rounded on the Duke.

  “You are an imbecile! You brought that man here to embarrass Us, to make some vague and obscure point that completely escapes me? I want you to know that We are not amused.”

  The Duke of Cambridge was not fazed at all by her anger. “Not obscure, dear cuz, but painfully clear. We are stalemated in this war and appear to be suffering great losses on the Northern Front. I want your Prime Minister and his cabinet to be sure that they understand that fact. And I have even worse news. This colonial war seems to have spread. We have reports that regiments of the Confederacy have joined the Union in attacking our troops.”

  “That cannot be!” Queen Victoria shouted, her face twisted with anger.

  “It is true.”

  “They cannot be that duplicitous. This war began because of their two wretched diplomats who are still in enemy hands. When we fight to defend them they react in some sly, Yankee way. Are you telling me that they have combined to defeat Our will?”

  “They have. Perhaps it was due to a diversional attack we launched in the south of the country—we will never know.”

  Only silence followed this preposterous statement; none dared to speak. History is written by the powerful. Blandly and easily the Duke spoke on.

  “So now that we are acquainted with all the facts we can determine the course of the future.”

  “My patience is at an end,” she shrieked. “Tell me what is going to happen!”

  “A decision must be made. A choice is quite simple. Peace—or barring that—a wider war.”

  The Queen’s patience, never very good, was at an end and she was screaming. “You speak of peace after the humiliation We have suffered? You speak of peace with these colonial creatures who killed my dear Albert? Are we, the greatest Empire the world has ever seen, are we to humble ourselves before these backwoods rebels, these murderous swine?”

  “We need not be humbled—but we should consider opening negotiations to discuss peace.”

  “Never! And you gentlemen of the Cabinet, do you hear what I have said?”

  Lord Palmerston hesitated before he spoke. “I think that I speak for the others when I say that the Duke raises some strong points . . .”

  “Does he indeed!” The Queen shouted, her voice shrill and angry, her face purple with rage. “But what of the country, what of the people and their desire to teach this upstart nation a lesson that it will never forget? I speak for them when I say that surrender is out of the question. There is such a thing as pride to be considered.”

  The Duke of Cambridge nodded his head in compliance to her will.

  “Of course we will not surrender. But we need more than pride to fight this new kind of war. If we are not to have peace—we must then gird ourselves for a far greater effort. At sea we must have armor-clad ships, on land modern weapons. The Empire must be called on for assistance, for men, for the money that we must have, to build the forces that we must have if, in the end, we are to be victorious.”

  Lord John Russell forced himself to speak. “Your Majesty, if I may. This is a moment of great decision and all of the facts must be weighed coolly and calmly. I firmly believe that there should be no lasting conflict between Your Majesty’s government and that of the United States. We come from common stock, speak the same language. Surely the road to peace must be considered as well as the road to war.” He bowed and stepped back.

  Gladstone had some knowledge of the sums that were needed for any continuance of the war—as well as the depleted state of the treasury. It was not his place to speak but he looked pleadingly at Palmerston. The Prime Minister nodded grimly.

  “Majesty,” he said, “we must consider what Lord Russell has said. We must also think of the financial cost of what we are discussing—and it is beyond belief. I believe that all options must be examined. Negotiations for a just peace could be opened, the possibility of apologies might be assumed . . .”

  Her rage had cooled somewhat while the others spoke. In fact her voice was almost toneless now, as though a different person occupied her body. “Far too late for that. We do not consider peace an option at this time. And the possibility of failure does not exist. If the Americans must be taught a lesson let it be a strong one. Confer with my ministers and prepare proposals for this mechanical sort of war that the enemy seems to be fighting. What they can do we British can certainly do better. For is this not the heartland of science and engineering? Where Britain leads the world must perforce follow. If we are seen to bend the knee to this rag-tag wild country we can expect only scorn from the crowned heads of Europe. We shall not submit. Britain and the Empire will only be stronger for this exercise. For centuries we have ruled the waves and so be it into the foreseeable future.”

  She folded her hands firmly in her lap. Jaw set with grim determination she looked around at the assembled men, challenging them for argument or dissent. The silence lengthened and no one spoke.

  “Well then—you are dismissed.”

  THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION

  The President of the Confederacy and the President of the United States had fallen into the pattern of early morning meetings. It had started by chance, when they wished to prepare a common agenda before a joint Cabinet meeting, had become the habit since then. Jefferson Davis would take his carriage from Willard’s Hotel, just down Pennsylvania Avenue at 14th, and enter the Mansion to climb the stairs to Abraham Lincoln’s office. Nicolay would serve them with coffee, then close the door and stand guardian in the outer office to assure that their privacy was not compromised.

  Davis drank some coffee before he spoke. “I have had a very pleasant correspondence from William Mason. He asks me to thank you most profoundly for the special order for their release. He has returned to the bosom of his family, as has John Slidell. Along with the letter was a box of fine Havana cigars.”

  “You must thank Captain Wilkes, the officer who captured them, for he was the one who reminded me of their incarceration. In the midst of a war begun, ostensibly at their seizure, no one but Wilkes seemed to have remembered them at all,” Lincoln said, pushing a sheaf of telegrams across the table. “These arrived a few minutes ago. The counterattack by our forces has begun. Although it is still too early to get details of what is unfolding, I think that I can truthfully say that we can be sure of the outcome. Our fresh troops against their weary ones—and I am sure that we vastly outnumber them as well. They must retreat, or stand and die.”

  “Or both,” Davis said, blowing on his coffee to cool it. “I do perhaps have some pity for the common soldiers who serve such reckless masters. But not enough to wish strongly for any other outcome. Perfidious Albion must be struck a fatal blow that will send her reeli
ng so hard that she will have no choice but sue for peace.”

  “But not too soon,” Lincoln said, raising his hands as though to keep this outcome at bay. “We are both in agreement that while the battles rage this country is united as one. So we must consider once again what will happen after the last guns are silenced. There is someone waiting next door that I would like you to meet. A man of great wisdom whom I have mentioned before. A man who has brought me new ideas, a new dimension that I feel affects our mutual theater of operation. He is the natural philosopher I told you about, the one who is a practitioner in the arcane art of economic theory.”

  “I know nothing of it.”

  “Nor did I until he explained. With his aid I feel we can find a way to settle our differences, to bind up our wounds and take this country into a proud and united future.”

  “If he can do that, why then I do declare that he is a worker of miracles!”

  “Perhaps he is. Certainly he values liberty above country for he is, of all things, I might remind you, an Englishman.”

  Davis did not know what to say, for the arcane matters of finance and economics were beyond him. He was a soldier forced into politics while his only desire was to lead in the field. He only stirred and rose when the gray-haired philosopher came in. Lincoln introduced him to Jefferson Davis, and they spoke politely until Nicolay had gone out and sealed the door. Only then did the President address himself to the problems that faced them.

  “You know, Mr. Mill, that your country has now invaded the South just as it did the North?”

  “I do. Nor can I understand it nor explain it. I only pray that your conjoined forces can resist these attacks.”

  “We as well, sir,” Lincoln said, then hesitated. His long fingers twisted together just as his thoughts twisted with how much he should reveal. Everything, he finally decided, there was really no choice. If Mill were to aid them, then he must be privy to all their thoughts, their every decision. “The warring sides in our civil war have mutually agreed upon an armistice to enable us to do battle with our mutual enemy. This country is as one again—but we are afraid that this situation will only prevail as long as battle rages. However, I must be frank, and tell you of our fears and hopes for the future, while asking you to reveal to no one what we speak of today.”

  “You have my word, Mr. President.”

  “Our thoughts are simple. When this war against the invaders is hopefully won—can we keep the peace that we now enjoy between our recently warring states? And can we, in some way, also find a way to end the dreadful war between the states that now has been suspended?”

  “Of course you can.” Mill spoke quietly and assuredly, with a frank pleasure and certainty in his words. “If you are strong in your resolve I can point you to the path that will make that peace possible. I shall resist any attempt to lecture you gentlemen, but there are certain facts that I must point out that must be considered in detail. We must remember the past so that we do not repeat it. I come from a Europe that is constrained by its past as your country is not. You will recall that but a few short years ago there were dangerous political stirrings in Europe. She is old and her ideas are old.”

  He paced the room as he spoke, raising one finger at a time to enumerate the points that he was making.

  “At this time the French government was wholly without the spirit of improvement and wrought almost exclusively through the meaner and more selfish impulses of mankind. The French people wanted change and were willing to man the barricades and die for a better future. But what happened? The regime of that fat, middle-class king, Louis Philippe, could not handle the crisis. He fled to England as the working men of Paris rose up as one and raised the Red Flag over the Hôtel de Ville. And what was the response to that? The Paris mobs were put down by the National Guard with ten thousand casualties. Louis Napoleon then ended the Second Republic and founded the Second Empire.

  “In Belgium the frightened king offered to resign. In the end the government let him stay—and he rewarded them by abolishing the right of assembly. In Germany barricades went up. The troops were then called out and the rebellious citizenry were shot down. Prussia still has no parliament, no freedom of speech or right of assembly, no liberty of the press or trial by jury, no tolerance for any idea that deviates by a hair’s breadth from the antiquated notion of the divine right of kings.”

  “You make some very strong points in your observations,” Lincoln said.

  “I do—and I am correct. Look at the other countries. Mobs rioted in Italy which was, and still is, no more than a hodgepodge of anachronistic principalities. Russia under the Czars is the cornerstone of despotism in Europe. Prague and Vienna had popular uprisings like Paris, and the mobs seized control of cities. They were shot down by the military.

  “Compared to all this the conditions in England have been positively idyllic. But now the British have embarked upon this foolish war, this terrible gamble, this threat to the elected government of the only sizable democracy in the world. Tiny Switzerland does not represent the noble future of the human race—but a reborn United States of America could.”

  The two Presidents looked at each other in silence, weighing the words and their import.

  “I for one have never considered these matters in this light,” Davis said. “I think we take our country for granted and accept these favors as being naturally received.”

  “Very much of what we consider natural is mutable,” Mill said. “The natural rule of Britain over her American colonies was changed by those rebellious colonists themselves. I do not regress when I talk to you of economic law. If you but follow where I lead you will come to the heart of the problem that you face.

  “You must realize that the true province of economic law is production and not distribution as many have believed. This fact is of monumental importance. The economic laws of production concern nature. There is nothing arbitrary about whether labor is more productive in this use or that, nothing capricious or accidental in the diminishing powers of productivity of the soil. Scarcity and the obduracy of nature are real things. The economic rules of behavior that tell us how to maximize the fruits of our labors are as impersonal and absolute as the laws that govern chemical interaction.”

  Jefferson Davis looked bewildered. “I find these matters beyond my comprehension.”

  “I assure you that they are not. But follow for a moment where I lead. The laws of economics have nothing to do with distribution. Once we have produced wealth we can do what we want with it. We can place this wealth as we please. It is society that determines how it is shared—and societies differ. You in the North are proving this law for you know that there is no “natural” law determining how men treat men. The means of production can be changed, slavery can be abolished and production will still continue.”

  Davis shook his head angrily. “I beg to differ with you. The economy of the South is based upon the institution of slavery and we could not exist without it.”

  “You could exist—and surely will. The principle of private property has not yet had a fair trial. Now it has one in the war that you were fighting over the true definition of property. I put it to you that human beings cannot be property. The laws and institutions of Europe still represent its violent and feudal past, not the spirit of reform. Only in America can this vital experiment in change be made. My model society has a goal different from any of the good men who came before me. I believe that social behavior can be changed, just as you must believe, or you would not be fighting this war for liberty.”

  “Liberty for the South is not the same as liberty in the North,” Lincoln said.

  “Ahh, but it is. You are referring to slavery of course. But we must look at the economic record. Slavery as an institution has been on the decline since 1860. Slavery and cotton can only prosper when land is cheap and fertile. Cotton prices have been going down and the depletion of cotton land has been going on for some time. Is this not true, Mr. Davis?”

 
“Unhappily it is so. Before this war slave prices were dropping, many of my fellow planters found that having a large number of slaves was a burden.”

  “The handwriting is on the wall. Despite all the furor over it there never was a chance of slavery spreading west—the land is not suited for it. Slavery is a cumbersome and expensive system, and can show profits only as long as there is plenty of rich land to cultivate and the world takes the produce of crude labor at a good price. I believe that it has now reached its limit. Since the blockade of the Southern coasts began the world has been seeking out other sources for their cotton, in countries such as Egypt and India.”

  “Slavery will not go away by us just telling it to,” Lincoln said.

  “Then we must generate an atmosphere where it is no longer needed. You are now engaged in a war against an empire. It will soon be an economic war and you must look to your resources. This country is blessed with all the natural resources you need and they must be exploited. The South must become as industrialized as the North to manufacture the material of peace—and war.”

  “And the slaves?” Davis asked.

  “Must no longer be slaves,” Mill said firmly. “But the planters must be paid for their slaves who are freed. The amount is small compared to the amounts spent on continuing this battle. Less than one-half of a day’s cost of war would pay for emancipating all the slaves in Delaware. Cost of eighty-seven days of war would free all slaves in border states and the District of Columbia. Slavery will not vanish overnight, but the first steps must be taken. And one of these steps must be a law that no more slaves will be born.”

  “I don’t understand,” Lincoln said; Davis also looked bewildered.

  “Just that. You gentlemen must see into law the ordinance that children born of slaves will be free. Therefore within a generation the practice of slavery will be gone. First a bill must be passed ordaining this change and ordering it to commence, while an amendment to your constitution is voted on.”

  Davis shook his head. “I do not like this, Mr. Mill, not a littly-bit. This will not be an easy thing to do and the people of the South will not take to it at all. And, speaking frankly, I am not sure that I do approve of it. You are asking the men of the South to change everything, to alter a way of life and everything that we believe in. That is not fair nor is it acceptable. But what sacrifice is the North going to make?”