XXXIII

Alabama declared Independence from the United States of America on January 11, 1861. Or so the document said. It went through on a vote of 61 to 39 among the delegates of the Secession Convention, which had convened in Montgomery. A young negro page had rushed out of the legislative chambers to announce it to the throng of citizens who gathered below the Capitol steps. Everyone erupted in cheers! Steamboats piped their horns as fireworks burst over the wharfs along the Alabama River. A torchlight ball in the open streets of Commerce Street where bands played Dixie. The flag of the United States was hauled down from the Capitol and replaced by the flag of the Bonnie Blue. This new flag snapped brightly below that of the flag of Alabama, now paramount among nations to these celebrants.

As it were, the delegates from the Nickajack were disgusted. Most of them had opposed secession against the radicals. They included youthful Greeks like William Marmaduke and Branse Havelock and Burnside Lee. Even Bourbon George was a hold out until the last moment when he threw in his lot with the secessionists. These radicals, who were branded the Fire-Eaters, felt they were inaugurating a new Second American Revolution. But it was wholly reactionary and lacked any of those fundamental humanistic merits embodied in the Spirit of '76. It was, quite simply, a dangerous and escalatory political ploy to protect the institution of slavery, Union be damned.

They called the present crisis the "Negro Quarrel," but it really meant war. It had been the inevitable trajectory of history that was arcing towards this moment, when the question of human bondage and its place in modern society must be settled. America would be all free, or it will be all slave, as Mr. Lincoln defined the quandary, but it would all be the same. And this he was prepared to do by the sword to keep the whole lot together, and the same as it were. And so the war came.

For the negroes in bondage, they knew something was up in the air. Very few among them had any idea about politics. Asking about it was taboo. Politics was impossible to grasp for the slave without any political agency to exercise it. But they did have the 'grapvine telegraph,' that vast diaphanous network of rumor and gossip that travelled across the landscape. Slaves who ran errands traded information in the towns with other slaves and white trash. And though slaves could not read the papers, the network originated with people who did, especially in Louisville, Kentucky. News travelled down with the railroad.

Jonas Jackson, who was called Big Jim Crow on account of the blackface minstrel ditty, learned about the secession as he was unloading a consignment of wood at Cottonport. He was a carpenter and slave for Lawrence Darby, a yeoman of Limestone County who owned 80 acres and four slaves. He didn't understand it anymore than the stevedore he exchanged the news with. When he returned home to his Master, however, he found him pale and looking rather shocked. He sat next to the fire place staring into the flaming pit.

Eveythang okay massa? Can I getchu somethin to drank?

He didn't answer, although Master Darby did look thoughtfully at Big Jim and pouted. Then he gently held Big Jim's wrist, which confused him. What he felt in this grasp was trepidation. It crept into him through his Master's hand. From it he sensed things were about to change. More than that, he sense upheaval and calamity. He also sensed death. All these things processed through his mind in no real order. But one thread remained constant among the babel of possibilities. It resolved itself into an infinite point of light. And in it, he sensed the spark of freedom.