Sieyes had his pockets stuffed with
constitutions and felt that his country was safe. It is not pretended
that these ideas were entertained by the larger part of the Southern
people, or were confessed by the ruling minority; but they existed,
nevertheless, under different forms.

Aggrieved by the action and tendencies of the Federal Government, and
apprehending worse in the future, a majority of the people of the South
approved secession as the only remedy suggested by their leaders. So
travelers enter railway carriages, and are dragged up grades and through
tunnels with utter loss of volition, the motive power, generated by
fierce heat, being far in advance and beyond their control.

We set up a monarch, too, King Cotton, and hedged him with a divinity
surpassing that of earthly potentates. To doubt his royalty and power
was a confession of ignorance or cowardice. This potent spirit, at the
nod of our Prosperos, the cotton-planters, would arrest every loom and
spindle in New England, destroy her wealth, and reduce her population to
beggary. The power of Old England, the growth of eight hundred years,
was to wither as the prophet's gourd unless she obeyed its behests. And
a right "tricksy spirit" it proved indeed. There was a complete mental
derangement on this subject. The Government undertook to own all cotton
that could be exported. Four millions of bales, belonging to many
thousands of individuals, could be disposed of to better advantage by
the Government than by the proprietors; and this was enforced by our
authorities, whose ancestors for generations had been resisting the
intrusion of governments into private business. All cotton, as well as
naval stores, that was in danger of falling into the enemy's possession,
was, by orders based on legislative enactment, to be burned; and this
policy continued to the end. It was fully believed that this destruction
would appall our enemies and convince the world of our earnestness.
Possibly there was a lurking idea that it was necessary to convince
ourselves.

In their long struggle for independence, the Dutch trafficked freely
with the Spaniards, got rich by the trade, paid enormous taxes to
support the war, and achieved their liberty. But the Dutch fought to rid
themselves of a tyrant, while our first care was to set up one, Cotton,
and worship it. Rules of common sense were not applicable to it. The
Grand Monarque could not eat his dinners or take his emetics like
or