By contrast, the Confederate States are to the Republican Party-the phrase 'a nigger in the woodpile' is tempting, but no; we shall refrain-an illegitimate child in the family of nations, and so to be deprived of plum pudding every Christmas Eve. Well, the illegitimate child is now above eighteen years of age, and a d-d big b-d, now suddenly the bigger by two provinces gulped down in lieu of the plums once denied it. No wonder, then, that President Blaine is in the way of seeing things red.
The question before the house, however, is-or rather, ought to be, the failure to understand the difference between the two being one of the chief causes of boiler explosions, marital discord, and drawing in the hope of filling an inside straight-not whether the United States have the right to be displeased at the transaction just concluded between the Confederacy and Mexico, but whether the transaction presents them with a legitimate ca- sus belli. This we beg leave to doubt. The suspicion lingers that, had the United States offered a brass spittoon and a couple of candles' value above the price the Confederacy agreed to pay him, the Stars and Stripes would now be flying above Chihuahua and Sonora-and maybe even above the dangerous cacti of Lower California as well-and there would be a great wailing and gnashing of teeth from Richmond, with every politician in Washington sitting back as sleek and contented as the dog that stole the leg of lamb out of the roasting pan.
For better or worse-more like, for better and worse-Maximilian's sale of Sonora and Chihuahua strikes us as having been peaceful and voluntary enough to keep anyone sniffing around the deal from gagging at the smell, which in today's diplomacy marks it as something of a prodigy. We find it dashed uncomfortable to share a continent with a people who did not care to share a country with us, but we had best get used to it, because the Confederate States show no signs of packing up and moving to the mountains of Thibet. While we may regret the sale, we have not the right to seek to reverse it by force of arms. We may have been outsmarted, but we were not insulted, and being outsmarted is not reason enough to go to war-if it were, the poor suffering world should never have known its few brief-too brief! — moments when the bullets were not flying somewhere.
He had hardly laid down his pen before Clay Herndon came back into the office, slamming the door behind him. 'Sam, have you got whatever you're going to say ready to set in type?' he demanded. 'News of the ultimatum is already on the street. If we don't get into print in a hurry, it'll outstrip us. The Ba ha Califomian is beating the war drum, loud as it can.' He threw himself into his chair and began to write furiously.
'Yes, I'm ready.' Clemens exhibited the sheets he'd just finished. 'What did the mayor say?'
'Sutro?' Herndon didn't look up from his scribbles. 'The way he talks, we'll be in Richmond tomorrow, Atlanta the day after, and New Orleans the day after that. Huzzah for our side!' He sounded imperfectly delighted with the mayor's view of the world.
'You were a Blaine man last November, Clay,' Sam reminded him. 'Why aren't you over at the Californian, banging the war drum yourself?'
'Me? I'd love to take the Rebs down a peg,' Herndon said, 'but Blaine's going at it like a bull in a china shop, trying to make up for eighteen years in a couple of months. There.' He threw down the pen and thrust paper at Clemens. 'Here's mine. Let's see what you wrote.'
Sam scrawled a few changes on Herndon's copy; Herndon used adverbs the way a bad cook used spices-on the theory that, if a few were good, more were better. In spite of that, he said, 'Good story.'
It convicted Sutro of being a pompous fool with his own words, the best way to do it.
'Thanks. You could have said 'a plague on both your houses' and let it go at that,' Herndon said. 'I'm glad you didn't, though. This is more fun.'
The door flew open. Edgar Leary rushed in. Somebody had knocked a big dent in his hat, which he hadn't noticed yet. 'They're hanging Longstreet in effigy at the corner of Market and Geary,' the youngster said breathlessly. Then he took off the derby, and exclaimed in dismay. 'The whole town's going crazy.' He held out the hat as if it were evidence.
'Write the piece. Write it fast,' Sam said. He took the pages of his editorial back from Herndon. 'Sounds like they're not going to listen to me again.' He sighed. 'Why am I not surprised?'
Outside, somebody emptied a six-shooter, the cartridges going off in quick succession. Sam hoped whoever it was, was shooting in the air.
Newsboys on Richmond street corners waved copies of the Whig and the Examiner, the Dispatch and the Enquirer and the Sentinel, in the air. They were doing a roaring trade; lawyers and mechanics, ministers and farmers, drummers and teamsters and even the occasional colored man who had his letters crowded round them and shoved pennies at them.
Whichever paper the boy on any one corner touted, the main headline was the same: 'Ultimatum runs out today!' After that, imagination ran riot: 'P resident Longstreet to answer latest Yankee outrage! ' ' Navy said ready to put to sea! ' ' Navy said to be already at sea! ' ' Troop movements in Kentucky! ' ' Yankees said to be concentrating in Missouri! ' And one word, like a drumbeat: ' War!' 'War!' 'War! '
General Thomas Jackson, whose business was war, rode through the clamor as if through rain or snow or shellfire or any other minor distraction. 'We'll whip 'em, won't we, Stonewall?' a fat man in a butcher's bloodstained apron shouted to him.
'We are not at war with the United States, nor have the United States declared war against us,' Jackson answered. He'd said the same thing any number of times since leaving the War Department for yet another journey to the presidential residence. 'I hope they do not. Peace is too precious to be casually discarded like an outgrown suit of clothes.'
That wasn't what the butcher wanted to hear. 'We'll whip 'em!'
Jackson guided his horse past the fat man without saying anything more. He got asked the same question, or a variant upon it, three more times in the next half block. He gave the same answer each time, and began to wish he hadn't started answering at all.
The crush of people thinned as he rode up Shockoe Hill, away from Capitol Square and the center of town. Jackson let out a small, involuntary sigh of relief: he did not care for being trapped in crowds, and was often happiest when most solitary. Duty, however, came above happiness. Duty came above everything.
One of the sentries who saluted him said, 'Reckon we'll lick them damn yankecs good-ain't that right, sir?'
To a soldier, Jackson spoke a bit more openly than to a civilian on the street who might, for all he knew, have been a U.S. spy: 'If we have to fight them, Corporal, rest assured we shall beat them.'
U.S. Minister John Hay's landau was tied up in front of the residence. Hay, these days, visited Longstreet as often as Jackson did, and on related business: if the minister's talks with the Confederate president succeeded, Longstreet and Jackson would no longer need to confer so much. Hay's driver sat waiting patiently for his principal, reading a copy of the Richmond Whig. He nodded to Jackson, then went back to the paper.
Moxley Sorrel escorted Jackson to the waiting room outside Longstreet's office. 'Mr. Hay has come to obtain the president's reply to the ultimatum,' the chief of staff said in a near whisper.
'There can be only one response to that piece of impertinence,' Jackson growled. Sorrel nodded. The two men did not love each other, but both saw the interests of the Confederate States in the same light.
Jackson started to say something more, but the door to President Longstreet's office came open. Out stalked John Hay, his handsome face set and hard. Jackson rose politely to greet him. Hay gave a cold half bow. 'Sir, I am forced to the conclusion that your president is more inclined to hear your counsel than mine.' Moxley Sorrel came over to lead him out to the door. He shook off the chief of staff. 'No thank you, sir. I can find my own way.' Off he went. Had he owned a tail, it would have bristled.
'Come in, General,' President Longstreet called through the open door.
'Thank you, Your Excellency,' Jackson said. He closed the door after himself, then sat down, stiff as usual, in the chair to which Long-street waved him. 'By that, sir, am I to gather that you have told the United States they have no business meddling in our internal affairs?'
James Longstreet nodded. He looked pleased with himself. 'You are to gather precisely that, General. Had I told him anything else, I have no doubt I should be impeached, convicted, and removed from office by this time next week-and I would vote for my own conviction, too. And I in turn gather that we are in full readiness to meet any emergency that may arise?'
He asked the same question every time he saw Jackson. As always, the general-in-chief of the Confederate Army nodded. 'Yes, Mr. President, all regular units arc deployed close to the U.S. frontier save those engaged in occupying our new provinces, and General Stuart has done more than anticipate along those lines himself.' He
