Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 23.djvu/323

 A Secret Session Debate. 317

what iini>.t the people do? They will give up. We should not ex- p'-( t anything rlsi-. Imagine a man with wife and children. Tin- enemy comes up no means of escape. The alternatives arc- death and dishonor to his wife, or submission. What will he do?

Mr. John C. Washington, of Lenoir county: Stand up for the South !

Mr. Rayner: What did our ancestors in the Revolution, when Cornwallis marched through the land? The Whigs treated those who took protection as traitors.

Satterthwaite: What would you do?

Rayner: Under threat of dishonor to wife and children I might speak the word of submission, but I would steel my heart against them. What one does under duress cannot and should not be charged against him.

Dr. Speed said that he had been informed that the statement of Mr. Pettigrew, in regard to one of the men mentioned, is denied by him. He had heard no muttering! of treasons from the common people, but has heard them from the chief men. When there was a demand for their services, colonels and lieutenant-colonels and other officers of militia could not be found. He expressed the opinion that negro men walking about and refusing to go home should be shot.

Mr. Pettigrew explained that Mr. Satterthwaite misunderstood him when he spoke of Union men. He did not refer to the old dis- tinctions between the parties, but to those who are now disloyal to the Confederacy.

Mr. Woodfin: The proclamation of President Lincoln presented the issue whether we would assist in the subjugation of the Southern people, or be subjugated ourselves. This convention did not make the revolution.

He assured Mr. Pettigrew that the West will support all slaves, will put them to work on railroads, and in the cultivation of fertile mountain lands, which can be bought for from seventy-five cents to one dollar per acre.

The subject here dropped. No action was taken by the conven- tion.

I add that Mr. Pettigrew and many others afterwards removed their slaves into the centre and west of the State, where they found employment at remunerative prices. Those so removing were known as " refugees."

Mr. Satterthwaite' s firing up at the supposed imputation that " Union men " were more disloyal than secessionists shows a feeling