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Senator Yulee 
 
 OF FLORIDA 
 
 A BIOGRAPHICAL. SKETCH 
 
 C- WiCKLiFFE Yulee 
 
 REPRINTED FROM 
 
 Florida Historical Magazine 
 
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 X 
 
 
 YiY? 
 
 c^^ ^s 
 
 Senator 
 David L. Yulee 
 
 By C. Wickliffe Yulee 
 

^e^«»^g^s!^* 
 
 SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 
 
 By C. WICKLIFFE YULEE 
 
 The adage that : no man is a hero to his valet, may- 
 be coupled with one that : every man is a hero to his 
 child; which fact the writer promises to bear ever in 
 mind, endeavoring- to anticipate the modifications of those 
 candid friends whose friendship is never so demonstra- 
 tive as when clipping- one's wings. But it is a matter of 
 some regret that a person, who feels compelled thus to 
 issue a self-denying ordinance, should have been selected 
 to write, for the Florida Historical Society, the biogra- 
 phy of Senator Yulee ; since any historical narrative must 
 have a strong element of hero-worship in order to make 
 a substantial picture for the general reader. 
 
 David Levy Yulee v/as born in the year 1810 on the 
 island of St. Thomas, W. I., which being at that time a 
 British possession, made him by birth a British subject, 
 and his earliest recollection of life Vv'as, wdieruat the age 
 of five, upon the transfer of the island to Denmark, he 
 saw the English flag hauled down. Evidently the por- 
 tentous significance with which this was regarded by the 
 inhabitants, created such an atmosphere of awe as to 
 impress the event upon his childish memory, where it 
 stood, in isolated importance, the only thing he coulcl 
 recall within that period which ended with his ninth 
 year. 
 
 His grandfather had been, although racially Portu- 
 guese, a high official in the Emperor of Morocco's court, 
 and as such had been given the rank of prince. Upon 
 the death of the Emperor, whose side he had espoused 
 against the intriguing heir, he was obliged to fly, at a 
 
4 SENATOR DAVID L. YU LEE 
 
 moment's notice, to England, taking with him his wife, 
 an English Jewess, and their infant son. The last named, 
 upon maturity, was obliged to go into trade, and his 
 mother, who had exaggerated ideas as to the importance 
 of the princely title, insisted upon his dropping the name 
 of Yulee, temporarily, and the adoption of Levy, that of 
 her own father. This name he retained to the day of his 
 death, although, long before, he had accjuired an inde- 
 pendent fortune in the lumber business in St. Thomas. 
 He approved, however, of the resumption of that of 
 Yulee by his son — the subject of this sketch — and for 
 convenience it will be the one used throughout. 
 
 There are two other incidents of Senator Yulce's 
 childhood which must be recorded, because of the mark 
 they left ; the one upon his physical, the other upon his 
 psychological being. 
 
 Having been given an apple by some one — if a woman, 
 the fall of Adam might be traced, pari passu — he climbed 
 upon one of the stone gate-pillars of his father's residence, 
 in order to enjoy himself, with tranquility, in "splendid 
 isolation." A passing practical joker threatening to seize 
 the fruit, he started back, fell, and as a result, bore for 
 the remainder of his life, upon the center of his forehead, 
 a deep blue scar, which, curiously enough, formed the 
 letter Y with perfect distinctness. 
 
 The second occurrence took place when, at the age 
 of nine, in order to attend school at Norfolk, A'irginia, 
 he had sailed from St. Thomas, never to return. The 
 ship lay becalmed, and the lad was watching with great 
 interest the sailors enjoying a sea bath. Suddenly one of 
 these, aj)proaching from behind, seized him, and dived 
 deep into the bottomless water. Anyone who has ever 
 been in a position to realize with Clarence 
 
 "***What pain it was to drown! 
 
 What dreadful noise of water in mine ears! 
 
 What sights of ugly death within mine eyes!" 
 
 can well imagine the terrifying impression, made by 
 such an unwonted experience upon a child, whose mis- 
 givings had been already cxcitetl by seeing all vestige 
 
SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 5 
 
 of land sink mysteriously below the horizon. While, 
 in after life, he frequently went upon coasting steamers 
 between Southern ports, his aversion to being out of sight 
 of land was so great as, not only to prevent all travel 
 abroad for pleasure, but also to induce his refusal, when 
 offered the choice of representing this country at any 
 one of «*4Tr three most attractive European courts. 
 
 The school in which young Yulee now found himself, 
 was one kept by an English clergyman, a friend of his 
 father's, nearly all the other scholars belonging to the 
 old Virginia families, whose places lined the banks of the 
 river James. The friendships he formed here lasted, 
 without exception, all his life, and were, Southern fash- 
 ion, inherited by the succeeding generation, as the writer 
 was glad to find, when he entered the University of Vir- 
 ginia. Fortunate, too, was the school in its master, who, 
 while holding the affections of his pupils, bent his chief 
 energies toward forming their characters. The present 
 master of Harrow has well said: "However we may fail 
 in teaching our pupils the classics or mathematics, we 
 hope that we do teach them to 'play the game.' " Truly, 
 is not a fine scorn for success, by unfair methods, worth 
 all the hexameters and integral calculus in the world? 
 
 Some six years later, his stay at this school, and that 
 of his elder brother at Harvard College, was suddenly 
 terminated by a letter from their father, announcing that 
 he would no longer contribute to their support, except 
 as he would to "any other of God's creatures." He had 
 worked himself into this condition of religious socialism 
 by long pondering upon the failure of all religions to 
 supply some simple rule of action— ^to be used by the 
 learned or unlearned — instead of a series of varying dog- 
 mas. 
 
 Educated at an English university, his father a ]\Ia- 
 hometan, and his mother a Jewess, his mind, as was indi- 
 cated by marginal notes on books, seemed ever reaching 
 out for some foundation upon which alike could stand 
 the most humane, the most extensive, and the oldest 
 of existing religions. The precept by which he finally 
 enunciated this universal religion was : "All our actions 
 
6 SENATOR DAVID L. YU LEE 
 
 must be for the love of God only ;" which, while theoret- 
 Jcally most sound, led practically tojjew spasmodic 
 ultra examples, but^far oftener, resulted in sophistic self- 
 reasoning, through which he did whatever he wished. 
 
 Thus cast adrift, the lad, probably by the advice of 
 friends, went to a plantation of his father's in Florida, 
 where the overseer felt no hesitation in sheltering and 
 feeding him ; while his clothing was supplied out of the 
 abundance provided for the slaves. His scholastic edu- 
 cation thus abruptly terminated, he found himself equip- 
 ped with good elementary knowledge, a little Latin, no 
 Greek, and some French of that sturdy British kind 
 which pronounced "un garcon," "ong garcong." But he 
 had. partly inherited, partly acquired, a great love of 
 reading, and, as the only form of sport for which he 
 cared was fishing, of which there was little near-by, 
 most of his time was given to books. 
 
 As he grew to manhood he frequently visited St. 
 Augustine, where to the many charming old Spanish 
 families there were added, as residents, those of the mili- 
 tary and legal United States officers, as well as a large 
 number from the Northern states, attracted by the quaint- 
 ness of the ancient city and its salubrious climate. 
 
 Here he soon had a large circle of warm friends, who 
 gave him that sympathy and, in some cases, guidance 
 which he should have received from his father. It was 
 with one of these that he studied law,* and in this pro- 
 fession he succeeded from the first, and would probably, 
 had he adhered to it, have attained quite as high rank 
 as he did in political life, for which he soon abandoned it. 
 His entry into the later arena was, without blare of 
 trumpets, simply as the clerk to the Territorial Legisla- 
 ture, a hotly contested post, to which he was chosen, not 
 so much because of special fitness as because his num- 
 erous friends thought he needed it. Thus, at the outset, 
 was struck what may be deemed the keynote of his char- 
 acter and career, the capacity of binding to liimself those 
 to whom he gave his friendship by the strongest cords 
 of mutual affection. 
 
 *Governor, and also U. S. Judge Robert R. Ried. 
 
SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 7 
 
 While he never spared himself in their cause, they 
 were in turn devoted, and the friends of his friends were 
 his. As a corrollary, his enemies, though few in number, 
 were correspondingly bitter, but, almost without excep- 
 tion, undesirable in any different relation. 
 
 The next phase in this career, was when, in 1841 he 
 ran as the Democratic candidate for the office of Terri- 
 torial Delegate. In this successful canvass he had to 
 cover a vast extent, and address himself to a constitu- 
 ency which varied' from the cultured society of St. 
 Augustine and Tallahassee, to gatherings of cow-boys 
 and woodsmen, so primitive that once, at a barbecue, he 
 won the entire vote of a solid Whig precinct by a lucky 
 bull's-eye shot. 
 
 Unknown himself, a Delegate from a newly-formed, 
 remote and sparsely settled Territory, he appeared in the 
 House of Representatives at a time when it contained, 
 perhaps, more brilliant debaters than ever before in its 
 history ; and he might have remained long without being 
 able to command attention, but for a malignant attack 
 by some personal enemies. 
 
 These individuals petitioned the House to declare 
 him ineligible, on the ground that his father, having re- 
 mained a British citizen, he himself remained one, 
 although residing for twenty years in Florida. 
 
 The Committee on Elections which consisted of six 
 Whigs to three Republicans (Democrats) were inclined 
 to report adversely upon him, and, from his constitu- 
 tional want of punctuality, he had not been in his place 
 when the day for discussing his eligibility was fixed, and 
 was not fully prepared. But in moving a postponement 
 of the case, he showed : that 1:>y the treaty with Spain 
 all inhabitants of Florida, at the time of transfer, were 
 entitled to United States citizenship, that his father had 
 claimed to be a citizen, and the claim had been allowed, 
 both by the Attorney-General of the United States and 
 by the United States District Court ; and while admitting 
 that Congress had the legal right to repudiate the action 
 of the Executive and Judicial departments, he asked if 
 they had a moral right to do so. 
 
8 S E X A T O R D A V I D L. Y U L E E 
 
 Deprecating the bringing of political feeling into such 
 matters he said, if the \Miigs who had a majority on the 
 floor as well as in Committee, sought a victim, he stood 
 ready; for, "I am a Republican." 
 
 That speech settled the matter, not only of his right 
 to a seat, but, also, to be heard, and although in the vari- 
 ous debates, in which he presently shared, he was 
 opposed by such men as Adams, Filmore, Giddings, 
 Everett, Roosevelt, Gushing, etc., they showed plainly 
 that this new comer seemed to them worth answering. 
 
 For a beginner, he showed also remarkable knowledge 
 of parliamentary law; indeed, the only occasions when 
 he showed ignorance of it were when he wished to make 
 some remarks which Avere out of order; and it was gen- 
 erallv too late when his opponents awoke to the fact. 
 
 His first speech upon any topic of general importance 
 was upon the expediency of annulling the extradition 
 clause of the "Ashburton" treaty with England, on ac- 
 count of the latter's refusal to return some escaping 
 slaves, who had been indicted for theft and murder by 
 a Grand Jury of Florida. He showed, by incontestable 
 precedents, that the British government, led by abolition- 
 ists, were in this action flagrantly violating their own 
 laws. 
 
 Thus at once ]\Ir. Yulee indentified himself with the 
 great cjuestion of slavery, around which the destinies of 
 the United States were to whirl, with augmenting vio- 
 lence, for twenty-five years more ; and then fiing upon the 
 Southern States a burden of political and social danger, 
 which will harass them far into distant years. 
 
 It should be admitted, that to the present generation, 
 ignorant of peculiar circumstances, the preservation of 
 slavery by the Southern States must seem as barbarous 
 a survixal, in the nineteenth century, as the infliction, bv 
 England, of the death jjcnalty for forgery of a marriage 
 license; or as the drowning of witches, in the eighteenth, 
 ])y Massachusetts; or as the present absolute control of 
 parents o\-er children, and cajitain over seamen, may 
 seem to pjcmK socialists of the future. 
 
SENATOR DAVID L. YU LEE 9 
 
 The explanation is that after the importation of slaves 
 in large quantities, (enforced by England) it could never 
 be discussed as a purely moral question, but only as 
 merg-ed with that of the opposing economic interests of 
 the Xorth and the South. That it was not, in itself, 
 palpably wrong may be inferred from the fact that it 
 was expressly provided for in Leviticus {25) and Exodus 
 (21) ; was never forbidden by Christ, and specifically ap- 
 proved of by St. Paul ; while it existed under British 
 sanction until 1833. 
 
 Moreover, the Puritans, one of the most moral peo- 
 ples known to history, practised it. regulated it legisla- 
 tively, and their legislature never gave the slaves their 
 freedom, but it was gradually obtained by legal decisions, 
 based on the J3ill of Rights ; a process delayed by the 
 ignorance of the beneficiaries, as may be inferred from 
 the following advertisement appearing in the Continen- 
 tal Journal, March 1781, "Boston : To be sold "^'^ a negro 
 wench 17 years old, ** has no notion of Freedom, *=^= not 
 k]iown to have any failing, but being with child, which 
 is the only cause of her being sold." 
 
 They placed them apart in their schools, churches 
 and cemeteries ; and did the same with all blacks as late 
 as 1835 without protest except, by a few individuals.* 
 
 Slave ships were fitted out by the Massachusetts 
 government, and also by private citizens along the whole 
 New England coast ; while in the Federal Convention of 
 1787, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut 
 voted to extend the time limit for the untaxed importa- 
 tion of slaves — Rhode Island and New York not voting. 
 
 These facts do not prove slavery to be right, but that 
 the South's principles differed chronologically only, not 
 basically, from those of the North ; and the Southerner, 
 beside believing the negroes' immunity to malaria made 
 their labor essential, had them already in too great quan- 
 tity, to consider them from a purely ethical standpoint. 
 Moreover, he honestly thought, with Miss Martineau, a 
 hostile critic, that: "the patience of slave owners prob- 
 *See Harriet Martineau. 
 
10 SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 
 
 ably surpasses the whole Christian world;" and that the 
 deprivation of civic rights was no greater cause for un- 
 happiness to blacks than it was to white women and chil- 
 dren. 
 
 The Quakers of Pennsylvania, being opposed to any 
 use of force, had, from the first, opposed slavery, but 
 made no active propaganda until Lundy started at Balti- 
 more a paper, in which he was later (1829) joined by 
 Garrison, wdio had previously edited one devoted to tem- 
 perance. The latter who, with the zeal of novelty, 
 favored the overthrow^ of slavery, "if not by peaceful 
 means, then by blood," soon parted with the more gentle 
 Quaker and, alone, started upon what long seemed an 
 heroically hopeless crusade. Refused every hall or 
 church, he was finally indebted to a body of infidels, for 
 an opportunity of speaking in Boston, where later (1835) 
 he was dragged through the streets, by a "mob of gentle- 
 men of property and standing." Recruits came to him 
 slowly, and his cause might long have languished, had 
 not its principals been needed to give cohesion to a far 
 mightier impulse. 
 
 The germ of the abolition movement mav be found 
 in a law of Connecticut passed in 1774. This State which 
 had most stringent laws governing slaves, and did not 
 free them until 1844, in the year first named passed a 
 law prohibiting the importation of slaves because it was 
 thought "injurious to the poor" and "inconvenient." We 
 shall see how the industrial war. which started here, took 
 the battle cry of a few zealous philanthropists, and wrote 
 the histor}- of a continent. 
 
 The hardy and industrious men who, to belter their 
 fortunes, had left their eastern homes, traversed the dif- 
 ficult ])asses of the Alleghanies, and settled in that part of 
 Virginia's huge gift to the Union, now known as Ohio, 
 viewed with jeolousy the possible competition of slave 
 labor, which was rapidly occupying the country south 
 of the Ohio. So in 1784 they fought the first battle for 
 free labor bv asking Congress to forbid slavery in all 
 Unite<l Stales Territory, although the great bulk n\ it 
 ha<l been gi\en b\- Southern States. This law was de- 
 
SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 11 
 
 feated, but in 1787 another battle was fought and slav- 
 ery was driven from all that vast region lying north of 
 the Ohio River, or latitude 38 degrees 27 minutes. 
 
 The next conflict, occuring in 1820, was over new 
 territory — the Louisiana purchase — and when peace was 
 concluded, free labor had advanced one hundred and fifty 
 miles, driving the slaves south of parallel of latitude 36 
 deg. 30 min. ; which if prolonged to the Pacific, gave to 
 the victorious white more than two-thirds of all new 
 territory. Against this surrender, thirty-seven Southern 
 members of Congress protested to the last. 
 
 The new treaty did not endure so long as the old, and 
 those few Southerners who thought partial concessions 
 would stop the army of northern expansion, saw their 
 error in 1850. At first the objection of the Northerners 
 had been to the slave rather than slavery, but, in exclud- 
 ing the former, they were obliged to denounce the latter 
 and eventually felt they were waging a holy war. They 
 had seen Texas given over to slave labor, protected by 
 an imaginary line of latitude, and, now that the rich 
 mines of New Mexico and southern California were the 
 prize, they leaped the feeble barrier and, by the Wilmot 
 Proviso, demanded, amid sounding blasts from the 
 legislatures of fifteen Northern States, that all terri- 
 tory, then or in the future, should be surrendered to free 
 labor. Penned in by a foe vastly superior in numbers 
 and resources, with its back to the ocean, the South in 
 desperation reached its hand toward a weapon, forged by 
 a Northern state in the Federal Convention — Secession. 
 
 Whence this feeling of desperation? The answer can 
 be found in a letter from Mr. Yulee (now a Senator*) to 
 Mr. Calhoun, July 1849: "We must have security and 
 fireside peace." He saw that, if the slave states were 
 not allowed to expand, it meant not only complete poli- 
 tical paralysis, but what was far worse, their africaniza- 
 tion. The greater fertility of the negroes, and the reluct- 
 ance of white immigrants to compete with slaves, made 
 this inevitable ; and the non-slave states would gradually 
 repeal all national laws protecting the South from in- 
 
 *He took his seat in the Senate Dec. 1. 1845. 
 
12 S E N A T O R D A \' I D L. Y L' L E E 
 
 cendiary instigation, and eventually must, in common 
 consistency, change the constitution, give the slaves their 
 freedom and electoral dominion over the whites. 
 
 So he entered the contest ardently and. to the Wilmot 
 Proviso, answered by a resolution in the Senate 14 
 February, 1848, that the territories belonged equally to 
 the citizens of all the states and that therefore any citi- 
 zen might trd:e into them his slave property; a doctrine 
 confirmed some ten years later by the Supreme Court, 
 in the famous Dred Scolt decision. And he fought, to 
 the last, against the capture, by free labor, of Southern 
 California, wh.ich dismantled the Missouri Compromise 
 of the arms intended to protect the South. 
 
 In the same letter to Mr. Calhoun, after suggesting, 
 among various plans of action, one for a convention of all 
 of the states, Mr. Yulee said that if an amendment to 
 the Constitution providing the South against aggression, 
 were not adopted he thought it "the best policy to take 
 steps at once for separation." If Secession was ever 
 wise, that was the time ; w hen passions were not so gen- 
 erallv intlamed, and the relative strength not so dis- 
 proportionate as 1860; besides there were in the South- 
 ern States three fourths of the veterans of the ^Mexican 
 war, as a sedative upon a coercixe spirit. 
 
 If his political convictions were sectional, Senator 
 Yulee's personal feelings w^ere not ; for no Southerners 
 mingled more generally in Washington society than his 
 wife and himself. He had married in 1846- a daughter 
 of ex-Governor Wickliffe of Kentucky, a member of 
 Tyler's Cabinet. She was called '"The W'icklifife Madon- 
 na," according to Mrs. Clan's memoirs, on account of her 
 goodness and beaut}-. In corroboration of the latter 
 l)oint, the writer may be j^ardoned for mentioning that a 
 .\'e\v ^'ork gentleman told him he was once listening to 
 an imi)ortant speech in the Senate, when, suddenly, a 
 rapidlv wafted whis])er turned the eyes, and attention, 
 of the dense throng toward a beautiful \v(~»man. who liad 
 
 'It was just Ix'forc his marriage tliat he resumed the 
 name of Yulee. 
 
S E N A T O R D A V I D L. Y U L E E 13 
 
 just entered the Cabinet Gallery. Upon inquiry he was 
 informed that she was the wife of Senator Yulee. 
 
 Shortly after their marriage they had travelled 
 through some of the Northern states, being everywhere 
 received most cordially. They visited Governor Win- 
 throp in his beautiful home near Boston, where they 
 were entertained with that warm courtesy, which does so 
 much to make the whole world kin. In Washington, 
 therefore, they never encountered or cherished those feel- 
 ings* of sectional hostility which so often estranged others. 
 
 During the next ten years, a large part of Senator 
 Yulee's time was given to that valuable work which is 
 called routine, because there is nothing spectacular 
 about it. 
 
 As Chairman of the Naval Committee, which he be- 
 came the year after his entry into the Senate, he labored 
 ceaselessly, being opposed in almost every projected im- 
 provement. 
 
 Although Florida furnished the live oak for wooden 
 ships, he urged, with final success, the building of iron 
 ones, as being more durable, both in and out of commis- 
 sion ; and also favored the building of some by private 
 contract. It was instanced that a particular wooden ship, 
 within three years after completion, had received $75,000 
 more in repairs than its whole original cost. 
 
 The annual attempts to abolish flogging in the navy 
 he strongly resisted, on the ground that the only sub- 
 stitute was imprisonment, which weakened the ship's 
 efficiency and threw more work on the more worthy men. 
 On this account,, the seamen themselves had almost 
 unanimously petitioned to have it retained. The opposi- 
 tion was generally led by Hale of New Hampshire and 
 other abolitionists, who thus showed that they did not 
 limit their humanitarian sympathies to the negro. 
 
 But it was a somewhat morbid declaration of Hale's 
 that he would be willing to wipe out the whole glorious 
 record of our navy, if he could at the same time expunge 
 that of its flogging. Such a feeling could not be shared 
 by any man from the South, of which Harriet Martineau 
 wrote : "What can be expected of little boys brought up 
 to consider physical courage the highest attribute of 
 
14 SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 
 
 manhood?" So it came as a surprise to Southerners when 
 later, these Yankees, driven b}^ the lash of duty, stormed 
 the heights of Lookout Mountain. 
 
 Obstructed in the same quarter, he succeeded in pass- 
 ing a bill, which had been delayed more than forty years : 
 that providing bounty for Decatur and his seventy-nine 
 men who, under the guns of shore batteries, sword in 
 hand, boarded and destroyed a frigate manned by a thou- 
 sand Tripolitans. 
 
 To his explanation and assurance was due, also, the 
 bill authorizing the Grinnell expedition in search of Sir 
 John Franklin. 
 
 Later, as head of the Committee on Post Offices and 
 Post Roads, he conducted its measures with rare patience 
 and judgment, being alwa3'S equipped with a thorough 
 knowledge of the subject. Bending all his energies to- 
 ward securing a weekly mail to Europe, he was the first 
 to propose, in furtherance, payment by sea postage alone, 
 instead of subsidy ; and subsequently he urged cheap 
 ocean postage, in the interest of foreign immigrants. 
 When it was a question of improving the postal service, 
 he often voted alone with the Northern Senators. 
 
 Whatever he undertook he ga\e himself up to with, 
 as Flo}nl — Buchanan's Secretary of W^ar — wrote of him: 
 ''an energy and zeal which commanded usual success," 
 and, as to his thoroughness, Webster once complained 
 that "the Senator from Florida had not read the Act with 
 his usual diligence and acuteness." Upon another occa- 
 sion a Senator seeing a high pile of books and papers 
 upon his desk said: "1 move, ]\Ir. President, that we 
 save time by "giving the Senator from Florida whatever 
 he wants — we know he is going to get it." 
 
 Whether it was to save a thoughtless niidshi])man 
 from being shot, in time of peace, for technical mutiny 
 or to restore a wrongfully discharged paymaster, he 
 worked night and day in\-estigaling. arguing and plead- 
 ing until the wrong was righted. As a result, hundreds 
 of i)eoplc, personally unknown to him, held him in grate- 
 ful affecli(Mi : which may acc^unl for the following inci- 
 dent — otherwise an impenetrable mystery. 
 
SENATOR D A V I D L. Y U L E E 15 
 
 Traveling upon one of the lake steamers, which 
 touched at Toronto, he saw it moving off, as he ap- 
 proached the wharf, after wandering through the town. 
 Excitedly he commenced to run, waving his hat, and 
 calling loudly, amid the derisive shouts and laughter of 
 the assembled crowd, wdiich sank into dumb and foolish 
 amazement, as the boat, making a graceful curve, 
 returned, picked him up, and resumed its way. Seeking 
 the Captain, as soon as possible. Senator Yulee thanked 
 b.im, to which he replied : "There are only two men in 
 the world I would turn my boat back for — one is the 
 President of the United States', and you are the other." 
 fust as he was about to explain, one of the crew gave 
 him some message, and he left, promising to resume 
 later; but in the evening he was taken ill and died during 
 the night. 
 
 Although unyielding upon the slavery question and 
 that of States Rights, Senator Yulee, upon other mat- 
 ters was, by no means a bitter partisan. Upon one oc- 
 casion, when a correspondent named Ritchie had made a 
 libelous attack upon the motives of certain Whig Sena- 
 tors, he moved his exclusion from the Senate galleries. 
 In this he was supported by Senator Calhoun, whereupon 
 Senator Turney accused the Senator from Florida, in 
 common with a few other Senators, of joining with the 
 great South Carolinian in an apparently flisinterested 
 legislative course, in order to further his I'lcsidential 
 aspirations. This brought a hot rejoind.er frr»m the one, 
 and an historic speech from the orli-r; wh'le a fev.- 
 authoritative words from Webster, the magnificent, 
 sealed the fate of the factious opposition. 
 
 To this natural disposition to look at the other side 
 of the shield, were added, as the greav crisis oi 1860 ap- 
 proached, other reasons for an increasnig belief that se- 
 cession might not, after all, i^2 necessai v^ Not only did 
 his numerous warm friends at the .V<)rth assure liim, con- 
 stantly, that a violent abolition program.jne would ne\er 
 be permitted, but he had ilso formeri sanguine hoj-es for 
 an economic development cf the South, and especially 
 of his own idolized State, which, hy inducing wliite iir,- 
 
16 SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 
 
 migration, would prevent that "Africanization" which 
 was the great danger. 
 
 While Florida was still mostly a vast wilderness, he 
 had drawn up an "Internal Improvement xA.ct" which, 
 utilizing United States grants of land, as a basis of credit, 
 built an extensive system of railroads through trackless 
 forests, where the locomotives' clarion was the first sum- 
 mons to the beasts of the field, for a surrender of their 
 territory, to those forces of civilization which are now 
 in occupation. 
 
 One portion of this system crossed the peninsula from 
 the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic,* and it w^as thought 
 that the commerce between Aew^ York and the Missis- 
 sippi Valley would seek this route to avoid the danger 
 and delay of a voyage around the capes of Florida. The 
 fast steamers supported by this trade would carry fruits 
 and vegetables from Florida and Georgia, and their 
 growth would draw immigrants from the white market- 
 gardeners of the North. In the autumn of 1860, after 
 years of repeated failure, and the pledging of his own 
 small private fortune, the road was just completed, 
 special steamers had been built, contracts for the mail 
 between New York ^nd New Orleans granted, and at 
 the Atlantic terminus, where live years before had been 
 the abandoned indigo plantation of the Countess of 
 Egmont, was a thriving commercial town. A few months 
 passed ; the town was deserted. Northern mail was 
 smuggled through military lines, and the steamers, in- 
 tended to carry the first fruits of the South, in friendly 
 exchange for the harmlessly adulterated biscuit of the 
 North, were landing hostile troops. 
 
 Another reason for hope with Senator Yulee was his 
 confidence that the West would not join with the East in 
 aggressive abolition legislation. Iiecause of this, and 
 also of personal friendship, he warndy es])Oused the poli- 
 tical leadership of Stephen A. Douglass, and had at the 
 convention of '56 effected an agreement with the leaders 
 of certain delegations, which would ha\'e nominated him, 
 but there was an accidental delaA- in niakine' this known, 
 
 *The I'lorida Ixailmad, incorijorateci Jan., 1853. 
 
SENATOR DAVID L. YUIvEE 17 
 
 and Douglass' telegram of withdrawal greeted them as 
 they entered the hall. 
 
 Again, when the Charleston Convention of 1860 met, 
 he was in favor of Douglass, was averse to the with- 
 drawal of the Southern delegations, and advised in a pub- 
 lished letter, that Florida should send no delegation to 
 Richmond, but stand ready to indorse the action of the 
 Baltimore convention — which was the adjourned Charles- 
 ton one. This brought him disfavor from his political 
 friends. But when Douglass repudiated the right of 
 secession, Senator Yulee was "surprised and grieved" 
 and could no longer support him. 
 
 Two incidents will well illustrate Senator Yulee's 
 frame of mind at this period. 
 
 His elder brother having become an officer of the 
 crack "Washington Rifles" remarked to him, that the 
 South might soon need troops ; which called forth an 
 angry rebuke from the younger, who said it was "non- 
 sence" and that the other "ought to know better." 
 
 Then again, after the election of Lincoln, the writer, 
 whose childish curiosity had been excited by the an- 
 nouncement of two Floridian callers: "Captain Byrd 
 and Major Partridge" heard, with the indignation 
 natural to the officer of a boys' company, his own father 
 counselling "moderation" and "patience" to men whose 
 very names already suggested congenital timidity. This 
 too, when, a few days before, his mother had a caller 
 (Lord Lyons) who drank tea, instead of Madeira or 
 whiskey ! 
 
 When Governor Wickliffe, ex-President Tyler and 
 other friends came on in advance of the Peace Congress, 
 Senator Yulee was often in earnest conference with them 
 at the old National Hotel and elsewhere. 
 
 But the time had come when the words of any man 
 or set of men on either side were as futile as those ad- 
 dressed by Canute to the rising ocean, and blown back in 
 his face by the gathering winds of heaven. 
 
 The people of the upper class at the North still re- 
 mained tolerant, even friendly toward Southerners, but 
 those of the middle— the backbone of any community- 
 had become convinced that the hand of the Lord must be 
 
18 SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 
 
 raised against the sinful race, and were quite ready to 
 be that hand. 
 
 While the Puritan was no longer so austere as in the 
 days of Hudibras, and did not "blaspheme custard 
 through the nose," making it, on the contrary, when 
 moulded into pies, a staple of diet, yet he never could 
 feel sympathetic toward the easy going Southerner, 
 wdiom he regarded as "gluttonous and a wine-bibber," 
 given over to a love of horses, w^omen and a mediaeval 
 code of honor. 
 
 So when he saw the injustice and atrocity, so often 
 exhibited in the recapture of slaves, forgetting that it was 
 mostly from the cruel masters that slaves were apt to 
 flee, and not knowing that the negro-trader, so much in 
 evidence, was despised at the South, he set down all 
 Southerners as heedlessly inhuman ; which was as un- 
 just as if, because of the cruelty of some parent to a 
 child, wdiich he could see in any newspaper, he should 
 conclude that all parents, except himself, were cruel. 
 
 And the leaders of the abolition movement did not 
 conceal these opinions or their intention to punish ; for 
 they were men of such clear vision, that, had they been 
 present when Christ suggested the casting of stones upon 
 the sinful woman, they would speedily have raised over 
 her a lithic pile, wdiich should at the same time be a warn- 
 ing to the depraved, and a monument to their own 
 rectitude. The South being "a mechant badger," "de- 
 fended itself when attacked" and its language was, prob- 
 ably, much more violent. 
 
 All this, however was but the tumult of the surface, 
 and had little to do with the deep, silent Hood of World- 
 Justice, which was, inevitably, to submerge the South, 
 regardless of what local devastation it wrought, or who 
 first built upon the shifting sand. 
 
 Slavery was unjust — wrong — for the good of the 
 world and the country, at large, it was destined to perish, 
 although the South might sufifer grievously. I'ut far 
 better that it sh(Hild do so in a gallant fight of five mil- 
 lion against eighteen million whites, bringing to the 
 front on both sides those willing to risk their lives for 
 the right, than, in a decade, or more, of rancor, incendiary 
 
SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 19 
 
 incitement and remodeling of tlie Constitution for par- 
 tisan purposes. 
 
 According- to ordinary human lights the South could 
 not well have acted differently at this crisis, except that 
 some moral advantage would, perhaps, have been gained 
 by refraining from the attack on Fort Sumpter. 
 
 Those who said: "Wait in the Union for some overt 
 act against your rights," were counseling the question- 
 able strategy of Artemus AVard when he "firmly planted 
 his nose between the teeth of his adversary." 
 
 "But" they say, "Lincoln was a good man" — so was 
 Garrison, so, even was John Brown; referring to whose 
 raid, Beecher said : "That John Baptist work, before 
 the last (Lincoln) election, prepared the way and we are 
 going forward" — the pages of history are blotted every- 
 where with the stern cruelty of good men, in their efforts 
 to c^'sh the sin out of those they believe to be sinners. 
 
 Great as was Lincoln's personality and intellect, he 
 was not chosen leader on that account, but because he 
 was the incarnation of the soul of his party and had first 
 enunciated its fundamental creed — that a thing cannot be 
 wrong on one side of a surveyor's line and right on the 
 other when he said: "I believe this government cannot 
 endure permanently half slave and half free." Moreover, 
 with his strong sense of justice he saw, equally, that, 
 when the slaves were freemen, they could not remain de- 
 prived of votes, and he therefore announced the corollary 
 of the greater principle: 'T embrace with pleasure this 
 opportunity of declaring my disapprobation of that clause 
 of the Constitution which denies to a portion of the col- 
 ored people the right of suffrage."* 
 
 Such was the goal upon which his far-seeing gaze was 
 fixed; and it must be remembered that, though a man of 
 gentle ways, Lincoln, in his psychological and political 
 progress took many cautious, but not one backward step. 
 
 Thus the Southern people, if they remained in the 
 Union, had the prospect, either of having themselves 
 placed, by constitutional methods, in subjection to their 
 
 ♦Speech reported in the Illinois State Journal (a leading 
 Republican organ) Sept. 16, 1856. 
 
20 SENATOR DAVID L. YU LEE 
 
 former slaves, or that other alternative, so wisely ex- 
 pressed by Lincoln in his Cooper Institute Lecture: 
 "How much would you gain by forcing- the sentiment 
 which created it, (The Republican Party) out of the 
 peaceful channel of the ballot-box. into some other chan- 
 nel? \\niat would that other channel probably be? 
 \\'ould the number of John Browns be lessened or en- 
 larged by the operation?" So they overwhelmingly de- 
 cided to exercise what they believed to be a constitu- 
 tional right, and withdraw from a distracted Union, in 
 which the first battle of interstate warfare had already 
 been fought at Harper's Ferry. 
 
 Senator Yulee, when he found that the victorious 
 Republicans would admit of no fresh guarantees for the 
 future, fully approved of the secession, for which Florida 
 had assembled a convention ; especially as he thought 
 the onlv hope for a peaceful issue, "as the North is con- 
 solidating upon a plan of force," lay "in forming a South- 
 ern Confederacy and army" in order "to bring them (the 
 Northerners) to a sense of the gravity of the crisis." In 
 furtherance of this he advised the taking immediate pos- 
 session of all Florida forts and arsenals. This was being 
 done all over the seceding states and had a two-fold rea- 
 son. An incidental one was that it was feared insur- 
 rectionary slaves might get hold of the arms and ammu- 
 nition ; as is shown by the reports of Federal officers in 
 the United States Official Record. The main reason, of 
 course, was that they did not wish to leave such formi- 
 dable footholds for possible invaders. This danger had 
 been forseen by Elbridge Gerry (of Massachusetts) in 
 the Constitutional Convention of '87, who objected to the 
 clause, giving the General Government exclusive juris- 
 diction over ])laces purchased by it for the erection of 
 forts," etc. ; "that the strongholds proposed would be a 
 means of aweing the state into an undue obedience to the 
 General (^iOvernmcnt,"so on motion of Mr. King (Mass.) : 
 "by the C(,Misent f)f the Legi.'iaturc of the state" was 
 a.lde.l.* 
 
 'Madison rapi-rs. Kllidt. 
 
SENATOR DAVID L. YU LEE 21 
 
 South Carolina had already sent commissioners to 
 Washing-ton saying she would resume, by the law of 
 eminent domain, possession of such property, and repay 
 the government its expenditures thereon, (although the 
 South through the tariff, had paid more than its share of 
 the purchasing money). This was refused by Holt, Act- 
 ing Secretary of War. on the ground that absolute juris- 
 diction once given could not be revoked. As if Austria, 
 which purchased the site of its Embassy at Washington, 
 and now exercises Absolute Jurisdiction over it, could 
 still do so if diplomatic relations were severed. With 
 some reason, too, the Southern States, who had notice of 
 the hostile utterances and preparations in certain North- 
 ern States, might claim to use their forts, under that 
 clause of the Constitution which forbids a State "to en- 
 gage in War unless actually invaded or in such immedi- 
 ate danger as will not admit of delay." (The emphasis is 
 the writer's). This matter was to assume a portentous 
 significance as to Senator Yulee, at the close of hostilities. 
 
 The simultaneous action of those states which meant 
 to secede was advised by a meeting of their Senators, 
 which, although private, was not secret, being discussed 
 generally in and out of the lobbies of Congress. Of this 
 meeting Senator Yulee wrote to a correspondent that "it 
 is thought by remaining here until 4th March we can 
 keep the hands of Mr. Buchanan tied" as to force bills, 
 etc. (They would also put the Republican Senators on 
 the horns of a dilemma as to the right of a State to 
 secede.) But he neither approved of such action nor 
 conformed to it, for after the telegraph announced 
 Florida's secession (10 January, '61), he took no part in 
 the Senate's proceedings, formally withdrawing from that 
 body, as soon as he received official notification from the 
 convention. (21st January.) 
 
 Although "in his haste" he had angrily written that 
 he should "give the enemy a shot before retiring," when 
 the time actually came, his speech was only one of deep 
 sorrow that his state must withdraw, being "not willing 
 to disturb the peace of her associates by an inflamed and 
 protracted struggle within the Union." "The people of 
 Florida," said he, "will ever preserve a grateful memory 
 
22 SENATOR D A \' I D L. Y U L E E 
 
 of past connection with this Government and a just pi-i(U' 
 in the continued development of American society. They 
 will also remember that, although, to their regret, a ma- 
 jority of the people of the StateSin the Xorthern por- 
 tion of the Union, have seen their duty lie in a path fatal 
 to Southern Society, they have had the sympathies of a 
 large arrav of noble spirits, in those ^ates. whose sense 
 of justice and whose brave efforts to uphold the right 
 have not been less appreciated because unsuccessful. 
 Acknowledging, Mr. President, with grateful emotions 
 my obligations for the many courtesies I have enjoyed m 
 my intercourse with the gentlemen of this body, and with 
 most cordial good wishes for their personal welfare, I 
 retire from their midst, in willing loyalty to the man- 
 date of mySlate, with full approval of her act." 
 
 Of this scene Mrs. Clay, an eye' witness, writes in her 
 Memoirs: "As one by one Senators Yulee, Mallory, Clay, 
 and Jeft'erson Davis rose, the emotion of their brother 
 5cnators and of us in the galleries increased, women grew 
 hysterical and waved their handkerchiefs ** men wept 
 and embraced each other mournfully, *'•'* scarcely a mem- 
 ber of that Senatorial l^ody but was pale with the terrible 
 significance of the hour." 
 
 His memoranda show that Senator Yulee had in 
 view several dift'erent solutions of the country's troubles : 
 the most desired being that the North, seeing the South's 
 united front, should give the necessary constitutional 
 guarantees 'and the Union be restored ; another was that 
 the old Union and new Confederacy should form a de- 
 fensive and commercial League, in which eventually, the 
 \\'est mighl ])ossibly form a third jjolitical entity; ami 
 still another was that the West should join the South i>u 
 account of their common interest in the M ississi])])! 
 l,>ivfr — never i)erceiving that this would jirove a motive 
 for war instead of alliance. All these dreams, however, 
 were scattered at the cannon's mouth, and tliere was 
 nothing for onciwho ilnniglit his tirst allegiance due to 
 the State, to do. l)ut ]>erlorm his duty as she might bid 
 him. 
 
 \\v had. months before Lincoln's election, addressed 
 a public letter to his ])olitical friends announcing his 
 
SENATOR DAVID L. Y U L E E 22> 
 
 intention to retire from public life and devote himself 
 to the development of the State. Accordingly he took 
 no part in the new government, although cordially ap- 
 proving of it, as its principal ofificers were warm per- 
 sonal friends, and he had besides a high opinion of Presi- 
 dent Davis' military training as a qualification for leader- 
 ship at such a junction. It was this quality, however, 
 which made him refuse, at first. Senator Yulee's request 
 for the appointment of a certain Florida civilian to a 
 generalship, in explaining which he said, "It is not every 
 man who can make a good general," the truth of the 
 axiom being proved later by giving the rank desired ; for 
 the officer, while brave, was severely criticised for the 
 handling of his troops. 
 
 At the beginning of the war. Senator Yulee and his 
 family resided at Fernandina on the Atlantic coast, but 
 his wife and children were subsequently sent for safety to 
 a sugar plantation called Homosassa (Indian — Little 
 Pepperj on a small river flowing into the Gulf of ^Mexico. 
 Thither he also went, when Fernandina was captured by 
 the Federals, who shelled the train in which he was 
 escaping and killed a man at his side. 
 
 For nearly two years now his life was the tranquil 
 one of a Southern planter* except for an occasional trip 
 to Gainesville, a drive of eighty miles, where were located 
 the offices of the "Florida Railroad," of which he was 
 president 
 
 It was upon one of these trips that the first of several 
 attempts to capture him was made; one which would 
 have been successful but for what his wife regarded as a 
 palpable interference of Providence. A small expedition 
 from a gunboat led by a native spy, lay in ambush to 
 seize him as he passed a certain lonely spot. But they 
 were looking for a large carriage drawn by a pair of 
 magnificent Kentucky bays, one of which having been 
 taken suddenly ill. a barouche and pair of mules was sub- 
 stituted, so that the intended victim was allowed to pass 
 unmolested. For some time a couple of companies of 
 infantry were, at Senator Yulee's expense, kept on the 
 river to sfuard against the destruction of the sugar mill. 
 
24 S E X A T O R D A V I D L. Y U L E E 
 
 but they were soon withdrawn, leaving nothing to tell 
 of a great war, except the news brought by the post, 
 which toiled slowly in. twice a week. 
 
 An overseer, a German gardner, and a Scotch ac- 
 countant, were the only other whites within twenty miles 
 and the Scolchman. dying shortly after the dismissal of 
 the German, the family would be often, during the ab- 
 sence of the overseer, left entirely alone with the slaves. 
 Yet on neither side was this thought extraordinary; for 
 there was complete and affectionate confidence between 
 them. Senator Yulee was always solicitous as to the 
 happiness of those dependent upon him. and certain ex- 
 ceptional practices as to slavery, were in themselves a 
 condemnation of it; for he would never sell a slave: nor 
 buv one. if it separated members of a family; which rule, 
 upon one occasion brought, from the husband of a 
 shrewish wife the remonstrance : "Massa, please don't put 
 yoself out 'bout dat." Many of them could read, especi- 
 ally among those who had come fdelightedly) as part 
 of his wife's dower}-, and although they knew the causes 
 of the war, their sympathies seemed entirely with their 
 master and mistress. 
 
 When scarlet fever broke out on the plantation, ]\Irs. 
 Yulee had all the healthy children brought down the river 
 to her own residence, in one wing of which most were 
 lodged, the others going into the house-servants' quar- 
 ters. Then, leaving her own children, whom she there- 
 after only saw in boats, across intervening water, she 
 went to the plantation to help in the nursing; as her 
 father and mother had done, before her. in the great 
 cholera epidemic of Kentucky. 
 
 Health was restored, the placid life resumed, the 
 Yulee children studying under a bcdovcd tutor, whom 
 tKx# 'X all the family accompanied, every Sunday, as he was 
 *^fij{J^'9J^l/^.hornc in a five-oared gig, rowed by sturdy uumi. singing, 
 with rythmic swing, (juaint negro melodies. There, a 
 thousand miles from his Pennsylvania lumie, this dear 
 clergyman ])reached scholarly sermons to a congregation 
 all of whom were reverential, and many of whom remain- 
 ed awake. 
 
vS E N A T O R D A V I D L. Y (J L E E 25 
 
 At the end of about two years, the whole family went 
 off on a visit to Captain Taylor, a "neighbor" some fifty 
 miles distant, and were enjoying to the full, a hospitality 
 which was famous, when, at daylight one morning two 
 of the Homosassa people appeared and told a startling 
 tale. 
 
 The servants at the residence, alarmed by the bark- 
 ing of an English sheep-dog, named "Sesech," saw com- 
 ing through the gloom of the night a large boat rowed 
 with muffled oars. Snatching a few belongings, and 
 taking a boat from another part of the island, they 
 hurried up to the plantation, three miles distant, gave 
 the alarm, the cooper — a might)^ shot and sage — took 
 command, torches flared through the darkness, wonder- 
 ing mules and oxen were geared into dozens of sugar- 
 cane wagons, bedding, children, cooking utensils and odd 
 treasures heaped in confusedly, and, as the dawn came, 
 a long line, headed, with bad strategy, by the armed men, 
 marched rapidly away from the strangers, known to be 
 bearing them freedom, toward a loved and trusted mas- 
 ter. When at a safe distance they bivouacked in the open 
 pine woods and sent a report of the happenings. 
 
 Upon the second day afterward four cautious scouts, 
 perceiving everything to be quiet, proceeded to the empty 
 residence, and finding a heavy box similar to the one used 
 for silver — but really containing books— they put it, 
 and also a demijohn of highly prized Madeira, into their 
 boat and started upon their return. A navy launch ap- 
 peared suddenly, from a branch river, and, for a time, 
 seemed to be overtaking them; but, shouting: "We ain't 
 chillun," and unmindful of the bullets, which splintered 
 the boat and churned the water about them, they bent 
 to their oars, finally ending the unequal contest by escap- 
 ing into a narrow creek. 
 
 The next morning a high column of smoke announced 
 the destruction of the house and the continued presence 
 of the enemy — for, as of old, over the march of the Lord's 
 appointed army, there constantly hovered "a cloud of 
 smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night." The fine 
 library, collected by Senator Yulee's father, and himself, 
 containing some exceedingly rare books, was the only 
 
26 SExNATOR DAVID L. YU LEE 
 
 irreparable loss, to be borne, and every one was soon 
 fairly comfortable in new quarters on a cotton plantation 
 near Archer. 
 
 The writer hopes he may be pardoned for narrating, 
 at some length, an incident which he deems so honorable 
 to his father; and feels bound in fairness to add a fact 
 not so favorable to the system of slavery, which is that 
 another planter offered to buy, en bloc, at a high figure 
 in cotton, these friends of Senator Yulee, who happened 
 to be his slaves. 
 
 Soon after this aft'air, a conflict arose between the 
 Confederate Government and Senator Yulee, which, 
 through, a misunderstanding on his part, led to an 
 estrangement between President Davis and himself. The 
 local militar_y authorities wished, for general strategic 
 purposes, to tear up the iron of the Florida Railroad and 
 transfer it to Georgia, which, as President, as well as in 
 loyalty to those Northern friends who were the principal 
 owners, and for the protection of East Florida, he con- 
 tested-inch by inch, with all the indefatigable tenacity, 
 for which he was noted. The matter was referred to the 
 Secretary of War, Seddon, and the President, both of 
 whom, as the records now show, gave every consideration 
 to their friend, short of neglect of duty to the country 
 as a whole ; but Senator Yulee never knew this ; on the 
 contrary, being falsely informed, toward the close of the 
 war, that a warrant was out for his arrest, which of 
 course must be sanctioned by the President. 
 
 The two had long served in the Senate together, were 
 warm personal friends, and each had, confidently, looked 
 for the support of the other, in any measure he had 
 much at heart. It is rare that great intimacy can exist 
 without occasions of friction, and they had theirs, but 
 the sun did not go down upon them. For instance: 
 Senator Davis having one day made, as Secretary of 
 War. under Pierce, some rather em])hatic strictures, upon 
 a certain policv as to Mililai'v l\eser\ati<)ns. and v^cnator 
 Yulee having shown some feeling about il, he i)r()mptl_v 
 wrote, explaining that he had not known the lalicr was 
 interested in the matter, and closed his letter as follows: 
 
SENATOR DAVID L. YU LEE 27 
 
 "You are too near to me by many ties, and your kind- 
 ness has been too often shown to permit me to leave you 
 for an hour in doubt as to the affectionate regard with 
 wdiich I am as ever, 
 
 Your friend, 
 
 Jefferson Davis." 
 
 Upon another occasion he wrote, chaffingly, to Sena- 
 tor Yulee, who had. evidently, acted upon misinforma- 
 tion : "Those friends of yours who were murdered quite 
 entirely, by the removal of the troops from Fort Capron, 
 took their death in anticipation, as I find the troops have 
 not been removed." 
 
 About one year before the war a friendly contest took 
 place between them with an important bearing upon his- 
 torical psychology. 
 
 Col. Joseph E. Johnston's appointment, as Quarter- 
 master-General, was being urged by Senator Yulee, 
 partly on account of his own friendship, but much more, 
 it is to be feared, by reason of the devoted intimacy be- 
 tween his wife and Mrs. Johnston, who had been Miss 
 McLane of Maryland. On the other hand, Senator 
 Davis, a graduate of West Point, distinguished in the 
 Mexican War and an ex-Secretary of AVar. advocated 
 the selection of Col. Robert E. Eee. whose military 
 reputation was fully equal to that of his class-mate and 
 competitor. The choice fell upon Johnston, and thus was 
 engendered, toward him, that disinclination, on the part 
 of the future Confederate President, which was after- 
 w^ards to have such momentous results. Upon these 
 results it would, be interesting, though futile, to speculate. 
 Unquestionably it hastened the fall of the Confederacy, 
 when, in '64, Johnston was replaced, after having, for 
 months, held Sherman's greatly superior army down to 
 an average advance of one mile a day, and inflicted upon 
 it a loss of 50,000 against his own of only 10,000. 
 
 But, as counterbalancing that, we must count the 
 fact that, in the beginning of the war, it was this same 
 feeling which led to Johnston's being replaced in the 
 command of the army of Virginia by Lee, whom Hen- 
 
28 SENATOR DAVID L. YU LEE 
 
 derson, the distinguished Enghsh military critic, has de- 
 clared to be: "The greatest English-speaking general 
 since the days of Marlborough." 
 
 None of these things, had, however, left any mark 
 upon the relations of the two Senators, and we must set 
 down the persistent and determined action by the Gov- 
 ernment, in the railroad matter to a sense of duty and 
 necessary dependence upon the advice of subordinates. 
 Gossip spread exaggerated reports of the strained rela- 
 tions, and finally, in the Spring of '64, some northern 
 papers announced that Senator Yulee was in favor of re- 
 construction. As an answer to this, the Florida and other 
 Southern papers published a letter, written the previous 
 autumn, in reply to a request, from citizens of both 
 political parties, that he should go to the Confederate 
 Congress. His loyal and emphatic approval of support- 
 ing the Government, in its trying hours, and declaration 
 that there should be no peace, "until the Sovereignty of 
 the Confederate States is allowed," settled the matter in 
 the minds of Southerners. 
 
 However, on 17th August, '64, the Federal General 
 Hatch wrote to headquarters that hearing, from deserters 
 "that Mr. Yulee was hostile to Davis and might be in- 
 duced to head a movement for reconstruction" he had 
 thought an expedition to attempt his capture "worth 
 trying." That same day the expedition, of cavalry and 
 artillery, having missed capturing Senator Yulee, at 
 Gainesville, by scarcely an hour, was completely annihila- 
 ted by General Dickinson. 
 
 Of a sanguine nature. Senator Yulee hoped for suc- 
 cess even after Hood, unheeding Napoleon's failure in a 
 similar manoeuvre, had thrown his army in the rear of 
 Sherman, who imitated the march of the allies upon 
 Paris, in 1814, by tearing out the heart of Georgia. It 
 was alxnU this time, that, in answer to the request of 
 the writer, who had seen a little fighting, as a volunteer 
 in a cavalry company, he be allowed to join permanently, 
 Senator Yulee said: "Tlic time will come. I suppose, 
 when I must let you go, but," he added sadly, 'T hope I 
 will still count for enough to get you a better place than 
 that." 
 
SENATOR DAVID L. YU LEE 29 
 
 When Grant completed his great sum in arithmetic 
 at Appomattox, and the Confederacy vanished into his- 
 tory, the Governor of Florida appointed Senator Yulee 
 one of a Commission to go on to Washington and confer 
 with the President, as to Florida's re-establishment in 
 the Union. While at Tallahassee he expressed himself 
 both to the Governor and to Gen. McCook, the Com- 
 mandant, as being in favor of a frank and loyal accep- 
 tance of the results of the war. The Commission, how- 
 ever, was not allowed to proceed, but, on the contrary, 
 about the middle of Alay, 1865, Senator Yulee was arrest- 
 ed at Gainesville, and sent to Jacksonville. He found in 
 command there. Gen. Vodges, who being an officer of 
 the regular army, treated him most considerately and al- 
 lowed him to go about the city on parole, until counter 
 manded from Washington, and ordered to send his pris- 
 oner under guard, to Fort Pulaski, near Savannah. 
 
 Several nights before his arrest, there had arrived at 
 Cottonwood, Senator Yulee's plantation, a small caval- 
 cade, which proved to consist of some officers belonging 
 to the escort of the Confederate President, in his 
 attempted escape, but who had been diverted, in Georgia, 
 with the double purpose of making the party less con- 
 spicuous, and puzzling the pursuers. This section in- 
 tended to reach the south coast of Florida, and cross over 
 in small open boats to Nassau, into British protection — as 
 did later Secretary of War Benjamin. They were cor- 
 dially welcomed, but were advised by their host to seek 
 the nearest Federal command, and give their parole, 
 under the generous terms accorded by Generals Grant 
 and Sherman. This advice they took, leaving at Cotton- 
 wood certain horses and personal effects which were to 
 be forwarded, later, to their homes in Louisiana. Amongst 
 these were two boxes, which Mrs. Yulee, after her hus- 
 band's arrest, learned from an aide to Davis, Col. Wood, 
 (also escaping to Nassau) contained private papers and 
 effects, belonging to the Confederate President. 
 
 L'pon this information she confined the task of secret- 
 ing them to the writer, who, delightedly, performed it, 
 one faithful companion assisting, by burying them, at 
 midnight, in the cow stable, where, a few hours later, no 
 
30 SENATOR DAVID L. YU LEE 
 
 trace of the work could be seen. Being under arrest 
 himself, Senator Yulee determined to send his family to 
 Gov. Wickliffe in Kentucky, and therefore he directed 
 these boxes, when he learned the nature of their con- 
 tents, to be sent to a friend, whose well known Union 
 sentiments would, it was thought, make their care, until 
 forwarded to Louisiana, less difficult. 
 
 A negro coachman having informed the Federal 
 authorities of the existence of the boxes, a detachment of 
 "Colored Troops" was sent to Cottonwood, commanded 
 by an officer named Bryant, who in his report says: * * 
 ''I met Mrs. Yulee. claimed and received the hospitality 
 of the house, and ascertained * * that the trunk and 
 chest had been removed. I asked her to state frankly 
 where I might find them. After a moment's reflection she 
 said they were the private effects of Mr. Davis and she 
 had received them that she might deliver them to Airs. 
 Davis, who was an esteemed friend. That Air. Yulee 
 had given them in charge to Air. Aleader * * to de- 
 liver to Air. Williams * * who had no suspicion of 
 the nature of the property. * * I found the property 
 in a store-room adjoining the house, not even locked. 
 * * I also have to deliver a French musket, a most 
 murderous weapon, which I received from Airs. Yulee, 
 as the private ]:)roperty of J. Davis." 
 
 Upon General Vodges' suggestion Senator Yulee 
 made a statement as to this matter, in which he said, 
 that w hen he learned the boxes were the property of Air. 
 Davis, he had continued to retain them because Air. Davis 
 had been a warm personal friend whose "many noble 
 qualities" he admired, and also because there had been 
 some estrangement between them, and for him to deliver 
 these private efifects would have the appearance, both of 
 petty ill-nature and an effort to curry fax'or with his 
 captors. 
 
 This belief in the antagouism of his former friend 
 he carried to his dealli bed. and it is most pathetic to the 
 writer, now, when l)oth arc dead, to hnd, in the dry offi- 
 cial reports, how baseless the impression was. ami further 
 that among the articU's mentioned by the departmental 
 
SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 31 
 
 commander, as found in these very boxes, containing 
 mostly private reports from high functionaries, were "a 
 portrait of Jetl'erson Davis and wife, one of General Lee, 
 and a letter of condolence from D. L. Yulee."* 
 
 At Fort Pulaski the officers, having the discretion not 
 to ask for instructions too detailed, treated their prisoners 
 most kindly, and when Senator Yulee's family, on their 
 way North were allowed to visit him, the children, who 
 had already been mystified by seeing "Yankee Generals" 
 give up their quarters, on a crowded transport, to a rebel 
 lady, were dumbfounded, when they saw their father 
 rushing past the sentinel, over the moat-bridge, to meet 
 them, instead of being in a dungeon, loaded down with 
 chains. 
 
 Mrs. Yulee did not go to her father's, but to the coun- 
 try place of her brother-in-law. Judge Merrick in Mary- 
 land, in order to be near AA^ashington, which was now 
 the center of her hopes — and fears ; for sinister rumors 
 were beginning to circulate. Her father. Governor 
 \A'icklifife, came on, saw the Attorney-General, who was 
 a personal friend, and other influential people saw other 
 members of the Cabinet and President Johnson, all only 
 to confirm the rumor that a most determined effort was 
 being made to have her husband tried by court-martial 
 and executed as had been done with the Suratts. 
 
 Among the officials at Washington was one from 
 whom Senator Yulee had much right to expect such aid 
 as he could give ; one for whom his eft'orts had obtained 
 the Post Master Generalship under Buchanan, and who 
 having been the husband of Mrs. Yulee's much loved 
 sister, had, with her, before her death, enjoyed, for 
 months at a time, the affectionate hospitality which 
 Southerners extend to all those who are of their family, 
 by blood or marriage — yet it was this man, Judge Advo- 
 cate General Holt, wdio was, with unrelenting ferocity, 
 seeking to put him to an ignominious death. 
 
 Upon what ground did he select this one out of a 
 score of others to try by court-martial, months after peace 
 had been declared? He said it was because he had 
 
 *This had been written a long time previous. 
 
32 SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 
 
 documentary proof that Senator Yulee had tried to learn 
 what stores and armament were in the Pensacola Forts, 
 and also had advised the prompt seizure of those forts, 
 by the State. (Which was expected to have seceded 
 before the letter reached its recipient, as proved to be the 
 case.) Yet the official records show that he had at that 
 very time dozens of similar documents in regard to other 
 public men. The charge as to asking about armament, 
 etc., was peculiarly frivolous, as the demand had been a 
 formal one, signed by both Florida Senators, and had 
 been answered by Holt himself, as Acting Secretary of 
 War, without the slightest intimation that he judged it 
 treasonable. 
 
 It was his own nature, a compound of petty virtues 
 and crawling vices, which, prompted by diseased vanity, 
 sought to bite the hand that had aided him, and shine, in 
 artificial light, as a spurious Brutus. He had been de- 
 graded, by the noble-minded Lincoln from his cabinet 
 place, and put into the one which he now held, where in 
 evervthins:, except abilitv, he resembled the notorious 
 Fouche of whom, when it was said he had great contempt 
 for human nature. Talleyrand remarked: "He has studied 
 himself very carefully." 
 
 Unfortunately he had to aid him in exciting passion 
 against Senator Yulee, the fact that the latter in a letter, 
 speaking of his retirement from the Senate, said he would 
 give the "enemy a shot" (which he did not do) "and that 
 I am willing to be their masters but not their brothers." 
 While the loss of political mastery was of course the 
 reason for secession, yet the sweeping expression as to 
 brotherhood was not true, and was evidently written in 
 a moment when threats of coercion had angered him. 
 He signed it "Yours in haste," and to the writer there is 
 internal evidence of this hastiness in the palpably faulty 
 grammatical construction ; such as he has not found else- 
 where, in any of his father's writings. 
 
 Of the Cabinet, Stanton had been Senator Yulec's 
 friend and Seward had always been friendly, but now 
 the former gave no sign of opposition to his subordinate's 
 designs, and the latter was said to be open in hostility ; 
 
SENATOR DA V I D L. Y U L E E 33 
 
 but this is most doubtful. Months passed and even Gov. 
 Wickliffe, noted for his iron nerves, was grave with 
 apprehension, when one day a high official drew him 
 apart and gave him a message from President Johnson : 
 "Tell Mrs. Yulee." he said "that not one hair of her hus- 
 band's head shall be touched — but for me to do anything 
 now in his behalf, while passions remain excited, would 
 only injure his cause." 
 
 This assurance calmed the acuteness of anxiety, but 
 when a year passed and, of all the prisoners, only the 
 Confederate President. Senator Clay, and Senator Yulee 
 remained, hope deferred made the heart sick. Then it 
 was suggested from Washington that a letter from Gen- 
 eral Grant would be of benefit, and General Joseph E. 
 Johnston wrote asking him to intervene. 
 
 Wires flashed, and, magically, the prison doors were 
 thrown open ; as were the hearts of Senator Yulee and 
 his family, for the great and simple soldier, who had 
 enemies only in time of war.* 
 
 ^^'hen ex-President Grant was ending his triumphal 
 progress around the world, by a still more triumphal one 
 through the South, he was asked to come to Fernandina. 
 the town where Senator Yulee was residing, which, 
 altering his plans, he did, remaining several days. There 
 his enthusiastic reception by ex-Confederates greatly 
 puzzled his black admirers, who were also disappointed 
 in his appearance ; as expressed by one of them, in reply 
 to the writer, who had asked what he thought of General 
 
 Grant: "^ Waal. Mr. Yulee he ain't as hearty a 
 
 man as your Pa." 
 
 Now, at the age of fifty-six, having spent twenty-five 
 years in a not undistinguished, public career, Senator 
 Yulee commenced, and carried on for twenty years more, 
 the most strenuous work of his life : that of restoring tt) 
 vitality that part of the railroad system of Florida in 
 which he was personally interested. His own holdings in 
 it might have been wiped out by those Northern security- 
 holders for whom he had fought so loyally, and the larg- 
 
 ^Stanton had some three month previously, without effect, 
 advised that Senator Yulee be released on parole. 
 
34 SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 
 
 est owner was in favor of doing so ; and, besides, leaving 
 upon him the burden of one of the railroad's promissory 
 notes for $100,000.00— which he had personally endorsed. 
 But another one of them, E. N. Dickerson, a gentleman 
 born, and of a more dominating character, would not have 
 it thus, and Senator Yulee received, not only his former 
 share, but even an additional amount, to represent his 
 unpaid services in the road's behalf. 
 
 The road from its poverty and the wilderness of the 
 countrv had been from the first the object of jests both 
 inimical and friendly, and now its cars, which lay, min- 
 gled with its locomotives, in a scrap-heap, had a right of 
 wav. to run upon, represented by "a streak of rust over 
 some rotten sleepers."* 
 
 Of the seemingly endless difficulties and discourage- 
 ments, with which Senator Yulee fought resolutely 
 through two decades, it is not possible to write, but at 
 last success came, and the road being sold to some 
 English capitalists, he found himself in possession of an 
 income which in the "Eighties" was termed "comfor- 
 table" but which would scarcely be thought so now. 
 
 At the height of the carpet bag rule in Florida Sena- 
 tor Yulee was ofifered a number of Republican votes, in 
 the Legislature, sufificient, when joined with those of the 
 Democrats to elect him to the United States Senate, but, 
 on account of his business affairs, he felt obliged to 
 decline. 
 
 His attitude toward that great problem of the South, 
 the negro citizen, may l)e learned from two resolutions. 
 taken from a series, which he offered to Gov. Hart for 
 use in the reconstruction Convention of '67 and '68: 
 "Resolved, That we accept as settled princi])les in the 
 policy of our country the perpetual union of the States, 
 and the liberty and civil equality of all citizens * * *. 
 Resolved, that free government is practical, and 
 consistent with civil order and social progress, only in the 
 degree that communities are advanced in virtue and intel- 
 ligence, and that, therefore, the edncation of all the peoi)le 
 is a proper su])ject of ])nl)lic concern in all republics." 
 
 *See ITumorons Cuts. 
 
Proposed ft (an. for increasing speed 
 on the Florida ^ail Eoad_ 
 
 map Of saleable Lands 
 
 on the Tlorida-Rail Hoad 
 
SENATOR DAVID L. YU LEE 37 
 
 Bnt he foresaw equally that, while book learning 
 might be quickly given, it would take more than a single 
 generation to evoke in them that essential principle 
 of popular government : a sense of responsibility; for this 
 faculty had been paralyzed by long tutelage as slaves. 
 In fact, he realized that the difficulty at the South was 
 simply a result of universal suffrage — the theory that 
 
 all men are equally competent to govern ; and with a 
 change of color, the same danger confronted the North, 
 where, in some communities, the electorate resembled the 
 w'itches' stew in Macbeth. 
 
 In 1880, Senator Yulee went again-to reside in Wash- 
 ington, drawn by many reasons ; a married daughter 
 lived there ; his wife could see more of her own paternal 
 family; and he wished his unmarried daughters to see 
 something of that society in which their mother had 
 passed so many years of her life. There too were many 
 of his former friends, and by none was he greeted more 
 cordially than by those who were the leading lights in the 
 councils of the Republican party, like Fish, of New York, 
 Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, Curtin, of Pennsylvania, 
 or Hamlin, the Vice-President under Lincoln. 
 
 Four years after moving to Washington, the family 
 had only been installed a few months in their new 
 home, on Connecticut Avenue (now the Austrian 
 Embassy), when the prophetic Spanish proverb: "The 
 house is built and the hearse stands before the door" was 
 fulfilled by the death of the idolized wife and mother. 
 
 The central motive of his life was gone, and wlien, 
 nineteen months later, the same shadowy message 
 knocked at the door of the bereft man, there was little to 
 aid the great physicians in barring his entrance. 
 
 Senator Yulee died in the Clarendon Hotel, New 
 York, 10th October, 1886, of a bronchial cold, contracted 
 on a Fall River boat, upon which, there being an insuffi- 
 ciency of blankets, he had taken part of his own covering 
 to put over his grand-child. His heart, too, which was 
 functionally unsound, had been weakened by going into 
 
 
38 SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 
 
 the mountains ; urged by his children, who did not know 
 of the trouble. 
 
 Side by side, undivided even in death, the two lie in 
 the beautiful Georgetown Cemetery, at Washington, 
 where the murmuring stream sings, perpetually, its gen- 
 tle requiem. 
 
 Owing to the limitations already self-prescribed, the 
 writer will attempt no further summary of Senator 
 Yulee's character than to make one quotation from the 
 first letter written to him, after his imprisonment in Fort 
 Pulaski by his devoted wife : "* * I would not have 
 you presumptions, but let it console you what the psalmist 
 savs : 'Blessed is the man wdio considereth the Poor, the 
 Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.' 
 
 This imperfect sketch has been written with a loving 
 hand, and the writer finds himself unable to add that the 
 subject of it, who served his state and nation for twenty- 
 five years with the best of heart and mind, was a traitor. 
 Being neither a profound lawyer, nor eminent statesman, 
 as are all the writers north of the Alason and Dixon line, 
 he finds himself unable to see that there was absolutely 
 no vestige of a right of secession in the Constitution. 
 
 Secession cannot become a purely academic question 
 while, on its account, a long line of illustrious statesmen 
 are portrayed as fools or knaves, to credulous children, 
 or newly veneered citizens, by current historians; with 
 all the resistless power of a machine type-set, stereotyped, 
 roller press. Therefore the loyal biographer of Senator 
 Yulee must say a few words u])on the subject; in ])roof 
 or extenuation, according to the previously lormed 
 opinion of the reader. 
 
 It is generally conceded that the Constitution is not 
 explicit ui)on this point, so that we must judge by i-ifer- 
 ences drawn from the circumstances of its production, 
 and, for this purpose, only such facts shall be given as 
 are relcwmt, uncontested and incontestable. 
 
 The iirst b'ederal Union or Confederation having 
 proved ineffectual in certain matters, a Convenlioii was 
 called for remedying the defects. According to Oduver- 
 neur Morris (a Pennsylvania delegate) : "iMsheries or the 
 ]\Tississi]»])i (its free navigation. C. W. Y.) arc the two 
 
SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 39 
 
 great objects of the Union;" while Gorham (from Mas- 
 sachusetts) stated that "the Eastern states had no motive 
 to Union but a commercial one ;" (the regulation of inter- 
 state and foreign commerce. C. W. Y.) and we may add 
 that the large holding of the public debt in certain States, 
 and the wish to have it guaranteed by a "strong govern- 
 ment," was an additional motive. 
 
 Naturally, we ask: did the States have the right of 
 separation, under the old Constitution, which it was now 
 proposed to modify? In that instrument they were styled 
 the "United States" followed by the name of each 
 separate State ; they retained their "Sovereignty, free- 
 dom, and independence not expressly delegated;" and 
 Great Britain in her treaty of peace had recognized them 
 by name separately and specifically. 
 
 All through the proceedings of this Convention the 
 possibility of dissolution, of the existing Union, was 
 recognized : as where Hamilton (N. Y.) alludes to "some 
 of the consequences of dissolution of the Union;" 
 Franklin thinks "our States are on the point of separa- 
 tion ;" Elbridge Gerry (Mass.) says, "the present Con- 
 federation is dissolving." But a more convincing fact 
 is that they did dissolve ; since, as pointed out by Gerry, 
 the very mode of forming the new Union was a dissolu- 
 tion of the old; for it provided that when nine of the 
 States should have, separately and independently, ratified 
 the new Constitution they would then form a new Union, 
 leaving the other four in the old. 
 
 Upon the question as to Avhether or not there should 
 be a radical change, the members of the Convention soon 
 divided into two hostile camps, one led by Randolph (of 
 Virginia) favoring a "national," and the other led by 
 Patterson (of New Jersey), favoring a "federal" form 
 of government. "Mr. Gouverneur Morris explained the 
 distinction between a federal and a national supreme 
 government ; the former being a mere compact resting 
 on the good faith of the parties, and the latter having a 
 complete and compulsive operation."* 
 
 *Gilpin and Elliot Editions of Madison Papers. This im- 
 portant declaration is by Bancroft transposed; and 
 "Confederate" substituted for "Federal"— probably 
 through the carelessness of some assistant. — C. W. Y. 
 
40 SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 
 
 The first report of resolutions, by the Committee of 
 the whole, reported by Gorham, was headed by one de- 
 claring that "A national Government ought to be 
 formed." But the resistance of the smaller States, led by 
 New Jersey, threatened to end the Convention ; so that 
 the word "National" was stricken out of the first and 
 second, or declaratory resolutions, and was used in the 
 remaining resolutions only to distinguish between the 
 o^overnment of the United States and the particular 
 states ; it nowhere appears in the Constitution, subse- 
 quently adopted ; which, moreover, is called "federal" 
 in the letter, prepared by the Convention, submitting" it, 
 for adoption by the States. 
 
 The difificulty, of combining this "sovereign" charac- 
 ter of the States, with unity and prompt action by the 
 general government, was finally solved by giving, to each 
 State, sovereign equality in the Senate, to which body 
 of the assembled States, was also confided those peculiar 
 powers of sovereignty: making treaties, appointing 
 ambassadors, and other officers, in co-operation with the 
 President ; who was himself to- be chosen by the States, 
 individually, through Electors, whom they might appoint 
 in any manner they pleased, although the number was to 
 vary according to the State's population. This quality 
 of the Senate was declared by Wilson* (Penn.) when 
 saying: "that the Senate defends the States rights under 
 the plan proposed." 
 
 Was the right of separation, possessed under the old 
 Constitution, surrendered under the new? Certainly not 
 explicitly; and not even impliedly, it seems to the Avriter, 
 
 In the new Preamble it did not, as in the old, name 
 the states individually, but that was because it was 
 uncertain, which states would enter the new combination. 
 The old phrase "Perpetual I'nion" was changed to 
 "more perfect — not perfect but more perfect — ," and 
 one of its objects was to ])r()\i<le for the "ciMiiuinn"** 
 defense — the same word as used in the old. The title 
 remained the same: "The United States."" and in the body 
 of the Constitution the whole nation is alluded to in the 
 
 *One of the Committee which drafted the Const itution. 
 **Coiniiiiin : ^.donjjjin.u; ciiually to Cham. Diet. 
 
SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 41 
 
 plural as "their authority," "Trust under them". More- 
 over the general government coutd not purchase any land, 
 for forts, etc., without the consent of the State, in which 
 it lay. 
 
 The members of the Convention who wanted a 
 "national" government evidently did not have their wish. 
 Randolph would not sign the new Constitution, nor 
 would Gerry, who however said : "A government short 
 of a proper national one, is better than one which would 
 operate on discontented States" and Hamilton declared 
 that, "no man's ideas were more remote from the plan 
 than his own." 
 
 The general impression made is that the new Con- 
 stitution was a sort of modus vivendi, on this point; left 
 indeterminate because the smaller states 'would never 
 have entered the new Union, if they thought they thereby 
 surrendered themselves irrevocably to the larger. Be- 
 sides, some members of the Convention thought separa- 
 tion in the distant future might possibly be wise ; as 
 voiced by Gorham (of Massachusetts), a "national" man 
 and one of the committee which framed the Constitution : 
 "Can it be supposed that this vast country, including the 
 Western territory, will one hundred and fifty years hence 
 remain one nation?" 
 
 Finally: Mr. Rawle of Philadelphia, a friend of 
 Washington — who presided over the Convention — and 
 by whom he was more than once offered the post of At- 
 torney-General, says in Rawle on the Constitution 
 (1825) : "The secession of a state from the Union de- 
 pends on the will of the people of such State." 
 
 With this record, only a very wise man, or a very 
 great fool, can, with certainty, pronounce hundreds of 
 able lawyers and otherwise upright men, to be traitors. 
 
 To anyone studying, for himself, the different phases 
 of this great struggle, the conviction must come, that on 
 both sides the prominent men were conspicuous for the 
 sincerity of their beliefs, and were totally unconscious 
 that they were influenced by environment or irresistible 
 economic movement. 
 
42 SENATOR DAVID L. YULEE 
 
 Had not the Mayflower encountered a southwest 
 gale, she would have proceeded to her destination in 
 Virginia, and the Puritans would there have, for one 
 additional century, remained the strict but just masters 
 which they were in Massachusetts. Their homes being 
 transposed, the sonorous sentences of Webster would 
 have defended States-Rights and Calhoun's close reason- 
 ing would have proved the impossibility of any State 
 remaining in a Union which it would not obey; Davis 
 would have made a fiery abolitionist, and Sumner a 
 humane slave holder, indignant at the imputations of the 
 other; while history might have been altered, had Grant 
 been living in South Carolina. 
 
 All of these notable men, of a notable era. were only 
 atoms of the upper or nether millstones, with which the 
 Gods are slowly grinding out the destinies of the human 
 race. 
 
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