North and South: The North and South Trilogy (74 page)

Again the two men looked at each other, their unblinking stares communicating a perfect understanding. Chatting like old friends, they continued downstairs.

L
ATE IN MARCH 1855,
Ashton’s marriage to James Huntoon was celebrated at Mont Royal. Orry thought it a dismal affair. Clarissa smiled at the bride but didn’t know who she was.

Ashton staged a nasty scene right after the ceremony. Up to that point, Huntoon had steadfastly refused to consider a wedding trip to New York, which was the only place Ashton wanted to go. She found no inconsistency in despising all Yankees while adoring their restaurants and theaters. To the very last minute, Huntoon insisted they were going to Charleston. Ashton threw a piece of cake at him, and pouted, and the sweating bridegroom quickly changed his mind, fearing that if he didn’t it would be weeks before he enjoyed his wife’s favors. By the time the carriage pulled away, Ashton was in a good mood again.

On top of all that, Cooper naturally outraged most of the male guests with his opinions. He repeatedly asked why neither abolitionists nor planters would give a moment’s consideration to the proposal Emerson had made to the New York Anti-Slavery Society in February. Emerson’s carefully worked-out scheme for gradual emancipation called for payments to slaveholders that would eventually total two hundred million dollars—small enough price for ending a national shame and preserving peace, he argued.

“Both sides jeered,” Cooper said. “Well, I can think of one explanation. The instant you do away with the reason for protest, the protesters are out of business.”

“Are you saying the fight for Southern rights is being made by cynical men?” a listener demanded:

“Some are sincere. But others want the abolitionists to continue to act in an extreme way. Only then can the South justify disruption of the Union, or a separate government—which of course is madness.”

They thought Cooper the mad one and a menace. Once he had been considered little more than a harmless nuisance, but that had changed. It had changed as a result of his continuing interest in Edmund Burke and Burke’s political wisdom. Cooper had taken that English statesman’s warning about apathy to heart, and he began to involve himself in the affairs of the Democratic party in Charleston.

He gained entrée to the party by a simple expedient. He donated several large sums for its work, so large that the leaders couldn’t afford to ignore him. Also, he was not the only man in the state expressing unpopular opinions about the way the South was going. Although there were not many who spoke out, there were enough for his presence at party meetings to be tolerated, if not welcomed.

He began to travel, to meet and confer with other moderate Democrats. In Virginia he was introduced to a man very much to his taste—a tall, blunt-jawed politician named Henry Wise who had ambitions to be governor. Wise was an outspoken defender of slavery, but he also believed that those who wanted to redress Southern grievances any way except within the framework of the Union were schemers—or idiots.

“Of course I understand why they do it,” Wise said. “They want to regain the power that has passed from the South to the North and West. Maybe they don’t even admit that to themselves. Hell, maybe they believe their own silly pronouncements. But they’re dangerous men, Cooper. They’re organized, active, vocal—and a threat to the entire South.”

Cooper smiled that wry, sad smile of his. “‘When bad men combine, the good must associate, else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice.’”

“Sage advice.”

“As it was when Burke first wrote it back in 1770. Trouble is, it’s been forgotten.”

“Not forgotten. The fire eaters would just prefer not to listen to it. The fire eaters on both sides.” Wise paused and studied the visitor. “I’ve heard about you, Cooper. You’ve been a pariah down in your home state for a long time. I’m glad you hied yourself back into the Democratic camp. We can use more like you—assuming that it isn’t already too late.”

Evidence said that it might be. Each side continued to defy the other.

Massachusetts passed a tough personal liberty law to protect all people, including blacks. The law was a reaction to the Burns affair the previous year. A fugitive slave, one Anthony Burns, had been detained at the Boston courthouse, where an abolitionist mob had attempted to rescue him and failed. Federal and state authorities had then cooperated to return Burns to his owner in the South.

In Kansas, meanwhile, a pro-slavery legislature had been elected with the help of so-called border ruffians from Missouri. They had streamed into the territory with rifles and pistols and had swung the outcome by means of intimidation and fraud. The fraudulently elected legislators had then passed laws establishing stiff penalties for anti-slavery agitation.

Month after month, both sides pushed bigger chips, and more of them, into the violent game. Missouri sent hordes of night riders over the border. The Northeast sent crates of weapons to arm the free-soil men. The crates were labeled as containing Bibles. This prompted Cooper to remark to some Democrats at a caucus in Columbia, “Even God has been recruited. In fact, each side is claiming He’s with them. Do you suppose He runs back and forth on alternate days? He must get mighty frazzled.”

No one was amused.

One afternoon at the C.S.C. dock, Cooper struck up a conversation with the dock foreman, a second-generation Charlestonian named Gerd Hochwalt. The foreman could be hard on malingerers, but personally he was a mild man with a generous disposition and strong religious beliefs. He had a wife, eleven children, and a house at the outskirts of town barely big enough to contain them.

Cooper and Hochwalt were soon discussing the recent anti-slavery convention at Big Springs, Kansas. Those in attendance had drawn up a plan for the territory to seek admission as a free state. They had also repudiated the laws enacted by the fraudulently chosen legislature sitting at Shawnee Mission. A particularly fiery
Mercury
editorial had condemned the action at Big Springs. Hochwalt praised the editorial.

“I read it,” Cooper said. “I found it nothing but the same old rhetoric.” As they talked, both men kept an eye on the lines of black stevedores filing aboard
Mont Royal
with bales marked for a Liverpool cotton factor. On this and every other trip the ship was loaded to capacity. And for each current customer, Cooper had three waiting. The packet line was showing a monthly profit of sixty to seventy percent. Even Orry had begun to take notice of the success.

Hochwalt yelled a reprimand to one of the stevedores who had stumbled and slowed up the loading. Then he wiped his perspiring neck with a blue kerchief and said, “The sentiments expressed by Mr. Rhett may be getting a bit shopworn, Mr. Main, but I believe in them.”

“How can you, Gerd? He was calling for a separate government again.”

“And why not, sir? For as long as I can remember, Northern people have scorned and insulted us. They think we’re dirt, every last one of us. A nation of brothel keepers! Isn’t that the term? Yet I have never owned a slave, or favored the institution, at any time in my life. The Northern abuse outrages me. If they don’t stop it, then by heaven we should go our own way.”

Emotionally, Cooper could understand Hochwalt’s feeling. Rationally, it was incomprehensible.

“You honestly don’t think men like Bob Rhett and James Huntoon and Mr. Yancey from Alabama are marching us along a path to a cliff?”

Hochwalt pondered. “No, sir. But even if they are, I’m inclined to go with them.”

“For God’s sake, man—why?”

The foreman peered at Cooper as if he were callow, not very bright.

“South Carolina is my home. Those men speak up for it. No one else does, Mr. Main.”

“I tell you, Orry, when Hochwalt said that, a chill came over me. My foreman is no wild-eyed revolutionary. He’s a solid, respectable Dutchman. If he and decent men like him are listening to the fire eaters, we’ve drifted farther than I ever suspected.”

Cooper made that statement a few nights later. Orry had ridden to Charleston to go over the books of the shipping company. He and Cooper had devoted most of the day to the work, and at the end Orry had declared himself pleased, even offering his brother a rare word of congratulations. Now the two of them were seated in comfortable chairs of white-painted wicker, looking out on the garden at Tradd Street. Little Judah, a chunky boy, was rolling a ball to the baby, Marie-Louise, who sat spraddle-legged on the thick Bermuda grass.

“Well,” Orry replied, “I try to pay as little attention as possible to that kind of thing. I’ve enough to think about.”

But you don’t find it very satisfying, Cooper said to himself as he noted the melancholy look in his brother’s eyes. Orry slouched in his chair, long legs stretched in front of him. He watched the children play in the gathering shadows. Was there envy in his expression?

In a moment Orry returned to the subject of the company. “I’m thankful the vessels are full every trip. The rice market in southern Europe is still depressed. Every month it falls a little more. You were wise to insist we diversify.”

Saying that, he sounded no different from the way he always did. Yet Cooper knew something was wrong. But he couldn’t identify the problem or the cause. He was about to ask Orry to do so when Judith came out of the house carrying a small parcel.

“A boy from the Colony Bookshop delivered this for you, Orry.”

“Oh—the book I asked for this morning. The shopkeeper was out of stock but expected a dozen copies by mid-afternoon.” He quickly unwrapped the parcel. When Judith saw the gold stamping, she clapped her hands in surprise.

“Leaves of Grass.
That’s the book of verse Reverend Entwhistle preached against last Sunday. I read all about his sermon in the paper. He said the book was the work of a man who had abandoned reason and order, and it was filthy to boot.”

Cooper said, “The fellow’s receiving just as much hellfire from clerics up North—what’s his name?” He turned the book in his brother’s hand. “Whitman. Since when have you found time or a liking for modern poetry?”

Under his beard, Orry turned pink. “I bought it as a gift.”

“For someone at Mont Royal?”

“No, an acquaintance.”

Cooper didn’t press, but if he had, he wondered whether he might have discovered the reason for Orry’s bleak mood.

“Supper is nearly ready,” Judith said. “Rachel’s been picking blue crabs since early morning.” Rachel was the buxom free black woman employed as a cook. “I invited Ashton and James to join us, but they had another obligation. We seldom see them. Close as they are, they’ve never been here for a meal, I regret to say. Each time I ask, they’re busy.”

The Huntoons had moved into a fine, airy house on East Battery, a few doors below Atlantic. From there it was a short walk along Water and Church to Tradd Street. Orry had ridden past Ashton’s house on horseback, but he was curiously reluctant to call on his sister.

“They have a flock of new friends,” Cooper explained. “Most of ’em are members of Bob Rhett’s crowd. I can’t pretend it feels good to be shunned by one’s own blood relation, but I expect it’s for the best that they don’t visit or dine with us. James and I are so far apart politically, we’d probably be arranging a duel by the end of the soup course.”

Looking more cheerful, he clapped his hands. “Children,” he called, “it’s almost time to eat. Come sit on your father’s lap.”

Unable to stop thinking of Madeline, Orry gazed at the book, rewrapped it, and carefully slid it into his pocket.

During supper, Cooper tried several times to introduce the subject of an expansion plan that was much on his mind lately. The plan was unconventional. It would require nerve and much more capital than the Mains could handily scrape together. He was thinking of George Hazard as a potential partner, but he never got to mention that. Orry repeatedly turned aside all discussion of business. In fact, he hardly said twenty words while at the table. That night, in bed with Judith, Cooper remarked that he hadn’t seen his brother in such a strange, sad mood since the months right after his return from Mexico.

Huntoon’s law practice was growing. So was his reputation. Ashton helped that growth. She gave parties, receptions, dinners; she cultivated local leaders and their ugly, overbearing wives, never letting any of them know how much she loathed them or how cynically she was using them.

Huntoon worked long hours to prepare a definitive speech on the developing national crisis. One evening in late summer, at the house on East Battery, he delivered a condensed version to an audience of about thirty guests. The guests included editor Rhett and the gentleman recognized as perhaps the foremost advocate of separation, William Yancey of Alabama. A mild, even innocuous-looking man, Yancey was a splendid platform orator. Some were calling him the Prince of Fire Eaters. Ashton dreamed of promoting him to king, so that her husband could assume the other title.

Holding his silver-rimmed spectacles in one hand as a prop, Huntoon did his best to demonstrate his worthiness. The guests listened attentively as he launched into his conclusion, which Ashton knew by heart.

“The Union is like a great fortress, ladies and gentlemen. Half of it has already passed into the hands of barbarian invaders. Loyalists still hold the other half, which they have defended without stint for generations. Now that part of the fortress is being threatened. And I for one will apply the torch to the magazine and blow the whole place to bits before I will surrender one more inch to the barbarians!”

Ashton led the applause, which was loud and enthusiastic. While house slaves offered punch from silver trays, Yancey approached Huntoon.

“That kind of extreme action may very well be necessary, James. And afterward a new fortress will have to be constructed on the rubble of the old. The task will require loyal workers—and able leaders.”

His expression said he considered Huntoon one of the latter. Or at least a candidate. Huntoon preened.

Ashton had little understanding of the issues the men debated endlessly. She honestly didn’t give a hang about Southern rights and wasn’t even sure what they were once you got beyond the fundamental God-given right to hold property in the form of niggers. What excited her about all the talk was the way it stirred others. In that reaction she sensed an opportunity to create and hold power. Her husband had convinced her there would someday be a separate Southern government. She meant to be one of its great ladies.