Friday, April 8, 2011

April 8th.—How it does rain! Last night there were torrents of water in the streets literally a foot deep. It still runs in muddy whirling streams through the channels, and the rain is falling incessantly from a dull leaden sky. The air is warm and clammy. There are all kind of rumors abroad, and the barbers’ shops shook with “shaves” this morning. Sumter, of course, was the main topic. Some reported that the President had promised the Southern Commissioners, through their friend Mr. Campbell, Judge of the Supreme Court, not to use force in respect to Pickens or Sumter. I wrote to Mr. Seward, to ask him if he could enable me to make any definite statement on these important matters. The Southerners are alarmed at the accounts they have received of great activity and preparations in the Brooklyn and Boston navy yards, and declare that “treachery” is meant. I find myself quite incapable of comprehending their position. How can the United States Government be guilty of “treachery” towards subjects of States which are preparing to assert their independence, unless that Government has been guilty of falsehood or admitted the justice of the decision to which the States had arrived?

As soon as I had finished my letters, I drove over to the Smithsonian Institute, and was most kindly received by Professor Henry, who took me through the library and museum, and introduced me to Professor Baird, who is great in natural history, and more particularly in ornithology. I promised the professors some skins of Himalayan pheasants, as an addition to the collection. In the library we were presented to two very fine and lively rock snakes, or pythons, I believe, some six feet long or more, which moved about with much grace and agility, putting out their forked. tongues and hissing sharply when seized by the hand or menaced with a stick. I was told that some persons doubted if serpents hissed; I can answer for it that rock snakes do most audibly. They are not venomous, but their teeth are sharp and needle like. The eye is bright and glistening; the red forked tongue, when protruded, has a rapid vibratory motion, as if it were moved by the muscles which produce the quivering hissing noise. I was much interested by Professor Henry’s remarks on the large map of the continent of North America in his study: he pointed out the climatic conditions which determined the use, profits, and necessity of slave labor, and argued that the vast increase of population anticipated in the valley of the Mississippi, and the prophecies of imperial greatness attached to it, were fallacious. He seems to be of opinion that most of the good land of America is already cultivated, and that the crops which it produces tend to exhaust it, so as to compel the cultivators eventually to let it go fallow or to use manure. The fact is, that the influence of the great mountain-chain in the west, which intercepts all the rain on the Pacific side, causes an immense extent of country between the eastern slope of the chain and the Mississippi, as well as the district west of Minnesota, to be perfectly dry and uninhabitable; and, as far as we know, it is as worthless as a moor, except for the pasturage of wild cattle and the like.

On returning to my hotel, I found a note from Mr. Seward, asking me to visit him at nine o’clock. On going to his house, I was shown to the drawing-room, and found there only the Secretary of State, his son, and Mrs. Seward. I made a parti carré for a friendly rubber of whist, and Mr. Seward, who was my partner, talked as he played, so that the score of the game was not favorable. But his talk was very interesting. “All the preparations of which you hear mean this only. The Government, finding the property of the State and Federal forts neglected and left without protection, are determined to take steps to relieve them from that neglect, and to protect them. But we are determined in doing so to make no aggression. The President’s inaugural clearly shadows out our policy. We will not go beyond it— we have no intention of doing so—nor will we withdraw from it.” After a time Mr. Seward put down his cards, and told his son to go for a portfolio which he would find in a drawer of his table. Mrs. Seward lighted the drop light of the gas, and on her husband’s return with the paper left the room. The Secretary then lit his cigar, gave one to me, and proceeded to read slowly and with marked emphasis, a very long, strong, and able dispatch, which he told me was to be read by Mr. Adams, the American Minister in London, to Lord John Russell. It struck me that the tone of the paper was hostile, that there was an undercurrent of menace through it, and that it contained insinuations that Great Britain would interfere to split up the Republic, if she could, and was pleased at the prospect of the dangers which threatened it.

At all the stronger passages Mr. Seward raised his voice, and made a pause at their conclusion as if to challenge remark or approval. At length I could not help saying, that the despatch would, no doubt, have an excellent effect when it came to light in Congress, and that the Americans would think highly of the writer; but I ventured to express an opinion that it would not be quite so acceptable to the Government and people of Great Britain. This Mr. Seward, as an American statesman, had a right to make but a secondary consideration. By affecting to regard Secession as a mere political heresy which can be easily confuted, and by forbidding foreign countries alluding to it, Mr. Seward thinks he can establish the supremacy of his own Government, and at the same time gratify the vanity of the people. Even war with us may not be out of the list of those means which would be available for re-fusing the broken union into a mass once more. However, the Secretary is quite confident in what he calls “reaction.” “When the Southern States,” he says, “see that we mean them no wrong—that we intend no violence to persons, rights, or things—that the Federal Government seeks only to fulfil obligations imposed on it in respect to the national property, they will see their mistake, and one after another they will come back into the union.” Mr. Seward anticipates this process will at once begin, and that Secession will all be done and over in three months—at least, so he says. It was after midnight ere our conversation was over, much of which of course I cannot mention in these pages.