Continental Monthly Volume 1 Issue 3 by Various

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THE CONTINENTAL MONTHLY:

DEVOTED TO

LITERATURE AND NATIONAL POLICY.

VOL. I.--MARCH, 1862.--No. III.

* * * * *

SOUTHERN AIDS TO THE NORTH.

Perhaps the most difficult question at present before the American
people is that so often and so insolently put by Southern journals, and
so ignorantly babbled in weak imitation of them by English newspapers,
asking what, after all, in case of a victory, or even of many victories,
can we do with the revolted provinces? The British press, prompt to put
the worst construction on every hope of the Union, prophesies endless
guerilla warfare,--a possibility which, like the blocking up of
Charleston harbor by means of the stone fleet, is, of course, something
which calls for the instant interference of all cotton-spinning
Christian nations. Even among our own countrymen it must be confessed
there has been no little indecision as to the end and the means of
securing the conquest of a country whose outlines are counted by
thousands instead of hundreds of miles, and whose whole extent, it is
too generally believed, forms a series of regions where dismal swamps,
bayous, lagoons, dense forests, and all manner of impenetrabilities, bid
defiance to any save the natives, and where the most deadly fevers are
ever being born in the jungles and wafted on the wings of every summer
morn over the whole plantation land. The truth is, that the simple facts
and figures relative to this country are not generally known. Let the
Northern people but once learn the truths existing in their favor, and
there will be an end to this misapprehension. There has been thus far no
hesitation or irresolution among the people in the conduct of the war.
'Conquer them first,' has been the glorious war-cry from millions of the
freest men on earth. But when we are driving a nail it is well to know
that it will be possible to eventually clench it. And when the country
shall fully understand the ease with which this Union nail may be
clenched, there will be, let us hope, a greatly revived spirit in all
now interested in forwarding the war.

It is evident enough that if all the millions of the South remain united
to the death in the cause of secession, little else than a guerilla
warfare of endless length is to be hoped for. The accounts of the
enthusiasm and harmony at present prevailing in Eastern Virginia, and in
other places controlled by the active secessionists, have struck terror
to the hearts of many. But, united though they be, they must be more
than mortal if they could resist the influences of a counter-revolution,
and of strong bodies of enemies in the heart of their country, aided by
a mighty foe without. 'Hercules was a strong man,' says the proverb,
'but he could not pay money when he had none;' and the South may be
strong, but she can hardly fail to be entirely crippled when certain
agencies shall be brought to bear against her. Let us examine them, and
find wherein her weakness consists.

The first is the easy possibility of a _counter-revolution_ among the
inhabitants of the mountain districts, who hold but few slaves, who have
preserved a devoted love for the Union, and who are, if not at positive
feud, at least on anything but social harmony with their aristocratic
neighbors of the lowlands and of the plantation. Unlike the 'mean
whites' who live among slaves and slave-holders, and are virtually more
degraded than the blacks, these mountaineers are men of strong character
and common-sense, combining the industrious disposition of the North
with the fierce pride of the South. And so numerous are they, and so
wide is the range of country which they inhabit, that it would seem
miraculous if with their aid, and that of other causes which will be
referred to, a counter-revolution could not be established, which would
sweep the slaveocracy from existence.

In a pamphlet entitled 'Alleghania,' by James W. Taylor, published at
Saint Paul, Minnesota, by James Davenport, the reader will find 'a
geographical and statistical memoir, exhibiting the strength of the
Union, and the weakness of slavery in the mountain districts of the
South,' which is well worth careful study at this crisis. Let the reader
take the map and trace on it the dark caterpillar-like lines of the
Alleghanies from Pennsylvania southward. Not until he reaches Northern
Alabama will he find its end. In these mountain districts which form
'the Switzerland of the South,' a population exists on whom slavery has
no hold, who are free and lovers of freedom, and who will undoubtedly
co-operate with the Union in reestablishing its power. This 'Alleghania'
embraces thirteen counties of North Carolina, three of South Carolina,
twenty of Georgia, fifteen of Alabama, and twenty-six of Tennessee.

According to Humboldt and other writers on climatology, an elevation of
two hundred and sixty-seven feet above the level of the sea is
equivalent in general influence upon vegetation to a degree of latitude
northward, at the level of the ocean. Therefore we are not surprised to
learn from Olmsted that 'Alleghania' does not differ greatly in climate
from Long Island, Southern New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. 'The usual
crops are the same, those of most consequence being corn, rye, oats and
grass. Fruit is a more precarious crop, from a greater liability to
severe frosts after the swelling of the buds in the spring. Snow has
fallen several inches in the month of April.'[A]

The Western Virginia portion of Alleghania, which in the
counter-secession programme of its inhabitants was to have formed the
State of 'Kanawha,' embraced in its total population of 284,796 only
10,820 slaves. Its area is 4,211 square miles larger than the entire
State of Maryland. With this we have 'Middle Virginia,' in the valley of
the Shenandoah, which extends east of the main Alleghany range to the
Blue Ridge. This region also is broadly distinguishable in respect to
slavery from the Atlantic counties. With 200,262 freemen according to
the census of 1850, it has only 44,742 slaves, and there is reason to
believe that this population has largely diminished in favor of freedom.
Yet again we have the mountain district of South-western Virginia, where
in its ten counties the proportion of freemen to slaves is nearly ten to
one, or 76,892 to 8,693. As regards internal resources, beautiful
scenery, and all that conduces to pleasant life and profitable labor,
this portion of Virginia far surpasses the eastern division, and will
eventually attract the great mass of immigration.

The reader is aware that Eastern Kentucky, embracing the counties along
the western base of the Cumberland Mountains, 'has nobly responded to
the cause of the Union.' 'They represent a population which from the
first outbreak have been on fire with loyal zeal, repudiating all
sympathy with this war of slavery against the Union.' The proportion of
slaves to freemen in these counties, according to the census of 1850, is
as follows:--

COUNTIES FREE SLAVE
Letcher, 2,440 62
Floyd, 5,503 149
Harlan, 4,108 123
Whitley, 7,222 201
Knox, 6,238 612
Perry, 2,972 117
Clay, 4,734 515
Breathitt, 3,603 170
Morgan, 7,305 187
Johnson, 3,843 30
Lawrence, 6,142 137
Carter, 5,000 257

In contrast to this healthy, temperate Eastern Kentucky, 'a portion of
the great central district of mountain slopes and valleys,' let the
reader turn to the secession hot-bed of the State. He will find it the
largest slaveholding district of Kentucky. It is worth noting that
secession is matured in the slave regions, for though it is popularly
identified with slavery, they are not wanting among its leaders--no, nor
among their traitorous and cowardly sympathizers here at the North--who
constantly assert that secession is simply a geographical necessity, and
slavery only a secondary cause--that the South will, in fact, eventually
emancipate, and that race and latitude are the great fundamental causes
of national difference, constituting us in fact 'two peoples.' How
completely false and puerile are all these assertions, appears from an
examination of the mountain region now under discussion.

Of all these sections of 'Alleghania,' none is of more importance to the
Federal Union than East Tennessee. Immensely rich in minerals, with a
healthy and agreeable climate and much rich soil, it is one of the
finest countries on earth, lying under the temperate zone, and developes
the most extraordinary physical perfection in the human form. Its
proportion of slaves to freemen is no greater than in the other mountain
regions of the South--its area is about equivalent to that of
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island united. In considering this
with the loyalty of its inhabitants, and in studying 'Cumberland Gap,'
the great natural highway of the Alleghany Range, the observer
appreciates with pleasure the remark of Secretary Chase, who, in a
recent interview with certain eastern capitalists, disclaimed on behalf
of the Government and of General M'Clellan any purpose to send the army
into winter quarters, remarking with much significance that 'a glance at
the map will perhaps astonish those who have never reflected, _how short
is the distance from East Tennessee to Port Royal Harbor, and may
suggest the possibility of cutting a great rebellion into two small
pieces_.'

In the mountain region of North Carolina we have 'the Piedmont of the
Alleghanies.' Its seventeen counties embrace a larger area (11,700
square miles) than the whole of Vermont. Its scenery is of extraordinary
beauty, its peaks are the highest east of the Rocky Mountains. There is
full ground for the belief that in North Carolina a majority of the
people are Union at heart. The following extract from 'Alleghania' will
be read with interest as illustrating the assertion:

In the Union camps of East Tennessee, there are numerous
volunteers from Watauga and other adjacent counties over the
border. At the only popular election suffered to be held upon the
question of Union and secession, the Union majority was as two to
one; and even after the storm of Sumter, the vote in the
convention of North Carolina on a proposition to submit the
ordinance of secession to a vote of the people, received
thirty-four yeas to seventy-three nays. I have confidence that
those thirty-four names, representing one-third of the State, were
given by delegates from the western counties,--the Alleghany
counties,--from the base and sides of the Blue Ridge,--from a land
of corn and cattle, not of cotton. Again, when the news of the
capture of Hatteras was announced in the legislature of North
Carolina, it is evident from the language of the Raleigh
newspapers that an irrepressible explosion of Union feeling--even
to an outburst of cheers, according to one statement--occurred.
Nor is such a state of feeling surprising, when we remember that
not even in Kentucky is the memory of Henry Clay more a fireside
treasure of the people. In this respect, the quiet, unobtrusive
'North' State was in striking contrast to its immediate
neighbors--South Carolina in one direction, and Atlantic Virginia
in the other. Politically, when the pennons of Clay and Calhoun
rode the gale, the vote and voice of North Carolina were ever
given for the great Kentucky leader. Let us accept these omens for
the winter campaign, which will open with the triumph of the Union
and the Constitution on the Cumberland heights of East Tennessee.

'In one-fifth of Georgia, over an area of 12,000 square miles, slavery
only exists by the usurpation of the cotton aristocracy of the lowland
districts of the State.' In all of them, slaves, though in a greater
proportion than in the rest of Alleghania, are very greatly in the
minority, as appears from the following table:--

COUNTIES FREE SLAVE
Madison, 3,763 1,933
Hart,*
Franklin, 9,076 2,382
Jackson, 6,808 2,941
Banks,*
Hall, 7,370 1,336
Habersham, 7,675 1,218
Rabun, 2,338 110
Towns,*
Union, 6,955 278
Lumpkin, 7,995 939
Dawson,*
Forsyth, 7,812 1,027
Milton,*
Cherokee, 11,630 1,157
Pickens,*
Gilmer, 8,236 200
Faunin*
Murphy,*
Whitefield,*
Gordon, 5,156 828
Cass, 10,271 3,008
Floyd, 5,202 2,999
Chattoga, 5,131 1,680
Walker, 11,408 1,664
Catoosa,*
Dade, 2,532 148

* Counties marked with an asterisk, organized after the census of 1850,
of which the foregoing are returns.

Last in the list we have North-east Alabama, in which we find the
following counties:--

COUNTIES FREE SLAVE
Cherokee, 12,170 1,691
DeKalb, 7,730 506
Marshall, 7,952 868
Jackson, 11,754 2,292
Morgan, 6,636 3,437
Madison, 11,937 14,329
Limestone, 8,399 8,063
Lawrence, 8,342 6,858

'It will be observed,' says Mr. Taylor,

That the three counties last named have a slave population, in the
case of Madison exceeding, and in Limestone and Lawrence nearly
equal to the number of free inhabitants. They would seem to be an
exception to our former generalization, and are only included
because there is other evidence that Athens, in Limestone County,
and Huntsville, in Morgan County, were to the last possible moment
the head-quarters of resistance to the Montgomery conspirators. It
was the Union vote of these highland counties, notwithstanding the
number of slaves in some of them, which would inevitably have been
rolled down in condemnation of an ordinance of secession. This was
well known by Yancey and his associates, and it was to avoid this
revelation of their weakness over a compact and populous area of
the State, which was in direct communication with East Tennessee,
that they refused the ordeal of the ballot upon the consummation
of their treason to the Union.

I estimate that the district which could readily be rallied in
support of a loyal organization of the government of Alabama, with
its capital at Huntsville, to be equal to the area of New Jersey,
or 8,320 square miles. With the occupation of the Alleghanies by
an army of the Union, and such a base of operations, civil and
military, in North Alabama, a counter-revolution in that State
would not be difficult of accomplishment.[B]

It will thus be seen, that, in the South itself, there exists a
tremendous groundwork of aid to the North, and of weakness to
secession. The love of this region for the Union, and its local hatred
for planterdom with its arrogance towards free labor, is no chimera; nor
do we make the wish the father to the thought when we assert that a
Union victory would light up a flame of counter-revolution which would
in time, with Northern aid, crush out the foul rebellion. And relying on
this fact, we grow confident and exultant. If Europe will only let us
alone--if England will refrain from stretching out a helping hand to
that slaveocracy for which she has suddenly developed such a strange and
unnatural love, we may yet be, at no distant day, great, powerful, and
far more united than ever.

But we have, in addition to all these districts of Alleghania, a vast
reserve in Texas--that Texas which is now more than half cultivated by
free labor, and which is amply capable of producing six times as much
cotton as is now raised in the entire South. An armed occupation of
Texas, a copious stream of emigration thither, to be encouraged by very
liberal grants to settlers, and a speedy completion of its railroads,
would be an offset to secession, well worth of itself all that the war
has cost. With Texas in our power, with Cumberland Gap firmly held, with
the negroes in South Carolina fairly disorganized from slavery, with
free Yankee colonies in the Palmetto State, with New Orleans taken--a
blockade without and complete financial disorder within, what more could
we desire as a basis to secure thorough reestablishment of power? Here
our superiority to the South in possessing not only a navy, but, what is
of far more importance, a vast merchant marine containing all the
elements necessary to form a navy of unparalleled power, appears in
clearest light, giving us cause for much congratulation. To effect all
this, _time_ is required. Let those who fret, look over the map of a
hemisphere--let them reflect on the condition to which Southern perfidy
and theft had reduced us ere the war begun, and then let them moderate
their cries. It will all be done; but the programme is a tremendous one,
and the future of the most glorious country on earth requires that it
shall be done thoroughly, and that no risks shall be taken.

But, beyond all the aid which is to be expected from a
counter-revolution in the South, to be drawn from the 'Alleghania'
region, there is one of vast importance, insisted upon in a series of
articles published during the past year in the New York _Knickerbocker
Magazine_, and which may be appropriately reconsidered in this
connection. Should the government of the United States, by one or more
victories, obtain even a temporary sway over the South, it will only
rest with itself to produce a powerful counter-revolution even in those
districts which are blackest with slavery. _Let it, when the time shall
seem fit_,--and we urge no undue haste, and no premature meddling with
the present plans or programme of those in power,--_simply proclaim
Emancipation_, offering to pay all loyal men for their slaves according
to a certain rate. The proportion of Union men who will then start into
life, even in South Carolina, will be, doubtless, enormous. It may be
objected that many of these will merely profess Union sentiments for the
time being. But, on the other hand, those noted rebels who can have no
hope of selling their slaves, save indeed to the Union professors, will
have small love for the latter, and two parties can not fail to show
themselves at once. Those who hope to see the slave principle ultimately
triumphant will oppose selling the chattels; those who wish to 'realize'
at once on them, owing to temporary embarrassments, will urge it; and
dissension of the most formidable character will be at once
organized,--precisely such dissension as the Southern press has long
hoped to see between the dough-faces and patriots of the North, or
between its labor and capital, or in any other disastrous dissension.

Be it borne in mind that the price of slaves is at present greatly
depressed in the South. Those who would sell would speedily acquire
more, in the hope of a profit by selling to government. Those too who
would willingly act as brokers between those who wished to sell, but who
would not dare to openly do so, would be very numerous. Between these
and the leaders of the ultra pro-slavery party there would be bitter
feud. Let a counter-revolutionary party once succeed in holding its own
in the South, and the days of secession would speedily be numbered. In a
land where all rushes so rapidly to extremes, we should soon see the war
carried on for us with a bitterness fully equal to that now manifested
towards the North.

It is with no pleasant feelings that we thus commend counter-revolution.
It is the worst of war that it drives us to such considerations. But
what is to be done when our existence as a nation is at stake, and when
we are opposed by a remorseless foe which would gladly ruin us
irretrievably? There is no halting half-way. It was these endless
scruples which interfered with the prevention of the war under the
imbecile or traitorous Buchanan; it is lingering scruple and timidity
which still inspires in thousands of cowardly hearts a dislike to face
the grim danger and prevent it.

* * * * *

WESTWARD!

How the pink-hued morning clouds
Go sailing into the west!
And the pearl-white breath of noon,
Or the mists round the silver moon,
In silent, sheeny crowds
Go sailing into the west!

The glowing, fire-eyed sun
In glory dies in the west;
And the bird with dreamy crest,
And soft, sun-loving breast,
When throbbing day is done,
Floats slowly into the west.

Oh, everything lovely and fair
Is floating into the west.
'Tis an unknown land, where our hopes must go,
And all things beautiful, fluttering slow;
Our joys all wait for us there,--
Far out in the dim blue west.

* * * * *

IS COTTON OUR KING?

BY A COTTON-SPINNER.

No falsehood has been so persistently adhered to by the Southern
planters and their advocates, and so successfully forced upon the
credulity of the North, as the statement that white men can not perform
field labor in the cotton States, coupled with the equally false
assertion that the emancipated negro lapses into barbarism, and ceases
to be an industrious laborer.

It is one of the chief points of weakness in a bad cause, that, although
a _single_ advocate may succeed in rendering it plausible, _many_ are
certain to present utterly irreconcilable arguments. An impartial man,
examining De Bow's _Review_ for a series of years, would arrive at
conclusions in regard to the economy of slave labor, and the necessity
of colored laborers in the Southern States, the very reverse of what the
writers have intended to enforce.

It is constantly asserted that white men can not labor in the tropics,
which we may freely admit; but the inference that the climate of the
Southern States is tropical we have the best authority for denying:
firstly, from the testimony of all Southern writers when describing
their own section of country, and _not_ arguing upon the slavery
question; and, secondly, from Humboldt's isothermal lines, by which we
find that the temperature of the cotton States is the same as that of
Portugal, the south of Spain, Italy, and Australia. Do we find
Australian emigrants writing home to their friends not to come out
because they will not be able to work? We know they do not; and yet the
mean annual temperature of Australia is 70 deg.--greater by five to six
degrees than that of Texas; and, from the best accounts we can get, the
extreme of heat is very much greater.

Examine De Bow's analysis of the census of 1850, and we find him
compelled to admit that one-ninth of the force then cultivating cotton
were white men. If one-ninth were white men in 1850, when the price of
cotton was much less and the crop much smaller than of late years, how
many are there now?

One of the most reliable witnesses to the cultivation of cotton by free
labor is a Quaker gentleman in Philadelphia, who conducts a cotton
factory supplied entirely with free-grown cotton, the goods being sold
to the Quakers, who will not use the product of slave labor of any kind.
This gentleman writes:--

I learned by correspondence with several intelligent Germans in
Texas, that their experiment of raising cotton by their own labor,
without the help of slaves, was a complete success. One planter
offered to supply me at once with one hundred and forty bales
raised in this way. The ground taken by thee that cotton can be
raised by white men, as well as by colored men, is entirely
correct. A very large portion is every year so raised. I have had
particular information of its being thus raised in Texas,
Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and North
Carolina. In some neighborhoods thousands of bales are thus raised
within the limits of two or three adjacent counties.

It may be urged that this is upon uplands almost exclusively, and that
upon bottom lands it is not possible, on account of their being
unhealthy.

Two statements will be made to disprove this latter assertion, and we
will then admit it to be true, and prove it to be of no consequence.

The cotton planters, deserting the rolling land, are fast pouring
in upon the 'swamp.' Indeed, the impression of the sickliness of
the South generally has been rapidly losing ground (i.e. among the
whites of the South), and that blessing, health, is now sought
with as much confidence on the swamp lands of the Yazoo and the
Mississippi, as among the hills and plains of Carolina and
Virginia.--_De Bow's Resources of the South and West_.

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