In those days Charleston had been the South’s center of American nationalism, its leaders cajoling the other colonies to unite in the common effort to drive out the British. After the Revolution it had become the South’s Federalist Party bastion, joining with Northern Federalists in calling upon the national government to put down incipient efforts by the states to defy the national laws they disagreed with. Charleston had even been a center of Southern abolitionist sentiment in those days — none other than John Fremont had been raised here!
Rhett deplored those big city commercial interests that promoted nationalism and championed the employment of free labor in industrial concerns. He had dedicated his life to countering these “Anti-Southern” nationalist and abolitionist views. Those views had been in eclipse for the last forty years as plantation slavery had spread across the south. Now he and Yancey were watching them take root again here, the result of mobilizing the Confederate Union for war production as directed by the national government.
Out in the harbor Rhett and Yancey observed the keels of the ocean-going warships Atlantic and Poseidon being laid down. Nearly five thousand laborers, mostly Negroes, swarmed around the dockyards. The Negroes had been getting “uppity” lately as most of them were slaves whose owners hired them out to the Navy Department for wages. To give them incentive to work productively their owners split their wages with them, putting spending money in the Negroes’ pocket for the first time in their lives.
“This hiring of Negroes for wages is going to lead to serious trouble,” Yancey complained. “Niggers get money in their pockets and they think they’re as good as Whites. Just this morning a buck Nigger shoved me as I was leaving the train station. Didn’t say a word, just pushed me out of his way and kept on going. Had alcohol on his breath too.” Yancey shook his head in disgust. “How are we ever going to get those Niggers back to doing their plantation work once they’ve had a taste of city living and city money?”
“I’m afraid they’ve been hearing of Alex Stephens’ proposal for the National Slave Code,” added Rhett. “Now that I’ve considered his ideas, I do have to confess that I think that some of his reforms are needed — if for no reason than to quiet down the antislavery agitation against us from the rest of the world. But it’s not a good idea to implement them all at once, and especially not when we just started paying our Negroes for their labor. Let’s take things one at a time. Give somebody too much all at once and you’re going to have problems controlling them. Like you said, it won’t do us a doggone bit of good to whip the Abolitionists in Boston if we lose control over our Negroes in our own homes!”
Yancey glanced from the harbor to the street below. The National Army had opened a recruiting office cattycorner across the street. The soldiers stationed there were uniformed in the solid blue national colors, not the grey of the South Carolina militia. Yancey pointed to the men.
“I didn’t like seeing the National Army in Charleston the last time I was here,” he complained, “and I’m even more suspicious of it now. Why can’t Davis fight the war with state militiamen, the way the Constitution requires, to put down a rebellion? You know why they’re raising a national army. It’s because a national army isn’t loyal to the states!”
“I wouldn’t put it past Davis to use that national army against us if we try to exercise our right of State Sovereignty,” Rhett concurred. “Old Hickory Jackson didn’t hesitate to threaten us with invasion during the Nullification Crisis. Our Southern leaders go to Washington and they start thinking like Yankees. We in the South who honored them with national office become their enemies!”
Yancey reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of Confederate Union notes. “Another thing I don’t like is this damn paper currency. It makes the national government financially independent of the states. They don’t have to ask us to send them our tax receipts any more. They just print the paper notes in whatever amounts they need to fund the war. And the paper is not being accepted by the merchants at par, by the way. When I left Alabama they were selling two pounds of coffee for a dollar in specie and a pound and a half for a dollar Confederate Union note.”
“That’s going to get them in trouble,” replied Rhett wagging his finger.
“But it’s the government that’s at fault,” answered Yancey, banging the table for emphasis. “The Constitution only permits the national government to coin money in gold and silver specie. So they violate the Constitution by issuing paper currency and then threaten to prosecute people who refuse to accept it at par with gold? Printing paper currency and then forcing the people to accept it as legal tender at par with gold is a license for the government to steal everything the people own. If that’s not the definition of tyranny then I don’t know what is.”
“We’re getting to be a country without a Constitution, aren’t we?” asked Rhett rhetorically. “A government that doesn’t respect the rights of the states or the people. The Constitution has become a shillyshally thing of milk and water, just like old Tom Jefferson said it would after the Yankees got through doctoring it.”
“That’s why we need to let the Yankees go,” implored Yancey. “Even the Border State men aren’t reliable on states rights and slavery as they used to be. Even our truest Southern Rights men are turning against us,” he exclaimed, raising his voice to almost a shout. “And that includes President Jefferson Finis Davis.”
“He’s just as slick as Douglas ever was in his prime,” echoed Rhett. “When they stuck ‘Confederate’ in front of ‘Union’ they thought they’d patched up the differences between the North and South with mere words.”
“Yes,” said, Yancey, “‘Confederate Union’ is just another name for the ‘The Yankeefied States of America.’ They’re aiming to consolidate a unitary republic governed from Washington, just like the Yankees always wanted. A unitary republic where the majority can trample on the states and extinguish our domestic institutions. And Davis is their fool.”
“You’ve touched on the root of the problem,” Rhett answered, turning away from the window and sitting back down on his sofa next to a cluttered pile of old newspapers. “Davis gets his advice from that Yankeefied group of McClellan, Pendleton, and Stanton. He parrots whatever they tell him and the Northern and Border State men in Congress rubber stamp it.”
“We’ve got to get out from under that gang,” thundered Yancey, his excitement allowing him to ignore another spasm of pain in his kidneys. “That means getting out from under the Republican Abolitionists and the Northern Democrats, which frankly, Davis has made himself a part of.”
“Then you’re calling for a Secession Convention?” surmised Rhett. “A convention to remove the Deep South from the Confederate Union?”
“We’ll have to call it a Constitutional Convention until we can get enough Southern Rights men behind us again to make a clean break with the Davis Government,” Yancey explained. “On second thought I suppose we wouldn’t even have to remove ourselves from the Confederate Union if we can amend the Constitution to make it conform to our principles. I don’t know…”
Yancey’s voice became wistful.
“Bob, I just want the South to live in peace under a government of our own — a government of the South, by the South, and for the South. As long as we can have that, then let the Free States go on about their business without us. Let the Border States join them if they favor the Yankees more than us. I just want a Southern Republic. If the Border States are with us on that, then let them join with us in a new party, a true Southern Rights Party that will wrest control of the government away from the Davis faction. If we can’t get any help from them, then we’ll have to secede and go our own way.”