The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan

by Thomas Dixon

  CHAPTER IV

  A CLASH OF GIANTS

  Elsie secured from the Surgeon-General temporary passes for the day, andsent her friends to the hospital with the promise that she would not leavethe White House until she had secured the pardon.

  The President greeted her with unusual warmth. The smile that had onlyhaunted his sad face during four years of struggle, defeat, anduncertainty had now burst into joy that made his powerful head radiatelight. Victory had lifted the veil from his soul, and he was girdinghimself for the task of healing the Nation's wounds.

  "I'll have it ready for you in a moment, Miss Elsie," he said, touchingwith his sinewy hand a paper which lay on his desk, bearing on its facethe red seal of the Republic. "I am only waiting to receive the passes."

  "I am very grateful to you, Mr. President," the girl said feelingly.

  "But tell me," he said, with quaint, fatherly humour, "why you, of all ourgirls, the brightest, fiercest little Yankee in town, so take to heart arebel boy's sorrows?"

  Elsie blushed, and then looked at him frankly with a saucy smile.

  "I am fulfilling the Commandments."

  "Love your enemies?"

  "Certainly. How could one help loving the sweet, motherly face you sawyesterday."

  The President laughed heartily. "I see--of course, of course!"

  "The Honourable Austin Stoneman," suddenly announced a clerk at hiselbow.

  Elsie started in surprise and whispered:

  "Do not let my father know I am here. I will wait in the next room. You'lllet nothing delay the pardon, will you, Mr. President?"

  Mr. Lincoln warmly pressed her hand as she disappeared through the doorleading into Major Hay's room, and turned to meet the Great Commoner whohobbled slowly in, leaning on his crooked cane.

  At this moment he was a startling and portentous figure in the drama ofthe Nation, the most powerful parliamentary leader in American history,not excepting Henry Clay.

  No stranger ever passed this man without a second look. His clean-shavenface, the massive chiselled features, his grim eagle look, and cold,colourless eyes, with the frosts of his native Vermont sparkling in theirdepths, compelled attention.

  His walk was a painful hobble. He was lame in both feet, and one of themwas deformed. The left leg ended in a mere bunch of flesh, resembling moreclosely an elephant's hoof than the foot of a man.

  He was absolutely bald, and wore a heavy brown wig that seemed too smallto reach the edge of his enormous forehead.

  He rarely visited the White House. He was the able, bold, unscrupulousleader of leaders, and men came to see him. He rarely smiled, and when hedid it was the smile of the cynic and misanthrope. His tongue had the lashof a scorpion. He was a greater terror to the trimmers and time-servers ofhis own party than to his political foes. He had hated the President withsullen, consistent, and unyielding venom from his first nomination atChicago down to the last rumour of his new proclamation.

  In temperament a fanatic, in impulse a born revolutionist, the wordconservatism was to him as a red rag to a bull. The first clash of armswas music to his soul. He laughed at the call for 75,000 volunteers, anddemanded the immediate equipment of an army of a million men. He saw itgrow to 2,000,000. From the first, his eagle eye had seen the end and allthe long, blood-marked way between. And from the first, he began to plotthe most cruel and awful vengeance in human history.

  And now his time had come.

  The giant figure in the White House alone had dared to brook his anger andblock the way; for old Stoneman was the Congress of the United States. Theopposition was too weak even for his contempt. Cool, deliberate, andvenomous alike in victory or defeat, the fascination of his positive faithand revolutionary programme had drawn the rank and file of his party inCongress to him as charmed satellites.

  The President greeted him cordially, and with his habitual deference toage and physical infirmity hastened to place for him an easy chair nearhis desk.

  He was breathing heavily and evidently labouring under great emotion. Hebrought his cane to the floor with violence, placed both hands on itscrook, leaned his massive jaws on his hands for a moment, and then said:

  "Mr. President, I have not annoyed you with many requests during the pastfour years, nor am I here to-day to ask any favours. I have come to warnyou that, in the course you have mapped out, the executive and legislativebranches have come to the parting of the ways, and that your encroachmentson the functions of Congress will be tolerated, now that the Rebellion iscrushed, not for a single moment!"

  Mr. Lincoln listened with dignity, and a ripple of fun played about hiseyes as he looked at his grim visitor. The two men were face to face atlast--the two men above all others who had built and were to build thefoundations of the New Nation--Lincoln's in love and wisdom to endureforever, the Great Commoner's in hate and madness, to bear its harvest oftragedy and death for generations yet unborn.

  "Well, now, Stoneman," began the good-humoured voice, "that puts me inmind----"

  The old Commoner lifted his hand with a gesture of angry impatience:

  "Save your fables for fools. Is it true that you have prepared aproclamation restoring the conquered province of North Carolina to itsplace as a State in the Union with no provision for negro suffrage or theexile and disfranchisement of its rebels?"

  The President rose and walked back and forth with his hands folded behindhim before answering.

  "I have. The Constitution grants to the National Government no power toregulate suffrage, and makes no provision for the control of 'conqueredprovinces.'"

  "Constitution!" thundered Stoneman. "I have a hundred constitutions in thepigeonholes of my desk!"

  "I have sworn to support but one."

  "A worn-out rag----"

  "Rag or silk, I've sworn to execute it, and I'll do it, so help me God!"said the quiet voice.

  "You've been doing it for the past four years, haven't you!" sneered theCommoner. "What right had you under the Constitution to declare waragainst a 'sovereign' State? To invade one for coercion? To blockade aport? To declare slaves free? To suspend the writ of _habeas corpus_? Tocreate the State of West Virginia by the consent of two states, one ofwhich was dead, and the other one of which lived in Ohio? By whatauthority have you appointed military governors in the 'sovereign' Statesof Virginia, Tennessee, and Louisiana? Why trim the hedge and lie aboutit? We, too, are revolutionists, and you are our executive. TheConstitution sustained and protected slavery. It _was_ 'a league withdeath and a covenant with hell,' and our flag 'a polluted rag!'"

  "In the stress of war," said the President, with a far-away look, "it wasnecessary that I do things as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy tosave the Union which I have no right to do now that the Union is saved andits Constitution preserved. My first duty is to re-establish theConstitution as our supreme law over every inch of our soil."

  "The Constitution be d----d!" hissed the old man. "It was the creation,both in letter and spirit, of the slaveholders of the South."

  "Then the world is their debtor, and their work is a monument ofimperishable glory to them and to their children. I have sworn to preserveit!"

  "We have outgrown the swaddling clothes of a babe. We will make newconstitutions!"

  "'Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,'" softly spoke the tall,self-contained man.

  For the first time the old leader winced. He had long ago exhausted thevocabulary of contempt on the President, his character, ability, andpolicy. He felt as a shock the first impression of supreme authority withwhich he spoke. The man he had despised had grown into the greatconstructive statesman who would dispute with him every inch of ground inthe attainment of his sinister life purpose.

  His hatred grew more intense as he realized the prestige and power withwhich he was clothed by his mighty office.

  With an effort he restrained his anger, and assumed an argumentativetone.

  "Can't you see that your so-called States are now but conquered provinces?That North C
arolina and other waste territories of the United States areunfit to associate with civilized communities?"

  "We fought no war of conquest," quietly urged the President, "but one ofself-preservation as an indissoluble Union. No State ever got out of it,by the grace of God and the power of our arms. Now that we have won, andestablished for all time its unity, shall we stultify ourselves bydeclaring we were wrong? These States must be immediately restored totheir rights, or we shall betray the blood we have shed. There are no'conquered provinces' for us to spoil. A nation cannot make conquest ofits own territory."

  "But we are acting outside the Constitution," interrupted Stoneman.

  "Congress has no existence outside the Constitution," was the quickanswer.

  The old Commoner scowled, and his beetling brows hid for a moment hiseyes. His keen intellect was catching its first glimpse of theintellectual grandeur of the man with whom he was grappling. The facilitywith which he could see all sides of a question, and the vivid imaginationwhich lit his mental processes, were a revelation. We always underestimatethe men we despise.

  "Why not out with it?" cried Stoneman, suddenly changing his tack. "Youare determined to oppose negro suffrage?"

  "I have suggested to Governor Hahn of Louisiana to consider the policy ofadmitting the more intelligent and those who served in the war. It is onlya suggestion. The State alone has the power to confer the ballot."

  "But the truth is this little 'suggestion' of yours is only a bone thrownto radical dogs to satisfy our howlings for the moment! In your soul ofsouls you don't believe in the equality of man if the man under comparisonbe a negro?"

  "I believe that there is a physical difference between the white and blackraces which will forever forbid their living together on terms ofpolitical and social equality. If such be attempted, one must go to thewall."

  "Very well, pin the Southern white man to the wall. Our party and theNation will then be safe."

  "That is to say, destroy African slavery and establish white slavery undernegro masters! That would be progress with a vengeance."

  A grim smile twitched the old man's lips as he said:

  "Yes, your prim conservative snobs and male waiting-maids in Congress wentinto hysterics when I armed the negroes. Yet the heavens have notfallen."

  "True. Yet no more insane blunder could now be made than any furtherattempt to use these negro troops. There can be no such thing as restoringthis Union to its basis of fraternal peace with armed negroes, wearing theuniform of this Nation, tramping over the South, and rousing the basestpassions of the freedmen and their former masters. General Butler, theirold commander, is now making plans for their removal, at my request. Heexpects to dig the Panama Canal with these black troops."

  "Fine scheme that--on a par with your messages to Congress asking for thecolonization of the whole negro race!"

  "It will come to that ultimately," said the President firmly. "The negrohas cost us $5,000,000,000, the desolation of ten great States, and riversof blood. We can well afford a few million dollars more to effect apermanent settlement of the issue. This is the only policy on which Sewardand I have differed----"

  "Then Seward was not an utterly hopeless fool. I'm glad to hear somethingto his credit," growled the old Commoner.

  "I have urged the colonization of the negroes, and I shall continue untilit is accomplished. My emancipation proclamation was linked with thisplan. Thousands of them have lived in the North for a hundred years, yetnot one is the pastor of a white church, a judge, a governor, a mayor, ora college president. There is no room for two distinct races of white menin America, much less for two distinct races of whites and blacks. We canhave no inferior servile class, peon or peasant. We must assimilate orexpel. The American is a citizen king or nothing. I can conceive of nogreater calamity than the assimilation of the negro into our social andpolitical life as our equal. A mulatto citizenship would be too dear aprice to pay even for emancipation."

  "Words have no power to express my loathing for such twaddle!" criedStoneman, snapping his great jaws together and pursing his lips withcontempt.

  "If the negro were not here would we allow him to land?" the Presidentwent on, as if talking to himself. "The duty to exclude carries the rightto expel. Within twenty years we can peacefully colonize the negro in thetropics, and give him our language, literature, religion, and system ofgovernment under conditions in which he can rise to the full measure ofmanhood. This he can never do here. It was the fear of the black tragedybehind emancipation that led the South into the insanity of secession. Wecan never attain the ideal Union our fathers dreamed, with millions of analien, inferior race among us, whose assimilation is neither possible nordesirable. The Nation cannot now exist half white and half black, any morethan it could exist half slave and half free."

  "Yet 'God hath made of one blood all races,'" quoted the cynic with asneer.

  "Yes--but finish the sentence--'and fixed the bounds of their habitation.'God never meant that the negro should leave his habitat or the white maninvade his home. Our violation of this law is written in two centuries ofshame and blood. And the tragedy will not be closed until the black man isrestored to his home."

  "I marvel that the minions of slavery elected Jeff Davis their chief withso much better material at hand!"

  "His election was a tragic and superfluous blunder. I am the President ofthe United States, North and South," was the firm reply.

  "Particularly the South!" hissed Stoneman. "During all this hideous warthey have been your pets--these rebel savages who have been murdering oursons. You have been the ever-ready champion of traitors. And you now dareto bend this high office to their defence----"

  "My God, Stoneman, are you a man or a savage!" cried the President. "Isnot the North equally responsible for slavery? Has not the South lost all?Have not the Southern people paid the full penalty of all the crimes ofwar? Are our skirts free? Was Sherman's march a picnic? This war has beena giant conflict of principles to decide whether we are a bundle of pettysovereignties held by a rope of sand or a mighty nation of freemen. Butfor the loyalty of four border Southern States--but for Farragut andThomas and their two hundred thousand heroic Southern brethren who foughtfor the Union against their own flesh and blood, we should have lost. Youcannot indict a people----"

  "I do indict them!" muttered the old man.

  "Surely," went on the even, throbbing voice, "surely, the vastness of thiswar, its titanic battles, its heroism, its sublime earnestness, shouldsink into oblivion all low schemes of vengeance! Before the sheer grandeurof its history our children will walk with silent lips and uncoveredheads."

  "And forget the prison pen at Andersonville!"

  "Yes. We refused, as a policy of war, to exchange those prisoners,blockaded their ports, made medicine contraband, and brought the SouthernArmy itself to starvation. The prison records, when made at last forhistory, will show as many deaths on our side as on theirs."

  "The murderer on the gallows always wins more sympathy than his forgottenvictim," interrupted the cynic.

  "The sin of vengeance is an easy one under the subtle plea of justice,"said the sorrowful voice. "Have we not had enough bloodshed? Is not God'svengeance enough? When Sherman's army swept to the sea, before him lay theGarden of Eden, behind him stretched a desert! A hundred years cannot giveback to the wasted South her wealth, or two hundred years restore to herthe lost seed treasures of her young manhood----"

  "The imbecility of a policy of mercy in this crisis can only mean thereign of treason and violence," persisted the old man, ignoring thePresident's words.

  "I leave my policy before the judgment bar of time, content with itsverdict. In my place, radicalism would have driven the border States intothe Confederacy, every Southern man back to his kinsmen, and divided theNorth itself into civil conflict. I have sought to guide and controlpublic opinion into the ways on which depended our life. This rationalflexibility of policy you and your fellow radicals have been pleased tocall my vacillating imbecili
ty."

  "And what is your message for the South?"

  "Simply this: 'Abolish slavery, come back home, and behave yourself.' Leesurrendered to our offers of peace and amnesty. In my last message toCongress I told the Southern people they could have peace at any moment bysimply laying down their arms and submitting to National authority. Nowthat they have taken me at my word, shall I betray them by an ignoblerevenge? Vengeance cannot heal and purify: it can only brutalize anddestroy."

  Stoneman shuffled to his feet with impatience.

  "I see it is useless to argue with you. I'll not waste my breath. I giveyou an ultimatum. The South is conquered soil. I mean to blot it from themap. Rather than admit one traitor to the halls of Congress from theseso-called States I will shatter the Union itself into ten thousandfragments! I will not sit beside men whose clothes smell of the blood ofmy kindred. At least dry them before they come in. Four years ago, withyells and curses, these traitors left the halls of Congress to join thearmies of Catiline. Shall they return to rule?"

  "I repeat," said the President, "you cannot indict a people. Treason is aneasy word to speak. A traitor is one who fights and loses. Washington wasa traitor to George III. Treason won, and Washington is immortal. Treasonis a word that victors hurl at those who fail."

  "Listen to me," Stoneman interrupted with vehemence. "The life of ourparty demands that the negro be given the ballot and made the ruler of theSouth. This can be done only by the extermination of its landedaristocracy, that their mothers shall not breed another race of traitors.This is not vengeance. It is justice, it is patriotism, it is the highestwisdom and humanity. Nature, at times, blots out whole communities andraces that obstruct progress. Such is the political genius of these peoplethat, unless you make the negro the ruler, the South will yet reconquerthe North and undo the work of this war."

  "If the South in poverty and ruin can do this, we deserve to be ruled! TheNorth is rich and powerful--the South a land of wreck and tomb. I greetwith wonder, shame, and scorn such ignoble fear! The Nation cannot behealed until the South is healed. Let the gulf be closed in which we buryslavery, sectional animosity, and all strifes and hatreds. The good senseof our people will never consent to your scheme of insane vengeance."

  "The people have no sense. A new fool is born every second. They are ruledby impulse and passion."

  "I have trusted them before, and they have not failed me. The day I leftfor Gettysburg to dedicate the battlefield, you were so sure of my defeatin the approaching convention that you shouted across the street to afriend as I passed: 'Let the dead bury the dead!' It was a brilliant sallyof wit. I laughed at it myself. And yet the people unanimously called meagain to lead them to victory."

  "Yes, in the past," said Stoneman bitterly, "you have triumphed, but markmy word: from this hour your star grows dim. The slumbering fires ofpassion will be kindled. In the fight we join to-day I'll break your backand wring the neck of every dastard and time-server who fawns at yourfeet."

  The President broke into a laugh that only increased the old man's wrath.

  "I protest against the insult of your buffoonery!"

  "Excuse me, Stoneman; I have to laugh or die beneath the burdens I bear,surrounded by such supporters!"

  "Mark my word," growled the old leader, "from the moment you publish thatNorth Carolina proclamation, your name will be a by-word in Congress."

  "There are higher powers."

  "You will need them."

  "I'll have help," was the calm reply, as the dreaminess of the poet andmystic stole over the rugged face. "I would be a presumptuous fool,indeed, if I thought that for a day I could discharge the duties of thisgreat office without the aid of One who is wiser and stronger than allothers."

  "You'll need the help of Almighty God in the course you've mapped out!"

  "Some ships come into port that are not steered," went on the dreamyvoice. "Suppose Pickett had charged one hour earlier at Gettysburg?Suppose the _Monitor_ had arrived one hour later at Hampton Roads? I had adream last night that always presages great events. I saw a white shippassing swiftly under full sail. I have often seen her before. I havenever known her port of entry, or her destination, but I have always knownher Pilot!"

  The cynic's lips curled with scorn. He leaned heavily on his cane, andtook a shambling step toward the door.

  "You refuse to heed the wishes of Congress?"

  "If your words voice them, yes. Force your scheme of revenge on the South,and you sow the wind to reap the whirlwind."

  "Indeed! and from what secret cave will this whirlwind come?"

  "The despair of a mighty race of world-conquering men, even in defeat, isstill a force that statesmen reckon with."

  "I defy them," growled the old Commoner.

  Again the dreamy look returned to Lincoln's face, and he spoke as ifrepeating a message of the soul caught in the clouds in an hour oftransfiguration:

  "And I'll trust the honour of Lee and his people. The mystic chords ofmemory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to everyliving heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell thechorus of the Union, when touched again, as they surely will be, by thebetter angels of our nature."

  "You'll be lucky to live to hear that chorus."

  "To dream it is enough. If I fall by the hand of an assassin now, he willnot come from the South. I was safer in Richmond, this week, than I am inWashington, to-day."

  The cynic grunted and shuffled another step toward the door.

  The President came closer.

  "Look here, Stoneman; have you some deep personal motive in this vengeanceon the South? Come, now, I've never in my life known you to tell a lie."

  The answer was silence and a scowl.

  "Am I right?"

  "Yes and no. I hate the South because I hate the Satanic Institution ofSlavery with consuming fury. It has long ago rotted the heart out of theSouthern people. Humanity cannot live in its tainted air, and its childrenare doomed. If my personal wrongs have ordained me for a mighty task, nomatter; I am simply the chosen instrument of Justice!"

  Again the mystic light clothed the rugged face, calm and patient asDestiny, as the President slowly repeated:

  "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in theright, as God gives me to see the right, I shall strive to finish the workwe are in, and bind up the Nation's wounds."

  "I've given you fair warning," cried the old Commoner, trembling withrage, as he hobbled nearer the door. "From this hour your administrationis doomed."

  "Stoneman," said the kindly voice, "I can't tell you how your venomousphilanthropy sickens me. You have misunderstood and abused me at everystep during the past four years. I bear you no ill will. If I have saidanything to-day to hurt your feelings, forgive me. The earnestness withwhich you pressed the war was an invaluable service to me and to theNation. I'd rather work with you than fight you. But now that we have tofight, I'd as well tell you I'm not afraid of you. I'll suffer my rightarm to be severed from my body before I'll sign one measure of ignoblerevenge on a brave, fallen foe, and I'll keep up this fight until I win,die, or my country forsakes me."

  "I have always known you had a sneaking admiration for the South," camethe sullen sneer.

  "I love the South! It is a part of this Union. I love every foot of itssoil, every hill and valley, mountain, lake, and sea, and every man,woman, and child that breathes beneath its skies. I am an American."

  As the burning words leaped from the heart of the President the broadshoulders of his tall form lifted, and his massive head rose inunconscious heroic pose.

  "I marvel that you ever made war upon your loved ones!" cried the cynic.

  "We fought the South because we loved her and would not let her go. Nowthat she is crushed and lies bleeding at our feet--you shall not make waron the wounded, dying, and the dead!"

  Again the lion gleamed in the calm gray eyes.