William w freehling the road to disunion secessio 861 (v5 0)

The Road to Disunion Secessionists Triumphant 1854–1861 By William W Freehling Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816–1836 Willie Lee Rose, Slavery and Freedom (Editor) Secession Debated: Georgia’s Showdown in 1860 (Editor, with Craig M Simpson) The Reintegration of American History: Slavery and the Civil War The South vs The South: How Anti-Confederate Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War THE ROAD TO DISUNION Volume I: Secessionists at Bay, 1776–1854 Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854–1861 The Road to Disunion VOLUME II Secessionists Triumphant 1854–1861 WILLIAM W FREEHLING Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright © 2007 by William W Freehling Published by Oxford University Press, Inc 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 www.oup.com ISBN 978-0-19-505815-4 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press The Library of Congress has catalogued Volume I as follows: Freehling, William W., 1935– The road to disunion / William W Freehling p cm Contents: v Secessionists at bay, 1776–1854 ISBN 0-19-505814-3 (v 1) United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Causes Secession Southern States—Politics and government—1775–1865 United States—Politics and government—1815–1861 I Title E468.9.F84 1990 973.7′11—dc20 89-26511 CIP 135798642 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Again and again for Alison and in memory of Sheldon Meyer Contents Illustrations Maps Preface Prologue: Yancey’s Rage PART I BETTER ECONOMIC TIMES GENERATE WORSE DEMOCRATIC DILEMMAS Democracy and Despotism, 1776–1854: Road, Volume I, Revisited Economic Bonanza, 1850–1860 PART II THE CLIMACTIC IDEOLOGICAL FRUSTRATIONS James Henry Hammond and the Unsolvable Proslavery Puzzle The Three Imperfect Solutions The Puzzling Future and the Infuriating Scapegoats PART III THE CLIMACTIC POLITICAL FRUSTRATIONS Bleeding Kansas and Bloody Sumner The Scattering of the Ex-Whigs James Buchanan’s Precarious Election The President-Elect as the Dred Scotts’ Judge 10 The Climactic Kansas Crisis 11 Caribbean Delusions 12 Reopening the African Slave Trade 13 Reenslaving Free Blacks PART IV JOHN BROWN AND THREE OTHER MEN COINCIDENTALLY NAMED JOHN 14 John Brown and Violent Invasion 15 John G Fee and Religious Invasion 16 John Underwood and Economic Invasion 17 John Clark and Political Invasion PART V THE ELECTION OF 1860 18 Yancey’s Lethal Abstraction 19 The Democracy’s Charleston Convention 20 The Democracy’s Baltimore Convention 21 Suspicious Southerners and Lincoln’s Election PART VI SOUTH CAROLINA DARES 22 The State’s Rights Justification 23 The Motivation 24 The Tactics and Tacticians 25 The Triumph Coda: Did the Coincidence Change History? PART VII LOWER SOUTH LANDSLIDE, UPPER SOUTH STALEMATE 26 Alexander Stephens’s Fleeting Moment Coda: Did Stephens’s and Hammond’s Personalities Change History? 27 Southwestern Separatists’ Tactics and Messages 28 Compromise Rejected 29 Military Explosions 30 Snowball Rolling 31 Upper South Stalemate 32 Stalemate—and the South—Shattered Coda: How Did Slavery Cause the Civil War? Abbreviations Used in Notes Notes Index and Mississippi, 446, 491 and secret secession plots, 385 social pressure on, 459 and South Carolina, 364 and the Speakership Crisis, 258 and Stephens, 429 tactics, 320–21, 381–83, 387–88, 390, 396, 402–4, 424, 445, 496–97, 576n and Texas, 449 Seward, William H., 206, 220, 299, 329 sexual exploitation: and abolitionism, 3–4 abolitionist claims of, 99, 102 and causes of the Civil War, 531 and Hammond, 27–32, 378–79, 417 John Brown on, 219 and the territorial slavery conflict, 67 Shenandoah River, 237 Sherman, John, 247, 251–52, 258, 262, 265–66, 383 Sherman, William Tecumseh, 247 Simms, B B., 182 Simms, William Gilmore, 355, 421 Simons, James, 422 single houses, 356–59, 358 Singletary, Otho R., 475 Slaughter, James S., 280 slave codes, 273–74 slave rebellion See also John Brown’s Raid: Denmark Vesey’s Conspiracy, 256 fear of, 369–71, 569–70n 33 Marshall on, 374 Nat Turner’s Rebellion, 10, 89, 507–9 slave trade See African slave trade Slavery in the Southern States (Pringle), 54–55 Slemmer, Adam Jacoby, 484, 488 Slidell, John, 98, 107, 166, 182, 313 Sloan, John T., 422 smallpox, 257, 421 Smith, Gerrit, 208 Smith, J Henley, 330, 439 Smith, William A., 33, 53, 265 Smithson, George, 422 Smyth, Thomas, 54 Sneed, James R., 305 social control: and causes of the Civil War, 532–33 and the Charleston Convention, 306 and loyalty politics, 415, 444 and lynching, 24 and the secession debate, 415, 418, 424 Thornwell on, 420 socialism, 37 Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society (Fitzhugh), 36, 38–39 Somerset County, Maryland, 192, 192, 198 Soulé, Pierre, 166 The South Alone Should Govern the South (Townsend), 372, 394 South Carolina: and the African slave trade, 168–74, 179–80, 183–84 agriculture, 11, 13, 19–21, 353, 361 antiegalitarianism, 577n 26 architecture, 356–60 aristocratic republicanism, 564n and the Baltimore Convention, 313–16 and the Brooks-Sumner affair, 61, 81–82 and the Charleston Convention, 278–86, 292, 303, 306–7 and Christian paternalism, 45 Civil War losses, 375 critics of, 500 and delayed secession, 467 demographics, 23–24 economics, 7, 35–39 egalitarian republicanism, 568n and elections, 269, 341, 418–19 emigration from, 363, 367 and expansionism, 155–59, 167 extremism in, xvii and fire-eaters, 1–2 and legal restrictions on slave owners, 49–50 legislature, 354, 395–96, 416–18 and manumission, 189 and Mississippi secession, 453 motivations for secession, 352–56, 360–62 and the Nullification Controversy, 81 reaction to Lincoln’s election, 436 and regulation of slavery, 53–54 and the secession debate, 376–94, 446–47, 489–90, 492, 496–97, 527 selection of electors, 395 and southern convention efforts, 264 state constitution, 403 state convention, 421 and state’s rights, 346 and territorial slavery, 537–38n Unionist Party, 260 and vigilante violence, 335 and Yancey, 278–79 South Carolina College, 45, 362 South Carolina Episcopalian Convention, 50 South Carolina House of Representatives, 354 South Carolina Presbyterian Synod, 49 Southern Commercial Convention, 183 Southern Confederacy Senate, Southern Democratic Party: and the Baltimore Convention, 310, 312–13, 318–19 and the Charleston Convention, 296, 301, 528 and the Democratic National Convention, 295 and Dred Scott v Sandford, 109–10, 113–15, 117–18 and elections, 100, 278, 280, 331, 339–40 and free speech, 323–26 and the Freeport Doctrine, 272–75 and John Clark, 247 and the Lecompton Convention, 138, 141 and Lovejoy, 290 and nativism, 87 political power, 14 and Popular Sovereignty, 130 and the secession debate, 405 and the slave trade issue, 176 and the Speakership Crisis, 257, 265 and state’s rights, 349 and the territorial slavery conflict, 62, 85, 125, 129 and Yancey, 283 Southern Institutes (Sawyer), 33 Southern Literary Messenger, 515 Southern Manifesto, 469–70 Southern Presbyterian Review, 420, 460 Southern Quarterly Review, 111 Southern Republican Party: and antiegalitarianism, 577n 29 and Atchison, 78 Bell on, 450–51 and Blair, 328 and the Border South, 530 and causes of the Civil War, 533 and the Charleston Convention, 308 and Clark, 250 and Clay, 229–30 and the Committee of Thirteen, 471 and elections, 104, 106, 331, 336–37, 340 and ex-Whigs, 323 and fears of slave rebellion, 369–71 and free speech, 327 and Helper, 244–45, 561n 16 and the Kansas crisis, 144 and Keitt, 267 and the Lecompton Convention, 142 and Lincoln, xvii, 520 and presidential patronage, 103, 253, 375, 394, 512 and reenslavement efforts, 198 and the secession debate, 381, 389, 395, 398, 400, 406, 424–25, 439–40 and Sherman, 252 and the Speakership Crisis, 254–57, 266 and state’s rights, 348 threat to the South, 290, 455, 458–59 sovereignty, 62, 130–33, 136–37, 159, 347 See also Popular Sovereignty state’s rights Spain, xvii, 166 Sparks, Susan, 370, 371 Speakership Crisis, 247–62, 265–68, 384 Spontaneous Southern Rights Assembly, 516, 525 Spratt, Leonidas W.: and the African slave trade, 168–75, 178–80, 184, 503–4 and political invasion of the South, 247–48 and reenslavement efforts, 188, 190 and the secession debate, 419 Squire, E G., 42 St Augustine Arsenal, 484 St Louis City, 65, 79, 124 St Louis Democrat, 77, 327 Star of the West (resupply ship), 486–88, 489–92, 495–97, 502, 517, 529, 533 Starke, Peter, 264, 385–87, 576n Starr, Frederick, 68–69, 71, 76, 79 Starr, James Harper, 334–35 state’s rights: and Alabama secession, 493 and causes of the Civil War, 531, 584–85n 17 and Dred Scott v Sandford, 113–15 and expansionism, 159 and jurisdiction over slavery, 112 and the Kansas conflict, 130–33 and the Lecompton Convention, 136–37 and military draft, 528 and the secession debate, 345–51, 384–86, 425–26, 502 State’s Rights Whigs, 125 term, 568n Stearns, George, 208 Stephens, Alexander, 434 and the African slave trade, 178 background, 431–33 and causes of the Civil War, 531–32 and the Charleston Convention, 305 and compromise efforts, 465, 472, 474–75 as Confederate vice president, 503 and elections, 105 and the English Bill, 142 and expansionism, 147 and the Georgia secession debate, 433–37, 440–44 and Houston, 449 and the Kansas controversy, 124 and political invasion of the South, 254, 266 on presidential patronage, 440 and the secession debate, 430–31, 495, 497 and state’s rights, 346 and white supremacy, 39–44 Stephens, Linton, 432–33, 441 Stevens, Thad, 253 Story, Joseph, 399 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 49, 224, 232–35, 371 Stringfellow, Benjamin Franklin, 67–69, 70, 75 Stringfellow, Thornton, 56–57 sugar, 11, 21, 153, 157, 176 Sullivan’s Island, 477 Sumner, Charles, 83 absence from Congress, 546n 35 Brooks’ attack on, 61, 79–84, 83, 95, 139, 173, 205, 254–55, 364–65, 546–47n 36 and elections, 107 and expansionism, 158 Lovejoy contrasted with, 288 and southern propaganda, 366 Sumter, Francis, 157 Syracuse, New York, Tabor, William Robinson, 400 Tallulas (Jackson), 411–12 Taney, Roger B., 120 and Dred Scott v Sandford, 109–11, 113, 116–17, 119, 549–50n 14 and the Kansas controversy, 143 manumission of slaves, 549n tariffs and taxes: and causes of the Civil War, 531 and class divisions, 512, 526 Morrill Tariff, 503 and nullification, 81, 352, 553n 10 and South Carolina, 366 and state’s rights, 349 as threat to slavery, 89–90, 584–85n 17 and Virginia, 506, 512 Tayloe, William H., 220 Tennent, William, Jr., 389, 391 Tennessee: agriculture, 13 demographics, and expansionism, 155 and filibustering, 152, 157 free blacks in, 499 and Kansas agriculture, 123 and nativism, 89 and northern colonization, 239–40 and reenslavement efforts, 200 and the secession debate, 504, 529–30 and the white belt, 16 territorial slavery See Kansas-Nebraska Act Missouri Compromise Texas: abolitionism in, 175 agriculture, 13, 20, 124 annexation, 15, 17, 21, 128, 177, 247, 313, 349, 448, 533, 537–38n and antiimmigrant sentiment, 88 and British antislavery, xvii and the Charleston Convention, 303 climate, 129 demographics, 361 and elections, 337 and expansionism, 147–48, 167 and filibustering, 153 and free labor immigration, 206 and the fugitive slave issue, 436 and pioneers, 38 Revolution, 448 and the secession debate, 345, 385, 447–52, 459–60, 496–97 and South Carolina extremism, 366 and the Southern Manifesto, 470 state constitution, 449, 451–52 and the territorial slavery conflict, 75 Texas Fire Scare (1860), 331–33, 337, 341, 370, 374 Thayer, Eli, 72, 126, 238–40 Thirteenth Amendment, 300 Thirteenth Amendment (proposed), 531 Thompson, Jacob, 106, 134, 196, 467, 490–91 Thompson, Kate, 106–7 Thoreau, Henry David, 217 Thornwell, James Henley: and the African slave trade, 168–69 background, 432 on Christian morality, 35 and Fee, 223–24, 226–27 and hierarchical social structure, 44–47 and legal restrictions on slaveholders, 49 and paternalism, 259–60 and proslavery, 33, 57 and the religious debate on slavery, 460 and the secession debate, 376, 405, 420 Thrasher, John S., 165 three-fifths clause, 14 tobacco, 11, 19–21, 157 Todd, John, 483 Toombs, Robert, 473 and the Brooks-Sumner affair, 82 and the Charleston Convention, 305 and compromise efforts, 470, 472–75 and delayed secession plan, 467 and elections, 105 and Georgia secession, 495 and political invasion of the South, 254, 266–67 Porter on, 416 resignation rumors, 414, 416 and the secession debate, 430–31, 437 and southern nationalism, 529 on tariffs, 438 and territorial slavery, 284 Topeka, Kansas, 133 Totten, Joseph, 476 Totten coastal defense system, 476–79, 483–84 Townsend, John, 392 and fear of slave violence, 371 and the Kansas controversy, 128 and loyalty politics, 415 pamphlets published, 451, 461 and paternalism, 372 and the secession debate, 389–94, 421 on Sumner, 366 on threats to slavery, 367–69 on white supremacy, 360 Transcendentalism, 208 treason, 384, 424, 450, 485 Treatise on Sociology (Hughes), 51 Trenholm, George, 402–3 Trescot, William Henry: and the African slave trade, 171 and the Charleston Convention, 295 and compromise efforts, 467, 469 and federal fort seizures, 487 and paternalism, 372 and territorial slavery, 274 on threats to slavery, 366 Tucker, Beverly, 91 Tucker, John Randolph, 146 Turner, Nat, 89, 191, 331, 507–9 two-party system, 96, 278–79, 294, 331 two-thirds rules, 320 Tyler, John, 513, 526 Tyler, John, Jr., 369 Tyler, Robert, 98 Tyler County, Texas, 333 Types of Mankind (Nott), 42 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe), 4, 49, 224 underground railroad, 236, 369, 438, 455, 512 Underwood, John C.: background, 236–40 and Helper, 240–45 Memminger contrasted with, 262 and political invasion of the South, 248, 266 and the Republican nominating convention, 327, 330 Unionists, 96, 260, 501, 506 The Unity of the Human Race (Bachman), 44 Upshur, Abel P., 17, 91, 247–48 U.S Congress: and the Alabama Platform, 279 and colonization of blacks, 360 and compromise efforts, 495 and Dred Scott v Sandford, 117, 119–21 and elections, 103–4 and European immigration, 172 and fugitive slaves, 443 and the gag rule debates, 17 and the Lecompton Convention, 138–39 and minority power, 17 and Prigg v Pennsylvania, 299 and the territorial slavery conflict, 65, 73 U.S Constitution: and amendments, 15, 514 assaults on slavery, 222 and the Confederate Constitution, 503 and Dred Scott v Sandford, 121 and due process, 121 and elections, 312, 435 and fugitive slaves, 443 and gradual emancipation, 113 and jurisdictional issues, 205 Magrath on, 399 and nonintervention, 208 and ratifying conventions, 130–33 and the secession debate, 405 and the Speakership Crisis, 253 and state’s rights, 346–47 three-fifths clause, 14 U.S District Court (Charleston), 399 U.S House of Representatives: and elections, 312 and the English Bill, 142 and European immigration, 172 and John Clark, 247–50 and the Lecompton Convention, 138, 140–42 and Lovejoy, 528 and nativism, 87 and Orr, 295 and the secession debate, 401, 417 Speakership Crisis, 250–54, 257–61, 265–66 and Stephens, 434–35 and the territorial slavery conflict, 65 and the three-fifths clause, 14 Unionists in, 530 violence in, 257–61 U.S Senate: and the Brooks-Sumner affair, 61, 79–84, 83, 95, 139, 173, 364–65 and elections, 107, 205 and the English Bill, 142 and the Kansas conflict, 73–74, 124 resignations from, 466 and the secession debate, 401, 417 and Stephens, 434–35 and the territorial slavery conflict, 65, 73 and Texas separatism, 451 and Toombs, 529 U.S Supreme Court: and Ableman v Booth, 435–36 and Dred Scott v Sandford, 109–22, 141, 371, 549–50n 14, 550n 15 and the Freeport Doctrine, 272 southern control of, 15 and Stephens, 435 USS Brooklyn, 488 USS Dolphin, 183 USS Macedonian, 488 USS Sabine, 488 USS St Louis, 488 Valley of Virginia, 505 Van Buren, Martin, 99 Vanderbilt, Cornelius, 161 Vesey, Denmark, 256 Vicksburg Weekly Sun, 455, 456 vigilantes, 67, 70–71, 331–36, 424, 458–59 See also lynch law; mob violence Vineyard, John, 68–69 Virginia: and African colonization, 53 agriculture, 11, 13 antislavery in, 25 and the Baltimore Convention, 320–22 climate, 129 and compromise efforts, 470 demographics, and the economics of slavery, 35 and emigration to Kansas, 127 and expansionism, 155 and filibustering, 157 free blacks in, 499 and the House Speakership, 266 and immigration, 354 and Kansas agriculture, 123 and Lincoln presidency, 337 and Memminger, 261–64 and nativism, 89 and northern colonization, 239–40 and reenslavement efforts, 191, 193 and the secession debate, 385–86, 389–90, 467, 504–16, 524–25 and the Speakership Crisis, 262 state constitution, 506 threats to slavery in, 175, 281, 438 and vigilante violence, 334 and the white belt, 16 Virginia Valley, 209 voting, 35, 40, 170, 293–94, 353–54 Walker, Leroy Pope, 302–3, 404 Walker, Robert J.: and elections, 98, 106, 133–34 and expansionism, 153, 367 and the isothermal theory of slavery, 128–29 and the Kansas controversy, 130–32, 142–44 and the Lecompton Convention, 134–36 and Texas annexation, 21 Walker, William, 148, 152, 160–62, 166–67, 177, 273 Wanderer (slave ship), 183–84, 200, 480 War of 1812, 187, 448, 476 Wardlaw, David L., 418 Warley, F F., 367 Washburne, Elihu, 140 Washington, George, 19, 260 Washington, Lewis, 211–12 Washington D.C., 17 Washington Peace Conference, 513 Wayne, James, 110–13, 116–17 weather and climate: Charleston, South Carolina, 291–92, 421–22 isothermal theory of slavery, 40, 128–29, 143–44, 154, 179, 242, 461 and southern agriculture, 355–56 Webster, Daniel, 346 Weed, Thurlow, 325 Wellsburg Herald, 327 West Indies, 456 West Virginia, 526, 529–30 western expansionism, 248, 363–64 Wheeler, Royall T., 452 Wheeling Intelligencer, 327 Whigs: and Berrien, 409 and Botts, 324 collapse of, 84–86 and Democratic Party split, 323 and the Eufalia Regency, 125 and Henry Clay, 229 and immigration issues, 86–95, 205 and the Kansas Nebraska Act, 62, 73–74 and Lincoln, 330, 441 and loyalty politics, 85–86 and party corruption, 368 and proslavery positions, 17, 142, 265 regional divisions, 95–96, 502–3 and the Republican Party, 100, 102 and Stephens, 436, 441 and the territorial slavery conflict, 139 and Wise, 525 white belts: in Arkansas, 504 defined, 16 in the Middle South, 530 and paternalism, 57–58 in South Carolina, 361 and Southern Republicans, 369 and the territorial slavery conflict, 64, 66 in Texas, 451 in the Upper South, 529 in Virginia, 512 white supremacy See racism and racial division Whitney, Eli, 13, 486 Wilkes, Warren D., 127 Willey, Waitman T., 512 Wilmington Delaware Republican, 327 Wilmington Herald, 500 Wilmot, David, 471 Wilmot Proviso, 147, 471 Wilson, Henry, 92–94 Wilson, James C., 455 Wimer, John, 78 Winston, John, 286–87 Wisconsin, 113 Wisconsin Supreme Court, 435 Wise, Henry A., 218 background, 90–93 and compromise efforts, 474 and demographic shifts, 240 and elections, 101, 105 and John Brown’s Raid, 213, 217–20, 236, 246 and the Kansas controversy, 132 and the Lecompton controversy, 273 and political invasion of the South, 262–63, 267 and reenslavement efforts, 193 and Underwood, 244 and Virginia secession, 512–13, 525–27 Withers, T J., 373 Woolworth, C C., 143–44 Worcester County, Maryland, 192, 192, 198 Worth, Daniel, 244 Wyrick, Antney, 333 Yancey, Benjamin, 278–87, 307–8 Yancey, William Lowndes, and the African slave trade, 168, 176, 179, 183 and Alabama secession, 493–94 and Atchison, 77 background, 1–6 and the Baltimore Convention, 311–14, 316–21 and Botts, 325 and the Brooks-Sumner affair, 84 and causes of the Civil War, 532 and the Charleston Convention, 296–97, 301–2, 306 critics of, and elections, 269, 271–87 and the Freeport Doctrine, 278 and Lincoln, 336–40 and reenslavement efforts, 197–98 and the secession debate, 386, 491–92, 497 and southern nationalism, 528 and territorial slavery, 278–85 and Underwood, 237 and Virginia secession, 514 and white supremacy, 39–40 Yeardon, Richard, 404–5 yellow fever, 41–42, 149 ... Southerners Shaped the Course of the Civil War THE ROAD TO DISUNION Volume I: Secessionists at Bay, 1776–1854 Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854– 1861 The Road to Disunion VOLUME II Secessionists... Oxford University Press The Library of Congress has catalogued Volume I as follows: Freehling, William W. , 1935– The road to disunion / William W Freehling p cm Contents: v Secessionists at bay,.. .The Road to Disunion Secessionists Triumphant 1854– 1861 By William W Freehling Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816–1836 Willie Lee Rose,