Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II, Part 58

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association
Number of Pages: 1032

USA > Mississippi > Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II > Part 58

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causeway. Successful in this bloody assault, he ordered his col- umn against the Belen gate of the Mexican capital, and was among the first to reach the guns of the enemy's battery. Next morning he led his brigade to the grand plaza, and saluted the American flag on the dome of the capitol at 7 a. m. Scott, upon joining him, immediately gave him command of the city as civil and military governor. After restoring order, he applied for command of a full division, and not being gratified, obtained orders to report at Washington. He was given a grand reception at New Orleans and Natchez. The toast of Felix Huston was: "General Quitman : Second to none; six hours before any other chieftian, he fought his way into the heart of Monterey; eight hours before any other leader, he stormed the Garita and entered the city of Mexico; the first to plant the stars and stripes over the Halls of the Monte- zumas !"

On reaching Washington he presented plans for the permanent occupation of Mexico, and when the President offered him any po- sition to which his rank entitled him, asked for command of Gen. Taylor's district. This was promised but the arrival of the treaty of peace ended his hope of further military service. He was honorably discharged July 20, 1848.

He received a considerable support in the Democratic convention at Baltimore in 1848 for nomination to the vice presidency, and in the same year he was one of the presidential electors of his State.

In 1849 he was nominated by spontaneous meetings and after- ward by the State convention as Democratic candidate for gover- nor, though some of his best friends were averse to it. He was elected by a majority of about 10,000. (See his administration.) When he resigned and submitted to service of the writ from the United States court he was cheered by letters from all over the South. On reaching New Orleans he was serenaded and much lionized. He gave bond and awaited the trial of Gen. Henderson, which resulted in the failure of the jury to agree. Thereupon the indictment was dismissed in March, 1851. His relations to the Lopez movement may be indicated by the following extract from a letter to him from Gen. Henderson, after the trial: "With un- abated zeal, I present the project to your consideration for further pecuniary assistance, if you can devise the means to render it that assistance." He was also, apparently, expecting, while governor, to take command of the army of liberation as soon as the political issue at home was settled.

The collapse of his effort to lead Mississippi in rejecting the Compromise of 1850 of his gubernatorial campaign was a severe blow. So decided was the opposition that he abandoned his can- didacy in the midst of the campaign. (See Guion Adm.) Upon the meeting of the constitutional convention (q. v.) that he had called, it rebuked him in the most emphatic terms. Naturally, for a time he was out of politics, saying that nothing in his life had so mortified him as the backing-out of the Democratic leaders. "By sternly standing by our principles, a time may come for us to

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strike with effect. We may succeed in securing an equality in the Union, or our independence out of it, or at least fall gloriously." He continued to take a sectional view of the Union. He refused to take any part in the campaign of 1852, but wrote a letter in favor of Pierce, that was widely circulated. The Alabama South- ern Rights party nominated as a national ticket, Troup and Quit- man.

In 1853 he entered into a written agreement with the Cuban junta to accept command of the Cuban revolution with the powers of a dictator. The junta also voluntarily promised him one million dollars in case of success. He went to New Orleans after that and was actively engaged in organizing an invasion. The move- ment for a time promised success. Soulé, Buchanan and Madison, diplomatic representatives of the United States, issued the Ostend Manifesto, October 18, 1854, arguing that Spain should cede the island to the United States, because there was danger of a revolu- tion establishing an independent black government in Cuba, which would be a menace to the safety of slavery in the South. But, Marcy, the secretary of state, refused to pursue this policy, which would have led to intervention, as in 1898. In June, 1854, Quitman and others were summoned before the grand jury of the United States court at New Orleans, and he refused to testify. He was re- quired to show cause why he should not give bond to observe the laws of the United States regarding neutrality, and after a hearing was ordered under arrest, when he gave bond. In April, 1855, he resigned his commission from the junta, on account of disagree- ments.

In 1855, he was elected to congress from the Fifth district. Two years later he was reelected. When he took his seat he was made chairman of the committee on military affairs, a post he held until the termination of his public service. In April, 1856, he made a speech for the repeal of the neutrality laws, which was widely circulated. In this speech he plainly stated that he meant aid to the expedition of William Walker, then in Nicaragua, in order that that region might be added to the United States. He continued in the same general policy he had followed for years, looking toward separation of the South. In congress he carried his defense of slavery to the degree of denying the power of congress to prohibit the slave trade. He expected to be nominated for vice president at the Cincinnati convention of 1856, and did receive the highest vote on the first ballot, but was put aside for the nomination of Buchanan and Breckinridge. In 1857-58 he and Bonham of South Carolina stood out alone against the Kansas compromise bill; de- siring the direct issue to be met.

His last session of congress was that bitter one that culminated in the encounter between Grow of Pennsylvania and Keitt of South Carolina. Reuben Davis recorded in his Recollections that to his query as a new member, "Have you any definite policy," Quitman replied, "We have, and its aim and end is disunion." Quitman, with a martial spirit, hailed the Albert Sidney Johnston

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expedition against Utah as a forerunner of war, for the indepen- dence of the South.

His health became greatly impaired during that winter. With others he had suffered the mysterious sickness that followed the National Hotel banquet to President Buchanan, in the spring of 1857.

In May, 1858, he addressed the Palmetto regiment of the Mexi- can war at Columbia, S. C., and was received with great enthusi- asm. After his return to Washington he rapidly failed, and almost continually slept. Friends tenderly escorted him to Natchez, where he died at 5:30 p. m., July 17, 1858, aged fifty-nine years. The legislature and the bar of the State, and congress of the United States, and the Masonic order at large, paid every honor to his memory. His biographer, Mr. Claiborne, denies that he made Mr. Calhoun his model ; declares that Calhoun was inconsistent and never fully trusted, lacking the heroic elements that Quitman possessed. "He had just lived long enough to have his principles fairly understood, and even those who differed with him confided in his unquailing courage and firmness. He was personally, the most popular man in America at the period of his death; and for six years previous to his death, could the machinery of parties have been dispensed with, the popularity he brought from Mexico, and his grand ideas of American progress, would have carried him to the head of affairs." Gen. Foote wrote: "He was truthful, hon- est, brave, of a slow and plodding intellect, but, in regard to ordi- nary matters, sound and practical in his views. He was over ambitious, fond of taking the lead in all things, somewhat given to selfishness, and was altogether the dullest and most prosy speaker I have ever known who could speak at all." (Remin- iscences, 356.) "He died too soon to take part in the great strug- gle on which his heart was set," wrote Reuben Davis. "A more ambitious man never lived. He desired office for its power and distinction. He was greedy of military fame. His nature was essentially military, and he was fond of the pomp and clash of arms. His courage amounted to indifference to danger. He was no actor. Naked heroism in battle, stripped of every thing like sham, sat upon him as gracefully as gentleness and goodness in private life." (Life and Cor. of John A. Quitman, by J. F. H. Claiborne.)

Quitman's Administration. Governor Quitman's inauguration, January 10, 1850, was made as splendid as possible, "and all that military pomp could do to add grandeur to the occasion was added. Governor Quitman was dressed in the uniform he had worn in Mexico, and mounted upon a white war-horse, with gorgeous trap- pings. Maidens dressed in white strewed flowers before him, and sang 'Hail to the chief who in triumph advances.'" The executive officers were: Secretary of state, Joseph Bell, December, 1850, to January, 1852; auditor, George T. Swarm; treasurer, Richard Griffith; attorney-general, John D. Freeman. (See Matthew's Adm.)

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In his inaugural address, he took occasion to assert his opposi- tion to the "American system" and "internal improvements" of Henry Clay. He denied the right of the Federal government "to supervise the manufactures or the agriculture of the country, or to take under its charge and control the highways and the harbors of our broad land." He was "opposed to the establishment of a United States bank," or any similar use of the national treasury. He regarded slavery as responsible for the rapid progress of the country in prosperity, greatness and wealth. Far from being an evil, it was essential to happiness and political existence. "We have a right to it above and under the constitution of the United States. We will not yield it. The South has long sub- mitted to grievous wrongs. Dishonor, degradation and ruin await her, if she submits further. The people of Mississippi have taken their stand, and I doubt not their representatives will maintain it, by providing means to meet every probable contingency. I here pledge myself to execute their will to the full extent of my con- stitutional powers."

In February he received and transmitted to the legislature a let- ter from Senators Davis and Foote and the representatives in con- gress, announcing that they believed California would be admitted as a free State. "We regard the proposition to admit California as a State under the circumstances of her application, as an at- tempt to adopt the Wilmot proviso in another form." They desired to know the opinion of the people and the legislature regarding the admission of California. The situation, under the resolutions of the Convention of 1849 (q. v.), was, that a constitutional conven- tion was to be called if the Wilmot proviso were adopted. By a popular vote of 12,000 to 800, California had adopted a constitution excluding slavery. The governor recommended the legislature to make "a firm remonstrance against the present admission of Cali- fornia with the restriction against slavery," and, otherwise, recom- mended waiting for the action of the Nashville convention. He was adjured to action by enthusiasts of other States besides his own. "Hundreds of influential citizens, whose letters now lie under inspection (some of the most distinguished of whom in Mississippi afterward made open war upon him, or timidly recoiled from their positions), reminded Governor Quitman that palliatives and remon- strances would no longer answer and called for the adoption of decisive measures." (Claiborne's Life of Q.)

What caused the letter from Davis and Foote was the introduc- tion into congress, in January, 1850, of the famous compromise resolutions by Henry Clay, for the admission of California, the es- tablishment of territorial governments in New Mexico with silence regarding slavery, rejection as inexpedient of the proposition to abolish slavery in the District, a more stringent fugitive slave law, and a declaration that congress had no right to obstruct interstate commerce in slaves. In the debate that followed, Calhoun heard read his last great speech, a voice of hopeless remonstrance ; Dan- iel Webster came to the support of Clay, reproving abolition agi-

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tation, and, "with distress and anguish" rebuking the talk of seces- sion. "Secession! Peaceable secession ! Sir, your eyes or mine are never destined to see that miracle. It must produce war, and such a war as I will not describe." Webster, Calhoun and Clay were soon to pass away. New Champions in the arena- Toombs and Davis; Seward and Chase.

Mississippi was not a unit, by any means. There was not unan- imity in the election of Jefferson Davis for a full term, by the leg- islature in February, 1850. He lacked one vote on the first ballot, but gained a small margin on the second. Roger Barton (q. v.) was his principal opponent, but the opposition could not unite.

Calhoun died in March. The Nashville convention (q. v.) called, by the Mississippi Resisters, at Calhoun's suggestion, met in June, while the congressional battle was at its height. A few weeks later President Zachary Taylor died from exposure to the sun while hearing the Fourth of July oration by Senator Foote, of Missis- sippi. He had been unrelenting in opposing the Southern policy of Calhoun and Davis, even the Clay compromise, and proposed to meet the claims of Texas in New Mexico with the United States army, which Texan policy his successor, Fillmore, adhered to, but otherwise was more compromising. Congress began the adoption of a series of acts which yielded one more point to the anti-slavery party, the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia. California was admitted as a free State in September. On the other hand, those who had instigated the Jackson and Nashville conven- tions felt that the compromise conceded the points essential to their honor. They felt that there was disdain in Webster's lordly dictum regarding yielding them the deserts of New Mexico; "I would not take pains uselessly to reaffirm an ordinance of Nature, nor to re-enact the will of God." Meanwhile, many newspapers in the State declared for secession.

"Upon the adjournment of congress the delegation from Missis- sippi returned to the State to give an account of their cause, and, with the exception of Foote, to urge resistance to the action of congress. Albert Gallatin Brown said, in a speech at Jackson, 'So help me God, I am for resistance; and my advice to you is that of Cromwell to his colleagues, "pray to God and keep your powder dry."' Davis, McWillie, Featherston and Thompson spoke in a similar strain, while Foote bestirred himself to vindicate his course before the people. The legislature had already passed resolutions of censure against him, declaring that the interests of the State were not safe in his hands. He then stumped the State, making in all forty or fifty speeches, and urged the people to send delegates to a convention he had presumed to call." (Garner, Reconstruc- tion, p. 2).

The movement had its main leadership in South Carolina, but as Gov. Seabrook, of that State, wrote to Gov. Quitman in September, 1850, "there are satisfactory reasons why South Carolina should move cautiously in the matter." Seabrook reminded Quitman that Georgia had promised to call a State convention, urged him to act

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in Mississippi, and promised that as soon as the governors of two more States called their legislatures in special session, he would do the same, in order to "arrest the career of an interested and despotic majority." Alabama and Florida were counted on.

Quitman responded by calling the legislature to convene No- vember 18, and wrote Seabrook that he would recommend a con- vention with "full powers to annul the federal compact and estab- lish new relations with other States." Having no hope in separa- tion, "my views of State action will look to secession." Seabrook replied that South Carolina was "ready and anxious for an im- mediate separation," and hoped that Mississippi would "begin the patriotic work." (Claiborne's Life of Quitman.)

Pickens, of South Carolina, wrote, discussing a Confederacy, and proposing Quitman or Davis as suitable for the presidency.

Quitman's call for a special session was expressedly for the pur- pose "that the State may be placed in an attitude to assert her sovereignty." He wrote J. J. McRae that he desired a convention fully empowered to secede and asked his advice. "I shall ask, in like manner the free opinion of Col. Davis, Thompson, Brown, Barton, Stewart and other friends." He wished to be in harmony with the Nashville convention, but did not believe Judge Sharkey would give notice of its reassembling; "he is opposed to it."

Gov. Foote said (in his message of 1854) that when the legisla- ture assembled in November, "All my colleagues, save one (Mr. Thompson), were in attendance. A vast multitude of our citizens rushed to the theatre of action to find out what was likely to be the result of the extraordinary movements rumored to be in progress. The governor's special message was sent in to the two houses of the legislature; not though before it had been shown to many of his prominent political friends and their approval of its contents obtained." After the delivery of the message popular meetings were held at the capitol and addressed by Gen. Felix Huston, Sen- ator Davis, Representative Featherston and others, in support of Quitman's policy. In his message Gov. Quitman declared that the anti-slavery party "now controls the entire government." The ties of party and of church had yielded before it. If the great and vital interest of slavery longer remained subject to the United States government, "it must perish." He asked for a convention to take into consideration federal relations, and suggested that such a convention would have absolute power, regardless of instruc- tions. He was willing to compromise on an extension of the line of 36° 30' to the Pacific coast, and constitutional amendments to protect the rights of the slaveholding States; otherwise did not hesitate to express his decided opinion that the only effectual rem- edy was "in the prompt and peaceable secession of the aggrieved States." In another message he recommended the organization of volunteer companies for a State army, officers and men to be sworn for a service of five years.

On the day that the legislature met Foote convened his conven- tion of 1,500 members, which he addressed from a window of the

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city hall in Jackson. The meeting organized the Union party and adopted resolutions sustaining Foote, and censuring the Quitman- Davis party. When they had been printed, Foote demanded a hearing from the house of representatives. The body adjourned and yielded him the hall, and he spoke two hours "explaining to those assembled the dangers of the hour."

The legislature reaffirmed the resolutions of the Jackson conven- tion, elected twelve delegates to the Nashville convention, censured President Taylor and Senator Foote, approved Senator Davis, ordered the election of delegates to a Constitutional convention, (q. v.) ; but left the mode of action to the decision of the Nashville convention.

Mississippi having thus declined to take the lead, alone, the South Carolina legislature, in December, recommended a convention of Southern States at Montgomery in February, 1852, and appropri- ated $350,000 for military expenses.

Meanwhile Quitman was in the focus of another exciting affair of national notoriety. He was an enthusiast in the revival of the old dream of annexation of the domain of Spain. This had just had a great realization through the Mexican war, in which he was the one conspicuous general who was inspired by more than pro- fessional duty. He fought for the realization of the old ambition of expansion-the creation of a great empire in which slave labor should be the basis of wealth-not necessarily separate from the United States, but really making the United States a federation of two empires, one with expansion northwestward, the other south- ward. He looked towards Cuba, now that Mexico had been shorn, with the same impulse that Jefferson had felt. It was manifest destiny that it should be a part of the United States. It could at once be made a State, under the Southern system. The movement for conquest of Cuba began (after the rejection of a purchase price) with the Round Island affair (q. v.) in Mississippi, in 1849.

In the spring of 1850 Lopez made a private visit to Gov. Quitman at Jackson, eloquently presented Cuba's yearnings for liberation from Spain, and offered the governor the leadership of the revolu- tion and supreme command if it should succeed. "Quitman long and anxiously reflected. No one disturbed the silence. Lopez slowly paced the apartment, like a sentinel on guard. The few confidential friends who had been specially invited to the inter- view felt the sorcery of his presence. All hoped that the gover- nor would accept the offer and embark in a career so just and so prodigal of glory." (Claiborne.) He declined, in view of the political crisis. "It is possible, however, [he wrote,] that after a short period these obligations, which my sense of duty now im- poses on me, will cease to exist. In that event, should circumstan- ces be favorable, I should be disposed to accept your proposals." (Quitman to Lopez and Gonzales, Jackson, March 18, 1850.) Soon afterward Lopez sailed from New Orleans with a party of volunteers "led by O'Hara, Hawkins, Pickett, Bell, Wheat, and other chivalric spirits, chiefly from Kentucky." They landed at

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Cardenas, found no revolution there, and seeking another port, were chased by a Spanish man-of-war under the American guns at Key West, where Lopez was put under arrest, but presently re- leased. He returned to New Orleans, and set about raising another expedition, and was received in Mississippi with enthusiasm. The handful of revolutionists in the Cuban mountains were expecting Quitman to head the expedition, and the same impression prevailed in the United States. President Fillmore issued two proclamations forbidding the breach of neutrality. In June, 1850, the grand jury of the United States court at New Orleans found a bill of indict- ment against John A. Quitman, John Henderson and others, for violating the neutrality law.

Quitman construed this as an attempt on the part of the United States government to try its strength upon him, an open advocate of secession. He asked the advice of Jacob Thompson, who replied that the governor was the sole representative of the sovereignty of Mississippi, and the very idea of sovereignty carried with it the sequence of impunity in action and conduct. The power to arrest him would annihilate State sovereignty. He could not believe that a warrant would be issued for his arrest; but if it were, "you owe it to yourself to refuse submission to the mandate. .

The times are out of joint. . The first effort to degrade the State will be made in your person, and, by all the powers above, I would resist it."

No action was immediately taken on the indictment, except that the attorney-general asked Gov. Quitman to decide what course he preferred. The governor asked delay until his term expired, in January, 1852. This was refused. But action was not hurried upon him. After six months he decided that between war with the United States and arrest of the governor of Mississippi, "there remained a somewhat middle course for me to pursue consistently with my sense of propriety; that was, to lay down my official character before submitting to arrest." (Letter to Barnwell Rhett.) He issued a proclamation February 3, 1851, saying, "In the middle of my term of office, and in the active discharge of its duties, I am today arrested by the United States marshal of the Southern district of Mississippi for an alleged violation of the neutrality law of 1818, by beginning, setting on foot and furnishing the means for a military expedition against the island of Cuba. Under these charges, the marshal is directed to arrest me and remove my person to the city of New Orleans, there to be tried for these alleged offenses. Unconscious of having, in any re- spect, violated the laws of the country, ready at all times to meet any charge that might be exhibited against me, I have only been anxious, in this extraordinary emergency, to follow the path of duty. As a citizen, it was plain and clear that I must yield to the law, however oppressive and unjust in my case ; but as chief magis- trate of a sovereign State, I had also in charge her dignity, her honor and her sovereignty, which I could not permit to be violated in my person. Resistance by the organized force of the State,

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while the Federal administration is in the hands of men who ap- pear to seek some occasion to test the strength of that government, would result in violent contests, much to bé dreaded in the present critical condition of the country. The whole South, patient as she is under encroachment, might look with some jealousy upon the employment of military force to remove a Southern governor from the jurisdiction of his State, when it had been withheld from her citizens seeking to reclaim a fugitive slave in Massachusetts."

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Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II, Part 58

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association Number of Pages: 1032

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association
Number of Pages: 1032