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| Union Envelope.1 |
April 1861. |
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[344]
four thousand different kinds of Union envelopes were produced in the course of a few weeks.
Sets of these now find a careful depository in the cabinets of the curious.
The uprising in the Slave-labor States at this time, though less general and enthusiastic, was nevertheless marvelous.
The heresy of State Supremacy, which Calhoun and his followers adroitly called State rights, because the latter is a sacred thing cherished by all, was a political tenet generally accepted as orthodox.
It had been inculcated in every conceivable form and on every conceivable occasion;2 and men who loved the Union and deprecated secession were in agreement with the conspirators on that point.
Hence it was that in the tornado of passion then sweeping over the South, where reason was discarded, thousands of intelligent men, deceived by the grossest misrepresentations respecting the temper, character, and intentions of the people of the Free-labor States, flew to arms, well satisfied that they were in the right, because resisting what they believed to be usurpation, and an unconstitutional attempt at the subjugation of a free people, on the part of the National Government.
The writer was in New Orleans at the time of the attack on Fort Sumter, in quest of knowledge respecting the stirring military events that occurred in that vicinity at the close of the year 1814 and the beginning of 1815.
He was accompanied by a young kinswoman.
We arrived there on the 10th,
having traveled all night on the railway from Grand Junction, in Tennessee.
At Oxford, Canton, Jackson, and other places, we heard rumors of an expected attack on the fort.
These were brought to us by a physician, who had been a member of the Secession Convention
1 this specimen of the Union envelopes has been chosen from several hundreds of different kinds in possession of the author, because it contains, in its design and words, a remarkable prophecy. The leaders of the rebellion in the more Southern States comforted their people with the assurance, when it was seen that war was inevitable, that it could not reach their homes, for in the Border Slave-labor States, and especially in Virginia, would be the battle-fields. It was indeed so, until in the last year of the war; and “poor old Virginia,” as Governor Pickens predicted, had to bear the brunt. She was the Mother of disunion, and the hand of retributive justice was laid heavily upon her.
2 See note 1, page 63.
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