ROBERT TOOMBS, FIRST SECRETARY OF STATE OF THE CONFEDERACY; MEMBER OF THE CONFEDERATE SENATE; BRIGADIER-GENERAL, C.S.A. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
LEROY POPE WALKER, FIRST CONFEDERATE SECRETARY OF WAR. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
ROBERT BARNWELL RHETT, CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, CONFEDERATE PROVISIONAL CONGRESS. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
Mr. Davis offered the office of Secretary of State to Mr. Barnwell, but he declined it, and recommended Mr. C. G. Memminger, also of South Carolina, for the Treasury portfolio, which was promptly accorded to him. Both of these gentlemen had been coöperationists, and up to the last had opposed secession. Mr. Barnwell would not have been sent to the State convention from Beaufort but for the efforts of Edmund Rhett, an influential State senator. Of Mr. Memminger it was said that when a bill was on its passage through the Legislature of South Carolina in 1859, appropriating a sum of money for the purchase of arms, he had slipped in an amendment which had operated to prevent Governor Gist from drawing the money and procuring the arms. In Charleston he was known as an active friend of the free-school system and orphan house, a moral and charitable Episcopalian, and a lawyer, industrious, shrewd, and thrifty. As chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means in the House of Representatives, he was familiar with the cut-and-dried plan of raising the small revenue necessary to carry on the government of South Carolina. Such was his record and experience when appointed to the cabinet of Mr. Davis. Mr. Memminger received no recommendation for this office from the South Carolina delegation; nor did the delegation from any State, so far as known, attempt to influence the President in the choice of his cabinet.
Mr. Robert Toombs, of Georgia, was appointed Secretary of State. This was in deference to the importance of his State and the public appreciation of his great mental powers and thorough earnestness, not for the active part he had taken in the State convention in behalf of secession. In public too fond of sensational oratory, in counsel he was a man of large and wise views.
Mr. Leroy Pope Walker, of Alabama, was appointed Secretary of War on the recommendation of Mr. William L. Yancey. Ambitious, without any special fitness for this post, and overloaded, he accepted the office with the understanding that Mr. Davis would direct and control its business, which he did. After differing with the President as to the number of arms to be imported, and the number of men to be placed in camp in the winter of 1861–62 (being in favor of very many more than the President), he wisely resigned.
Mr. Stephen R. Mallory, of Florida, was appointed Secretary of the Navy. He was a gentleman of unpretending manners and ordinary good sense, who had served in the Senate with Mr. Davis, and had been chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs. With some acquaintance with officers of the United States Navy, and some knowledge of nautical matters, he had small comprehension of the responsibilities of the office. His efforts were feeble and dilatory, and he utterly failed to provide for keeping open the seaports of the Confederacy. But he was one of the few who remained in the cabinet to the end.
HOWELL COBB, PRESIDENT OF THE FIRST CONFEDERATE CONGRESS; MAJOR-GENERAL, C.S.A. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
Mr. Judah P. Benjamin, of Louisiana, was appointed Attorney-General, and held that office until the resignation of Mr. Walker, when he was transferred to the post of Secretary of War. Upon the fall of New Orleans, public indignation compelled a change, and he was made Secretary of State. A man of great fertility of mind and resource and of facile character, he was the factotum of the President, performed his bidding in various ways, and gave him the benefit of his brains in furtherance of the views of Mr. Davis.4
STEPHEN R. MALLORY, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY TO THE CONFEDERACY. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
Although a provisional government was more free to meet emergencies and correct mistakes, it was determined to proceed to the formation of a permanent government. It was apprehended that in the lapse of time and change of circumstances and of men, the cardinal points for which the South had contended, and on which the separation of sections had occurred, might be lost sight of; so it was decided to impress at once upon the new government the constitutional amendments regarded as essential. The committee, of which Mr. Rhett was chairman, agreed at its first meeting that the Constitution of the United States should be adopted, with only such alterations as experience had proved desirable, and to avoid latitudinarian constructions. Most of the important amendments were adopted on motion of the chairman. But the limits of this paper do not permit a specific statement of their character and scope.5
The permanent constitution was adopted on the 11th of March, 1861, and went into operation, with the permanent government, at Richmond, on the 18th of February, 1862, when the Provisional Congress expired.
Those men who had studied the situation felt great anxiety about the keeping open of the ports of the Confederacy. Much was said and published about the immediate necessity of providing gun-boats and shipping suitable for that purpose. In the winter of 1861 Mr. C. K. Prioleau, of the firm of John Fraser & Co., of Liverpool, found a fleet of ten first-class East Indiamen, available to a buyer at less than half their cost. They belonged to the East India Company, and had been built in Great Britain for armament if required, or for moving troops and carrying valuable cargoes and treasure. Four of them were vessels of great size and power and of the very first class; and there were six others, which, although smaller, were scarcely inferior for the required purpose. On surrendering their powers to the British throne, the company had these steamships for sale. Mr. Prioleau secured the refusal of this fleet. The total cost of buying, arming, and fitting out the ten ships and putting them on the Southern coast ready for action was estimated at $10,000,000, or, say, 40,000 bales of cotton. The harbor of Port Royal, selected before the war as a coaling station for the United States Navy, with 26 feet of water at mean low tide, was admirably adapted for a rendezvous and point of supply. Brunswick, Georgia, was another good harbor, fit for such a fleet. The proposal was submitted to the Government through a partner of Mr. Prioleau in Charleston, Mr. George A. Trenholm, who forwarded the proposition by his son, William L. Trenholm. Its importance was not at all comprehended, and it was rejected by the executive. Captain J. D. Bulloch, the secret naval agent in Europe, who had the Alabama built, states that “the Confederate Government wanted ships to cruise and to destroy the enemy’s mercantile marine.” It was of infinitely more importance to keep Southern ports open, but this does not seem to have been understood until too late. The opportunity of obtaining these ships was thrown away. They were engaged by the British Government.
JUDAH P. BENJAMIN, CONFEDERATE ATTORNEY-GENERAL UNTIL SEPT. 17TH, 1861; SECOND SECRETARY OF WAR; THIRD SECRETARY OF STATE. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH.
To show the narrow spirit of those in office, an incident concerning Captain Maffit, who figured afterward in command of the Florida, may be mentioned. In May, after the reduction of Fort Sumter, Maffit came from Washington to offer his services, and when he met the writer was in a state of indignation and disgust. He said that after having been caressed and offered a command in the Pacific, he had sneaked away from Washington to join the Confederacy, and that he had been received by the Secretary of the Navy as if he (Maffit) had designs upon him.
The Secretary of War has stated that before the Government moved from Montgomery 360,000 men, the flower of the South, had tendered their services in the army. Only a small fraction of the number were received. The Secretary was worn out with personal applications of ardent officers, and himself stated that in May, 1861, he was constantly waylaid, in walking the back way from his office to the Exchange Hotel, by men offering their lives in the Confederate cause.
CHRISTOPHER G. MEMMINGER, FIRST SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY OF THE CONFEDERACY.
Another instance of narrowness may be named in the case of William Cutting Heyward. He was a wealthy rice-planter and an eminently practical and efficient man, a graduate at West Point in the class with Mr. Davis. He went to Montgomery to tender a regiment. He sent in his card to the President an
d waited for days in the lobby without obtaining an interview, and then returned home. He finally died from exposure, performing the duties of a private in the Home Guard at Charleston. The reason alleged for not accepting more men was the want of arms, and Mr. Davis’s book is an apology for not procuring them. Insisting that a great war was probable, and inaugurated on the 18th of February,—there was no declaration of war before the middle of April and no efficient blockade of the ports for many months,—yet it was in May that he started Major Huse over to England with instructions to purchase 10,000 Enfield rifles! By these facts may be gauged his estimate of the emergency or of the purchasing ability of the Confederate States. The provisional constitution provided that “Congress shall appropriate no money from the Treasury unless it be asked and estimated for by the President or some one of the heads of departments, except for the purpose of paying its own expenses and contingencies.” The Congress could, therefore, do nothing about the purchase of arms without a call from the executive.
But for the Treaty of Paris in 1778, made by Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee, with France, the independence of the thirteen original States would not have been established. It was deemed important in the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States to send commissioners abroad to negotiate for a recognition of their independence, and, in case of war with the States of the North, perhaps for assistance. The chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Mr. Rhett, reported such a resolution, which was unanimously adopted. As the treaty-making power of the Government belonged to the President, Congress could not dictate to him the limit of authority that should be conferred upon the commissioners, in the negotiations desired. But all those who had reflected upon the subject expected the President to give extensive authority for making treaties. The views held by the chairman were that the commissioners should be authorized to propose to Great Britain, France, and other European nations, upon the conditions of recognition and alliance, that the Confederate States for twenty years would agree to lay no higher duties on productions imported than fifteen or twenty per cent. ad valorem; that for this period, no tonnage duties would be laid on their shipping, entering or leaving Confederate ports, but such as should be imposed to keep in order the harbors and rivers; that the navigation between the ports of the Confederate States for the same time should be free to the nations entering into alliance with the Confederate States, while upon the productions and tonnage of all nations refusing to recognize their independence and enter into treaty with them, a discriminating duty of ten per cent. would be imposed. He believed, moreover, that they should be authorized to make an offensive and defensive league, with special guarantees, as was done in 1778. Here was a direct and powerful appeal to the interests of foreign nations, especially England. Would any British Minister have dared to reject a treaty offering such vast advantages to his country? And if so, when the fact became known to Parliament, could he have retained his place?
Up to September, 1862, the United States Government was committed, both by diplomatic dispatches and by the action of Congress, to the declaration that the war was made solely to preserve the Union and with the purpose of maintaining the institutions of the seceded States, unimpaired and unaltered. Hence, at this period, the issue of slavery had not been injected into diplomacy, and was no obstacle to negotiating treaties.
When Mr. Yancey received the appointment at the head of the commission, Mr. Rhett conferred with him at length, and found that the commissioner fully concurred in the views just mentioned. But he surprised Mr. Rhett by the statement that the President had given no powers whatever to make commercial treaties, or to give any special interest in Confederate trade or navigation to any foreign nations, but relied upon the idea that “Cotton is King.” “Then,” rejoined Mr. Rhett, “if you will take my advice, as your friend, do not accept the appointment. For you will have nothing to propose and nothing to treat about, and must necessarily fail. Demand of the President the powers essential to the success of your mission, or stay at home.”
On the reassembling of the Provisional Congress in April, ascertaining that these powers had not been conferred upon the commission, Mr. Rhett prepared a resolution requesting the President to empower the commissioners to propose to European nations, as the basis of a commercial treaty, a tariff of duties for 20 years no higher than 20 per cent. ad valorem on their imports into the Confederate States. This he submitted to Mr. Toombs, the Secretary of State, who promptly approved it and appeared before the Committee on Foreign Affairs to urge it. It was reported, with the indorsement of the committee, to the Congress, and was not opposed in debate; but Mr. Perkins moved, as an amendment, six years instead of twenty. As this was carried, Mr. Rhett moved to lay the resolution on the table, which was done; and this was the only effort made to appeal to the interests of foreign nations, to secure recognition of the independence of the Confederate States, or to obtain assistance. Upon his return from abroad, Mr. Yancey met Mr. Rhett and said: “You were right, sir. I went on a fool’s errand.” In December, 1863, at Richmond, James L. Orr, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Senate, said to the writer, “The Confederate States have had no diplomacy.”
In March, 1863, proposals were made for a loan of $15,000,000 on 7 per cent. bonds, secured by an engagement of the Confederate Government to deliver cotton at 12 cents per pound within 6 months after peace. The loan stood in the London market at 5 per cent. premium; and the applications for it exceeded $75,000,000. In the Provisional Congress at Montgomery, Mr. Stephens proposed that the Confederate Government should purchase cotton at 8 cents per pound, paying in 8 per cent. bonds, running 20 or 30 years. He believed that 2,000,000 bales of the crop of 1860 could be obtained in that way from the planters, and that, of the crop of 1861, 2,000,000 more bales might be obtained afterward. By using this cotton as security, or shipping it abroad, he maintained the finances of the Confederate States could at once be placed on a solid basis. His plan met with much favor, but was opposed by the administration and was not carried through. Money for the long war was to be raised by loans from Confederate citizens on bonds supplemented by the issue of Treasury notes and by a duty on exported cotton.
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