February 6, 1861. |
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“Palmetto State” --the perfect representative of the disloyal politicians of South Carolina--thought himself peculiarly fitted for a secretary of war, and evinced special sensitiveness because his claims to distinction were overlooked.
Of this he wrote complaining letters to his son, the editor of the Charleston Mercury. Some of these are before me, and are rich revelations of disappointed ambition.1 Memminger aspired to be secretary of the treasury, and James Chesnut, Jr., who had “patriotically” made a sacrifice of his seat in the National Senate,2 was spoken of as a fitting head of the new nation.
The policy advocated by Rhett and his class, and the Mercury, their organ, had been that of violence from the beginning.
From the hour when Anderson entered Sumter,3 they had counseled its seizure.
In the Convention at Montgomery, Rhett urged that policy with vehemence, and tried to infuse his own spirit of violence into that assembly.
He was met by calm and steady opposition, under which he chafed; and privately he denounced his associates there as cowards and imbeciles.4 Men like Stephens, and Hill, and Brooke, and Perkins, controlled the fiery spirits in that Convention, and it soon assumed a dignity suited to the gravity of the occasion.
The sessions of the Montgomery Convention were generally held in secret.5 That body might properly be called a conclave — a conclave of conspirators.
On the second day of the session, Mr. Memminger, of South Carolina, offered a series of three resolutions, declaring that it was expedient forthwith to form a confederacy of “seceded States,” and that a committee be appointed to report a plan for a provisional government, on the basis of the Constitution of the United States; that the committee consist of thirteen members; and that all propositions in reference to a provisional government be referred to that committee.
Alexander H. Stephens then moved that the word “Congress” be used instead of “Convention,” when applied to the body then in session, which was agreed to.
On the following day,
commissioners from North Carolina ap. peared, and were invited to seats in the Convention.6 They came only as commissioners from a State yet “a part of the Federal Union,” and had no right to appear as delegates.
Their object was, according to instructions,7 to effect an “honorable and amicable adjustment of all the ”
1 “That they have not put me forward for office,” said Rhett, “is true. I have two enemies in the [South Carolina] delegation. One friend, who, I believe, wants no office himself, and will probably act on the same principle for his friend — and the rest, personally, are indifferent to me, whilst some of them are not indifferent to themselves. There is no little jealousy of me, by a part of them, and they never will agree to recommend me to any position whatever under the Confederacy. I expect nothing, therefore, from the delegation lifting me to position. . . . Good-by, my dear son. I have never been wise in pushing myself forward to office or power, and, I suppose, never will be. I cannot change. Prepare for disappointment.” --Autograph Letter, February 11, 1861.
2 See page 51.
3 See page 129.
4 “ If the people of Charleston,” he said, “should burn the whole crew in effigy, I should not be surprised. No reasoning on earth can satisfy the people of the South, that within two months a whole State could not take a fort defended by but seventy men. The thing is absurd. We must be disgraced.” --Autograph Letter, February 11, 1861.
The Alabamians seem to have been special objects of Rhett's dislike. “Alabama,” he said, “has the meanest delegation in this body. There is not a statesman amongst them; and they are always ready for all the hasty projects of fear. Our policy has but little chance in this body.” --Autograph Letter, February 18, 1861.5 On one or two occasions. propositions were made to employ two stenographers to take down the debates. These propositions were voted down, and no reporters were allowed. They had open as well as secret sessions. Their open sessions they called the “Congress,” and their secret sessions they called the “Convention.”
6 The Commissioners were David L. Swain, M. W. Ransom, and John L. Bridges.
7 See page 198.
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