Chesapeake

by James A. Michener

  She sat down, and no one gave any sign of either approval or disapproval of her remarkable words. They were her summary of what a marriage consisted of, and she had felt led by God to share them with this beginning couple. After silence had maintained for some minutes a very old man, much older than the woman who had spoken, rose and said in a high clear voice:

  “Prudent men in all nations and all religions have found it improper for a married couple to spend more than twenty percentum of their family income on rent. Never take out a mortgage for any cause except the purchase of a farm, and never pay more than five percentum for the mortgage. And never, never sign the note of a friend. For sixty years I have watched men sign for their friends and always it ends in disaster. The note is lost, the friend is lost, the money is lost, and only grief remains. Rachel, never let thy husband sign a note for a friend. If the other party needs the money and merits it, give it to him. But don’t sign his note.”

  When the old man sat down a neighbor whispered to him, and after a moment’s reflection the old fellow rose again to add this postscript: “It would also be permissible to take out a mortgage to buy a town property but only if it were essential to a business, and never for more than five percentum.” When silence was restored, the meeting sat immobile until a younger woman with a wavering voice rose to say, “When thee has children, for that is the purpose of a marriage, be certain that they are taught to know Jesus. It is a fearful thing to rear children who know not the Christian faith.” That was her complete speech, and there would be no more.

  Finally the two old men on the topmost bench rose and shook hands. Then all the Quakers shook hands with their neighbors, and each moved forward to sign the marriage document, which would be deposited in the place of record in Easton. When the signing ended, Bartley Paxmore had been duly married to Rachel Starbuck.

  THE RAILROAD

  BY THE MIDDLE YEARS OF THE 1840s CITIZENS LIVING ALONG the Choptank had separated into two well-defined groups epitomized by the two leading families of the region. Paul and Susan Steed had become the acknowledged champions of those wealthy plantation owners who were convinced that Maryland must follow the guidance of the Carolinas and Georgia, even if this meant dissolving the Union, while George and Elizabeth Paxmore were spokesmen for that great body of middle-class farmers and businessmen who felt that the Union was something unique and precious which must be preserved. In financial and intellectual power the Steed faction predominated; in stubborn moral force the Paxmore group would prove important.

  Most of the time the Steed-Paxmore paths diverged, the former attending to their plantations, the latter to the building of ships; but at unpredictable times their interests converged, and then there was trouble.

  In these years Devon became one of the best-regarded plantations in America. Three reasons accounted for this. First, Paul Steed gave it statesmanlike management, seeking out the best overseers in Maryland and Virginia and paying them well. He himself now owned nearly nine hundred slaves and used them to maximum advantage. There were no beatings, no savagery; after he discovered how Mr. Cline operated his correctional farm on the Little Choptank, no more Devon slaves went there. His wise decisions helped his plantation to prosper; he alternated crops, kept his ships busy and extended the number and range of his stores. His years of quiet study had enabled him to become an expert, and he was often seen limping about the remotest corners of his mainland plantations, pushing his twisted neck into all sorts of problems, which he took delight in solving.

  Second, on a trip across the bay in 1842 he chanced to see the operation of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and was so enchanted by the prospect of linking the nation together by rails that for no reason at all other than scientific curiosity he rode the train to Harpers Ferry and back. That experience convinced him that the only hope for the peninsula of which the Eastern Shore was a part lay in binding its three segments together by means of an extensive rail system.

  From the earliest days of the nation anyone with an intelligence equal to that of sparrows had realized that the peninsula ought logically to be united as one state, but historical accident had decreed that one portion be assigned to Maryland, whose citizens despised the Eastern Shore and considered it a backwater; one portion to the so-called State of Delaware, which never could find any reasonable justification for its existence; and the final portion to Virginia, which allowed its extreme southern fragment of the Eastern Shore to become the most pitiful orphan in America.

  All who lived in this tripartite travesty kept hoping that in the forthcoming year the three sections would be united to form a viable state with its own interests, history, traditions and prospects. Year after year it failed to happen. Paul campaigned in Congress for the sensible realignment and everyone he approached agreed that the change should be made, but nothing was done, for, as Senator Clay told him one afternoon, “My dear Steed, the most permanent thing in this world is a temporary arrangement.”

  But now, with the possibility of a rail system running the length of the peninsula and connecting with the North at Philadelphia and the South via Norfolk, the Eastern Shore had a bright future, and the organizer and marshal of that future would be Paul Steed. It was in pursuit of this grand design that he and Susan began to invite the leaders of the nation to visit with them at Devon. The Steed sloop would cross the bay, sail down to the mouth of the Potomac, then up to Washington, where it would wait to carry famous senators and congressmen to Rosalind’s Revenge for a week or ten days’ entertainment. While the visitors philosophized, Paul would bring in leaders from the Choptank to talk persuasively with them.

  The locals cited every reason that a logical man could devise as to why the three fragmented parts should be united, and they accomplished nothing except the pleasure of meeting great men and listening to them talk. How often in those pregnant years did the senators speak for two minutes on the problem of uniting the Eastern Shore, and then orate for five hours on the insoluble problems of slavery!

  Third, it was in this field of burgeoning interest in slavery that Steed did most to bring favorable attention to Devon. He began innocently: a long, analytic letter to Fithians in London explaining that whereas it might be appropriate for England to abolish slavery, it would be suicide for the American South to do so. Noel Fithian replied with a scholarly analysis of certain weaknesses in his friend’s reasoning, and Paul sent back a rebuttal.

  Later he corresponded with gentlemen in Massachusetts, Ohio, Louisiana and, especially, South Carolina. His letters were so beautifully composed and so instinct with logic and high argument that they circulated among friends of the recipients, and chance readers from different parts of the country wrote Paul suggesting that he compile his letters and offer them as the statement of a southern realist, but it was not until Senator Calhoun of South Carolina wrote, that Steed became actively interested. With his customary perspicacity, the great defender of states’ rights and slavery told Paul:

  I have rarely come upon a group of letters which so succinctly states the moral position of the South. You are cogent and unswerving in your defense of our position, and it would be salutary if you could collect the other letters I hear you have written and present them in compact form so that those at the North who wish to understand our reasoning can find it handsomely expressed.

  In 1847 Paul issued his collection of twenty letters, Reflections of a Maryland Planter, which evoked such enthusiastic praise in the South and such rebuttal at the North that many readers wanted to know how a parochial planter like Steed, stuck away in one of the most remote corners of the nation, could have mastered so much learning. The explanation was simple.

  In the dark years of his soul’s retreat, when all along the Choptank he was ridiculed for his relations with the slave girl Eden and his reluctance to intervene in his wife’s scandalous behavior, he found consolation in the work of three authors who had molded his education. Jean Jacques Rousseau reminded him anew of the honorable condition in which m
en might live if they attended to the basic lessons of the soil. From Rousseau he derived his passionate love of human freedom and his determination to protect it in both the South and the North. Plato reminded him of those noble propositions upon which any orderly society must be founded. But he learned most from the novels of Sir Walter Scott.

  Like many southern gentlemen, he found in Scott’s works a defense of those principles upon which the nobility of southern life was based: the brave laird of good intention, the chaste woman who inspires him and whom he protects, the loyal serf whose willing work enables the laird to monitor the land, and the allegiance of all to the ideals of an unselfish chivalry. On one memorable afternoon in 1841, as he sat in the lace-curtained room reading The Heart of Midlothian, he rose to his feet and took an oath: Here on this island I can be a new Guy Mannering, a local Quentin Durward.

  From that solemn moment he dedicated himself to achieving Plato’s good society, Rousseau’s freedom and Walter Scott’s chivalry. It was inevitable that his letters should epitomize these beliefs, and in his first epistle to Noel Fithian, when he addressed himself to the most difficult topics that were troubling the nation, he was not afraid to spell out his personal convictions:

  ... The Negro is genetically inferior, requires a master, has many fine qualities when properly guided, and cannot exist outside of some slave system.

  ... Contrary to what certain mal-intentioned people are saying, slavery is an economic asset, for it enables landowners to keep in cultivation acreage which could not otherwise be utilized. No white man could possibly work outdoors in areas like the Carolinas, Alabama and Louisiana.

  ... It is entirely possible for a system of slavery in the South to coexist with a system of free labor at the north, providing always that the north does not continue to insist upon low prices for our southern raw materials and high prices for its manufactured goods.

  ... It is also possible for slavery to exist side-by-side with a system of gradual manumission of slaves, for this has been tried with great success. The logical goal would be to train Negroes in the trades so that they could work anywhere in America. It will probably require about two hundred years for them to achieve the necessary level of education.

  ... It is essential to the orderly working of the system that those Negroes who run away from their lawful masters be returned to them, regardless of where in the United States they flee. The right of property is sacred and must be honored by federal as well as local law.

  ... There has been talk of secession from the Union, but this will occur only if those at the north persist in enforcing high tariffs, in encouraging abolition, and in giving refuge to runaway slaves. If these antagonisms can be halted, the two sections can coexist profitably and enjoy a limitless future.

  In his twenty letters, Paul invariably referred to the South, capitalized, and its unhappy persecution by those “at the north,” not capitalized, as if the former were a spiritual entity and the latter a chance combination of miscellaneous agencies. But he never ridiculed the northern position and in Letter VIII actually stated it rather better than some of its own apologists. The letter which gained widest circulation, however, was XIII, in which he dealt head-on with the charge of southern cruelty to the slave. This was reprinted a thousand times in southern newspapers, and served as the focus for a thousand rebuttals in northern ones. A particular paragraph became famous:

  There has been brutality, but never on the plantations of my family or my friends. There has been inattention to the requirements of food and clothing and protection from the elements, but not on any plantation I know. And there has been unconscionable whipping of refractory slaves, but the planter guilty of such offense is scorned by his equals, avoided by his associates, and haunted by his own conscience. His lot is ostracism among his own kind and scorn from the general public. The only way he can redeem himself is to give long and continued evidence that he has quit his evil behavior, for if he were to continue after having been rebuked, he would be outlawed by the body of gentlemen.

  In a later section of the same letter he did admit that unspeakable types such as Mr. Cline existed, and that on their farms ugly incidents had sometimes taken place, but he dismissed their brutality with a phrase that gave scant consolation to the Negroes who suffered under their lash: “They dare not associate with gentlemen.” He implied that this was punishment enough; but he also added that every southern state had strict slave codes, “which all but the most depraved observe,” and he cited Maryland’s to prove that under its benevolent protection a slave might have to work hard, but he was well fed, warmly clothed, comfortably housed and defended against abuse.

  By accident, the other letter which achieved considerable notice outside the book was XIX, which he had composed in a fit of some irritation. The slave Frederick Douglass, who had been born on a plantation just off the Choptank, and who had served at various sites adjacent to the Steed holdings, had escaped north and been adopted by the more unsavory elements of the abolition movement. In 1845 he published a scurrilous book purporting to give a true account of slavery in the Choptank district, and through it he had achieved a certain notoriety as a speaker in northern churches. The South was both vexed and damaged by this book, for Douglass wrote compellingly; it was believed in Patamoke that some white man must have written the book for him. So in a letter to a friend in Ohio, Paul Steed demolished the pretentions of this rabble-rouser. He savaged him on four counts, which he outlined at the beginning of his letter:

  First, you must not believe that his writing proves that blacks can achieve a high level of mental ability, for he is mostly white, as he himself confesses: “My father was a white man. The opinion was that my master was my father.” Obviously any intellectual powers he may demonstrate derive from his white parentage.

  Second, he is an imposter, for he has always sailed under assumed names, first calling himself Bailey, then Stanley, then Johnson and next Douglass. What name can we expect him to steal next? “The real Mr. Johnson had been reading The Lady of the Lake and suggested that my name be Douglass. From that time until now I have been called Frederick Douglass.”

  Third, he is an atheist, so that no evidence he offers of mistreatment need be accepted. Who has ever uttered more horrible profanation than this: “The religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes, a justifier of the most appalling brutality, a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, and a dark shelter under which the darkest, foulest, grossest and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection.” Is this not the Anti-Christ speaking?

  Fourth, he is a self-confessed forger: “The week before our intended start to freedom I wrote several protections for each of us.” What he means is that he forged five passes to deceive the authorities and signed them with the honorable name of William Hambleton of St. Michaels, misspelling the name in his ignorance.

  The lasting value of Steed’s letters lay in his discussions of management and economics. These occurred in no specific letter but infused them all; he displayed himself to be the best type of plantation owner—informed and desirous of operating his large holdings at a profit to everyone. In a dozen unplanned ways he disclosed his determination to provide his slaves with decent living arrangements and a carefully regulated share of the good things that resulted from his management. Each slave received more clothes than on other plantations, more food. He was especially attentive to the sanctity of family life and abolished the old custom, adhered to by Uncle Herbert, of selling a refractory husband south without regard for the wife and children kept behind. He explained his reasoning:

  A healthy slave represents both a substantial investment and a good opportunity to turn a profit but the investment is destroyed and the profit lost if the slave is in any way incapacitated by ill treatment and by this I mean not only physical abuse but also the mental wounding that can occur through separation of families or inattention to the slave children. If the dictates of humanity do not protect the s
lave, the principles of prudent husbandry should.

  The letter that was most difficult for northern analysts to digest was XX, for in it Steed explained to Noel Fithian his theory that freedom in the United States depended upon the continuance of slavery. He cited some fifteen cogent arguments, drawing upon the experience of Greece, Rome and early America. He was convinced that free men could flourish only if supported by a slave class and argued that it was not the freedom of the white gentleman that he was defending but the welfare of the slave. Never did he waver in this conviction; never did he admit the slightest concession which might disprove his thesis. One of his citations gained wide circulation:

  The freedom enjoyed by citizens of the United States, to the envy of the known world, was engineered primarily by gentlemen of the South who owned slaves. Of the men who wrote the Declaration of Independence, those who made the greatest contribution were slaveowners. Of those who framed our Constitution the majority of true intellects came from the South. Of the twelve Presidents who have guided our nation to its present level of enviable success, nine have been slaveholders and their leadership has been the sanest and the most appreciated by the nation at large.

  He argued that it was only the gentleman, set free from mundane matters by the hard work of his slaves, who could properly assess the movements of society and separate good from bad. He said it was the wives of those concerned gentlemen who inclined society toward the higher values:

  It has been the women of the South who have kept aflame the beacons of our nation: charity, gallantry, compassion, grace, and all the other amenities. They could do this because they were set free—by the existence of family slaves—to attend to matters of greater moment than washing and cleaning. It is not the women at the north who have established norms for our national behavior, for they have been preoccupied with petty matters. It is our gracious ladies of the South who have set the patterns.