Eric Flint: 1824: The Arkansas War

"Why do-ah, please have a seat, General."

"Thank you. Why do I think that?" The tall former officer drew up a chair. "Let's start with the most basic. If you took that seriously, you'd think the entire program of the new party-well, let's say nine points out of ten-was essentially a fraud. Then let's consider the fact that the estimable Ridge and Watie can't decide whether that's good or bad. Which is understandable enough, given their predicament. The Ridge family estates in Oklahoma have more slaves working them than all but the wealthiest plantations in the South. After that, we can move on-"

"Is it true that most of the slaves will never see freedom?"

"Oh, yes, Captain Parker, that's quite true. The same thing will happen in Tennessee and Kentucky-and Missouri, though perhaps not Delaware-that happened in New York and most of the Northern states that adopted gradual emancipation. Before the time limit expires, most slave-owners will have sold their slaves to masters somewhere in the South. I'd be surprised if more than one out of five people who were scheduled for manumission ever receive it. The black populations of most of those states dropped precipitously in the years prior to emancipation-and I can assure you they didn't move to Canada, the most of them."

He nodded toward the southeast. "They-or their children-are laboring on a plantation somewhere in the Carolinas or Georgia, or perhaps working as stevedores on the docks of Savannah or Charleston. As I say, Delaware may be an exception. The Quakers and Methodists will be vigilant, and they may be able to keep that to a minimum. In any event, Delaware already has the largest freedmen population of any state in the nation, at least in percentage terms. The people of the state are fairly accustomed to it by now."

Sheff studied the man's face. For all the cynicism that rested on the surface of Scott's expression, something else lay underneath.

"Please explain," Sheff said. He lifted the paper a bit. "Why that goes against what they're saying."

"Because they're like men on a battlefield who see only the casualties and don't consider the fight. In the long run, Captain Parker-yes, I know this will sound very callous to you-it doesn't matter what happens to those people. Give it two generations, three at the outside, and slavery is dead. Jackson knows that, Adams knows that, and you can be quite sure that John Calhoun knows it, too."

Scott waved a dismissive hand at the newspaper. "Those lads-they're very young, so I'll grant them the excuse-are approaching this as if it were simply a moral issue. Which it is, of course. But battles are not won with moral splendor. They're won by the brute force of the clash of arms."

Sheff just waited, patiently. Sooner or later, he figured the man would get around to it.

After a moment, Scott smiled at him. "You are smart. Patrick told me you were."

He lifted one long leg and crossed it over the other. Then, folded his hands in his lap.

"Here's how it is, Captain Parker. Slavery expands, or it dies. For two reasons. First, because the agriculture involved is frightfully wasteful of the soil. Within a much shorter time than you might think, so-called King Cotton will look like a bedraggled down-at-the-heels little robber baron. As it already does in the northern tier of slave states. The truth is-my father-in-law dislikes to admit it, as do most of my native state's gentry-Virginia's main crop nowadays is slaves themselves. Whom they breed like so much livestock in order to sell to cotton growers in the Deep South."

A sneer came to his face. "Remember that, the next time you read one of John Randolph's perorations on liberty. But you can see where I'm going. How are slave-owners in Georgia and Alabama to make the same transition-from King Cotton to King Negro-when there are no new slave territories into which cotton production is expanding?"

Sheff thought about it. "Well, there's Texas."

Scott chuckled. "Yes, indeed. And-remember I told you this-I expect within ten years we'll be seeing a war down there, too. But Texas alone, even if the South can seize it, won't be enough. Once Kentucky and Tennessee and Missouri are closed to slavery, it begins to die in its own waste. But it won't come to that, anyway. Because the other reason slavery needs to expand is political. The population of the North and the West in the United States grows much faster than that of the South. Because of immigration, if for no other reason. No immigrants except wealthy ones-and they're but a handful-want to live in a slave state. Slavery depresses wages, and it stifles opportunity for small enterprise. So they move to the North and West. And now-"

He pointed to the newspaper. "- this is the essence of that program, which the estimable Ridge and Watie managed to miss completely. The border states have finally decided they are part of the West, not the South."

"They haven't actually decided yet," Sheff said mildly. He wasn't trying to be disputatious, though. He was just deeply interested in the former general's assessment and wanted to draw it out as far as he could.

Winfield Scott really did have quite a magnificent sneer. Sheff was impressed.

"Ha! With that band of brigands leading the charge? My dear captain! Should the legislature of Tennessee be so bold as to defy Andrew Jackson, he's quite capable of ordering the militia to train their guns on the state capitol. I believe he still holds the rank of major general in the militia, which remains fiercely attached to the man. By 'guns,' I include twelve-pounders. There are precious few slave-owners in the Tennessee militia, and those not major ones. One or two slaves, more like family servants than the chattel labor on big plantations. Hired hands, once they're freed, which is an easy enough transition for all parties involved."

Once again, he waved his hand dismissively. "No, no. With Jackson and Benton and Johnson and Carroll and Desha calling for it, the border states are lost to slavery. Not immediately, but they're lost. And once they're gone, the South will slide further and further into political impotence. The slave states have already lost the House, and the imbalance will grow deeper every year. Now, soon enough, they'll have lost the Senate. And I doubt if you'll see more than-at most-one Southerner ever sitting in the president's house again, so long as slavery lasts, where the first four of five came from the region. Five out of six, if we count Clay. Which I suppose we must, given that he's thrown himself into Calhoun's clutches. The blithering idiot."

Sheff studied him for a moment. "And that doesn't concern you?"

"Oh, of course it does. But it concerns me as a soldier of the United States, not as a Virginian. My loyalty is to the nation, Captain Parker. It always has been. I have no use for men with divided loyalties. On that if nothing else, I've always agreed with Andrew Jackson. So:I imagine I'll be returning to the colors one of these fine days."

The handsome patrician head looked very much like one of the Roman busts Sheff had seen in the Wolfe Tone Hotel. He'd wondered, a bit, why the Laird had gone to the trouble and expense of having them shipped there all the way from Philadelphia. He was normally quite frugal.

He figured he finally knew, now.

"You think there might be a war over it."

"That's:putting it too strongly," Scott mused. "But it's a possibility, yes. Although I think it's more likely to take the form of a series of armed clashes than what you could properly call a war. Either way, I expect I'll have work to do. My real line of work, so to speak."

He said that last with a smile. "Which, actually, brings me to the purpose of my visit. Patrick insisted I come. I didn't dare refuse him, of course. Him being my old master sergeant and a troll of most frightening proportions."