The Dominion's Dilemma: The United States of British America (55 page)

     Calhoun nodded and a thoughtful, faraway look came into in his eyes. “Do you agree with Scott’s assessment that---what is the prediction, 85%?---of the Southern officers in the present USBAA will resign their commissions if it comes to a fight?”

      Gaines grunted affirmatively: “I do. You see, Senator, Scott and I know most, if not all, of these officers personally. There’s no need tonight, but we could go through that list and I could give you a performance evaluation on each man…as well as a personal history.”

        Calhoun puckered his lips and nodded in satisfaction. “All right, General. Now, dinner is getting cold and I heard your dear wife announced sometime ago. We can resume our discussion later.

     “However, concerning these documents: I trust you’ve been housing them in a safe place? In a locked safe at your home? Good; return them to it tonight. For now, I want you to refine these organizational plans…but I don’t want anyone else to know about them. I assume Lieutenant Beaufort assisted you? And no one else knows?”

        The Senator smiled his dark smile. “Well, if we can keep the secret to one Senator, one General and one junior officer unless and until necessary, that will be excellent…

       “My thanks to you and the Lieutenant. If the South is left no alternative but force to demonstrate our unwillingness to accept this emancipation abomination, your planning will have given us a vital headstart. Either way, you and Lieutenant Beaufort will be rewarded for your outstanding initiative, I promise you.”

       The Senator leaned across the table and shook Gaines’ hand. The General grasped it firmly. “Senator, do you really believe it will come to that?”

        Calhoun frowned: “General, we are hurtling towards a collision I believed was a decade or more away. Only the exemption can now stop it from occurring in a matter of months, I begin to be afraid.”

         Once again, the dark smile broke out. “However, I have reason to believe the exemption may be looking more attractive to our visitor from London.  And may be the lifeline our Governor-General will use to pull the Dominion through this crisis.”

    His face turned darker and the frown returned: “If it is rejected, General, your next title will have the ‘Vice’ removed from the front of it…”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

USBA Capitol Building

Georgetown, D.C.

June 5, 1833:

       John C. Calhoun was wasting no more time. He intended to begin---and, thus, end---the debate by going immediately on the offensive.

      There would be no excuses offered for slavery as a “necessary evil,” or “vital to the economic prosperity of the South.”  Instead, he would build on the theme of his stump speech that had rallied support across the South: slavery is a “positive good,” based on the equally rock-solid pillars of white supremacy and paternalism. As he had told cheering crowds from Norfolk to Tuscaloosa: “all societies, since time immemorial, have been ruled by an elite class which directs and then enjoys the fruits of the labor of the less-privileged.” Today, he would expose the hypocrisy of the Northern---and English---ruling classes by comparing their attitude toward their own lower classes to the paternalism demonstrated by the planters of the South!

        Van Buren, in his role as President of the Senate, was in the chair as Calhoun rose to ask permission to speak. The Southern caucus had spread word yesterday that the fireworks would begin the moment Matty Van gaveled the Senate into session; the galleries were now crammed with Congressmen, diplomats and anyone else who could force entry:

      Sir John Burrell, representing the Duke, saw a black-haired, eye-patched man of wiry yet powerful build squeeze in between Count Renkowiitz and M. Jean-Claude. One look at Captain Bratton’s grim face provided confirmation: so this is Ignatieff/Karlhamanov! Bratton’s concentration on the Russian was broken when he glanced past to an upper row: that fabulous auburn-haired Lucille Latoure was moving to a seat, accompanied by Mrs. Scott. Frank Blair, after depositing Eliza in the gallery next to Sarah Polk, had now sighted General Scott, off to the left and back of the podium. Scott, who had made arrangements to hear the debate with Blair, now grunted in acknowledgement of the sudden appearance at his side of an elf-like, elegant old man with a mischievous grin. He had wondered how long till Aaron Burr would be back in town…

        After an awkward, self-depreciating attempt at humor concerning Van Buren’s assumption in the new 23
^rd
Congress of his own role in the previous one---“let us pray the quality of the oratory you will hear will be superior to that which helped drive me from your chair”---Calhoun moved immediately into the twin-pillar foundation of his speech.

     He then fired his first salvos at the North and England: Southern slaves, unlike Northern or European laboring classes, were not cast aside to die in poverty when they became too old or ill to be of use to the governing classes:

        “I may say with truth, that in few countries so much is left to the share of the laborer, and so little exacted from him, or where there is more kind attention paid him in sickness or infirmities of age. Compare his condition with the tenants of the poor houses in the more civilized portions of Europe (and the North)…look at the sick and the old and infirm slave, on one hand, in the midst of his family and friends, under the kind superintending care of his master and mistress, and compare it with the forlorn and wretched condition of the pauper in the poorhouse!”

       The Senate erupted in cheers, jeers and outright groans and gasps of disbelief at this righteous depiction of Southern benevolence.  Scott could see Webster on his feet, demanding to be heard as Van Buren hammered the gavel down repeatedly with a surprising strength.  “Poor Matty will have finger calluses and shoulder strain before this day is through,” Burr whispered in his ear. Elsewhere, Henry Clay could be seen shaking his head sadly, while Troup led the wild Southern applause.

       Perhaps, Calhoun was now saying, the peculiar institution might not be the negros’ permanent destiny.

     “If at some point, it will be deemed wise and practical to emancipate the slaves,” that point would come several generations from now when the blacks have been made “unfit for slavery and made fit for freedom by equally generous doses of education and discipline administered by the individual masters and mistresses of that time at the direction and close supervision of the respective state governments…not through arbitrary decisions made in either London or Georgetown!”

      This was not a new, or even Southern, position, he added.

     “During the great debates by the founding fathers at the Constitutional Convention, the following statement was recorded by the Convention’s Secretary: ‘The morality or wisdom of slavery are considerations that belong to the states themselves.’” 

      The dark smile flashed as he paused to await the abatement of the obligatory groans and catcalls. Then he pounced:

      “James Madison, Secretary of the Convention, attributed that assertion to one Oliver Ellsworth.” He paused again. “The delegate from Connecticut.”

       The South, the Senator now proclaimed, “comes here today with the expectation, yea, the assumption,” that the other sections join in demanding that Parliament and Lord Grey’s Government uphold the maxim enunciated by Ellsworth and abide by the articles of the Colonial Compact and the USBA Constitution concerning property rights: “a right no less sacred, no less inviolate that that of freedom of speech, assembly and the holding and bearing of firearms.”

      The previous gasps and groans could not match the uproar that followed Calhoun’s final remarks. Ignoring the evidence of his previous stump speeches, he categorically denied that the South “seeks an ‘exemption’ from Parliamentary legislation. We seek to have the Compact and the Constitution revalidated; to have confirmation from London, based on the united stance of the peoples of this Dominion, these concurrent majorities, that our rights will be respected; our property conceded as our own and our tranquility guaranteed!”

___________

The Residency

June 5, 1833, 6 p.m.:

     “Concurrent majorities!” Frank Blair shook his head disgustedly at the Governor-General. “That same damn theory Calhoun first floated back in ’31!  That no government can long operate without a general concurrence of its systems. And, if any one of the social or community systems of a government feel its survival threatened, it automatically will resist by all means possible; a war for survival is thus inevitable!”

       “Unless, of course, the other systems give in….” Jackson was brief and dry.

        The closest advisor nodded in agreement as he sipped the decanter of Tennessee whisky Jackson had handed him upon his immediate return from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

       “Calhoun has degenerated most dangerously,” Blair said, “into a sophistical rhetorician inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity.” 

         Jackson was now looking out the window toward the picturesque Potomac and the stately mansion on the hill.
Washington’s adopted son, Custis, lives there. I wonder, old George, what you would say---or do--if you were in my boots? You held slaves, plenty of them, and never manumitted a one…until you were comfortably dead and buried. Yet, you had as much, if not more, to do with putting this system of government together---and making it work---than anyone!

       He turned to Blair, who was now pacing the room and had apparently asked a question. “I’m sorry, Frank, my mind was elsewhere. You said…?”

        “I asked, Andrew, whether you think Calhoun could be so drunk on his own rhetoric that he actually believes the South can bully the rest of the Dominion---and London---with the mere threat of secession.

    “Surely, he doesn’t believe the Dominion---or the Empire---will just permit the South to secede, rather than risk a sectional insurrection? Or that the South can whip the Dominion’s forces, especially with the British military ready to step in as needed, if it should come to a fight? Or that the rest of the Dominion will join in resuming the unpleasantness of 1775 out of some sense of continental loyalty?”

        Jackson had poured himself a healthy refill and stood leaning against the window sill, Arlington House towering above him in the distance. He sipped and pondered for so long Blair was half-convinced he had no answer. A first time instance, if so!

     The G-G finally spoke: “No, Frank, John C. Calhoun is playing the highest-stakes poker game this town has ever seen. He’s flushing the other sections out; after today, they’ve no choice but to put their cards on the table. If he’s right and the West and the Middle States---New York, Pennsylvania---don’t see emancipation as something worth fighting for, then he’s won: Wellington will have to compromise…or risk reigniting that ‘unpleasantness!’

      “If the West and the damn Yankees up above us do come down in support of London’s interpretation of the Compact and our Constitution, then he’s demonstrated to the South he’s been right all this time and that it might be better off going its own way.”

       Jackson had been fingering his cane with his right hand while sipping from the decanter in his left. Now he put the drink on the sill and began to tap the cane thoughtfully against the carpet before looking up at Blair.

       “He knows that’s impossible---the South going its own way---without a fight, though. One even he isn’t fool enough to think it could win single-handedly. So that means he’s got an ace up his sleeve. Or two or three!”

      The tapping became more forceful and the forehead began to darken through the range of reds. Blair recognized the telltale signs and knew a volcanic explosion was shortly due.

     “By the Eternal! What does he know that I don’t? What ace-in-the-hole is he relying on? Why does he believe I’ll tilt toward his position when I haven’t yet made my own mind up? Even though I do like your idea of a defined, short-term exemption? And what makes him so certain that Wellington will throw in his cards?”

       The cane was now rapidly bouncing up-and-down on the carpet. “Frank, something’s happening here that we aren’t aware of; something that’s key to this whole game. And I can’t figure out what it is!  Damn it, how can I address Congress---and the people---until I do?”

___________

Monticello Tavern

June 5, 1833

7 pm:

Tousaint Numidia was, of course, too smart to think the New England Abolition Society would outright sanction the armed capture and holding of any white man, much less the world-famous Duke of Wellington.

The role he actually had in mind for the Society was that of a post-snatch intermediary, a negotiator of sorts between his band and the authorities. Intent on the particulars of Wellington’s capture and secreting away, he had developed only vague plans for notifying the Society, through Moses, that it was being called in as a go-between to whom the prisoner would be turned over after London’s acceptance of the terms Tousaint demanded and the Society would arrange.

The capture itself didn’t appear to be particularly difficult. Wellington, like all influential men in Georgetown’s power elite, moved around the city and surrounding countryside in a remarkably laisse-faire manner. Like Jackson, the Duke seemed to utilize bodyguards, in his case the Royal Marines, primarily on ceremonial occasions. The great majority of the time, he traveled by coach, with only a driver up front and a few Liaison aides possibly inside; or on horseback with one or two other Brits. Tousaint himself had seen Wellington emerge from The Residency and simply stroll over to the Liaison Office or elsewhere in the immediate vicinity.

“The key’s to grab him and be gone before anyone realizes it, much less can respond,” he told his band of followers on this night. Even Donfield, who had remained skeptical that emancipation was to be announced at all, had reconsidered after hearing the details of Wellington’s speech as it was discussed and debated throughout Georgetown. But the Spanish Consulate maintenance man still hadn’t committed to the capture.