The secession of southern slave states from the Union,
starting in 1860, caused a ripple effect.
South Carolina was the first state to break from the Union, and was
followed by Mississippi (January 9, 1861), Florida (January 10, 1861), Alabama
(January 11, 1861), Georgia (January 19, 1861), Louisiana (January 26, 1861), Texas
(February 1, 1861), Virginia (April 17, 1861), Arkansas (May 6, 1861), Tennessee
(May 6, 1861), and North Carolina (May 21, 1861).
The first succession wave occurred within a two month
period. South Carolina justified
breaking from the Union on the argument that the Federal government had
stripped the state of powers granted by the U.S. Constitution. The state of South Carolina declared that the
Federal government had “assumed the right of deciding upon the propriety of our
domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in
fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution” [1]. This was a direct reference to slavery. One month later, Mississippi followed South
Carolina under the same constitutional justification and stated in a
declaration that “our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of
slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which
constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the
earth” [2]. Furthermore, Mississippi
accused the federal government of numerous other accusations to include the denial
of property rights, advocating negro equality, refusing the admittance of new
slave states, nullifying the Fugitive Slave Laws, and enlisting the press,
pulpit and schools against the south [3].
Florida did not offer a declaration for succession on
January 10, 1861, but a day later Alabama broke from the Union by passing an
Ordinance of Secession in which it stated that all “powers over the territory
of said state, and over the people thereof, heretofore delegated to the
government of the United States of America, be and they are hereby withdrawn
from said Government, and are hereby resumed and vested in the people of the state
of Alabama” [4]. Georgia was eight days
behind their neighbor Alabama with the same slavery-justifying argument as all slaveholding
states that had already broken from the Union.
Georgia accused the Federal Government’s stance against slavery as outlawing
“$3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union” [5] and
“not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our
wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our
firesides” [6], obvious references to possible emancipation of American slaves.
Louisiana and Texas were the final two
states of the first wave to secede.
After the first wave of succession was completed, all the
seceded states adopted a Confederate Constitution in Montgomery, Alabama (the
same city which would see the origins of a Civil Rights Bus Boycott a century
later) during the first week of February 1861 with Jefferson Davis being
elected as the president of the Confederate States. Meanwhile, President Lincoln provided his Inauguration
speech on March 4, 1861 and stated that “a husband and wife may be divorced and
go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other, but the different
parts of our country can not do this” [7].
Lincoln refused to accept Confederate succession, and the Union attempt
to maintain control over Fort Sumter in Confederate territory prompted the
first battle of the Civil War which caused the second wave of succession to
begin. Previous to the events at Fort Sumter
and Lincoln’s summoning of 75,000 militia men to attack Fort Sumter, the states
of Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina had loosely remained with
the Union [8]. Virginia succession followed
rapidly after the Fort Sumter episode with an Ordinance that “the Federal
Government having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people
of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slaveholding States” [9]. Arkansas and Tennessee followed a month later. Arkansas, through very tough words, passed an
ordinance stating “war should be waged against” [10] any powers trying to
coerce any state that had seceded from the “old Union” [11]. North Carolina was the last state to break
from the Union.
It is clear that the issues of American slavery, industrial
technology, and economic capitalist exploitation of human beings were the cause
of American division and the chain reaction of succession. The arguments of constitutional rights and
loud patriotic cries of property rights being trampled seem incredible today….simply
because they were used to justify civil war and, more importantly, mass human
enslavement. The physical destruction
caused by the Civil War was basic damage compared to the massive social and
economic ramifications caused by American slavery; ramifications that still exist
grow and fester today.
1. Declaration of the
Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Sucession of South Carolina From
the Federal Union. 1860. Public Domain. Accessed on February 7, 2014 from http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/south_secede/south_secede_southcarolina.cfm
2. A Declaration of
the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of
Mississippi from the Federal Union.
1860. Public Domain. Accessed on February 7, 2014 from http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/south_secede/south_secede_mississippi.cfm
3. A Declaration of
the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of
Mississippi from the Federal Union.
1860. Public Domain. Accessed on February 7, 2014 from http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/learning_history/south_secede/south_secede_mississippi.cfm
4. Ordinance of
Secession of Alabama Passed January 11, 1861.
1861. Public Domain. Accessed February 7, 2014 from http://www.csawardept.com/documents/secession/AL/
5. Georgia
Declaration of Secession. 1861. Public Domain. Accessed on February 7, 2014 from http://www.civil-war.net/pages/georgia_declaration.asp
6. Georgia
Declaration of Secession. 1861. Public Domain. Accessed on February 7, 2014 from http://www.civil-war.net/pages/georgia_declaration.asp
7. Abraham
Lincoln. Inaugural Address of March4,
1861. Public Domain. Accessed on February 7, 2014 from http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25818
8. Abraham
Lincoln. Proclamation Calling Militia
and Convening Congress. 1861. Public Domain. Accessed February 7, 2014 from http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/proc-1.htm
9. Virginia Ordinance
of Secession. 1861. Public Domain. Accessed February 7, 2014 from http://www.wvculture.org/history/statehood/ordinanceofsecession.html
10. Ordinance of
Succession of Arkansas Passed May 6, 1861.
1861. Public Domain. Accessed on February 7, 2014 from http://www.csawardept.com/documents/secession/AR/
11. Ordinance of
Succession of Arkansas Passed May 6, 1861.
1861. Public Domain. Accessed on February 7, 2014 from http://www.csawardept.com/documents/secession/AR/
SUPPLEMENTAL: HOW DID SOUTHERN LEADERS VIEW SUCCESSION?
Before Mississippi passed its ordinance to succeed from the
Union, Jefferson Davis represented that state in the Senate. Many of his views concerning succession can
be understood through his January 21, 1861 resignation speech before the U.S. Senate. Davis was a strong proponent of state rights,
to include the right to succession, and he refuse to acknowledge
nullification. Looking at nullification,
Davis viewed it to only be justified when a state had violated its
constitutional obligations, and certainly felt that the succession of Mississippi
and the other Confederate states were not in violation of those
obligations. Davis held the view that
the state was a sovereign entity, and that succession was not a rebellion or
uprising because the people of a succession state were not bound to those Union
laws because through succession each state “surrenders all the benefits (and
they are known to be many), deprives herself of the advantages (they are known
to be great), severs all the ties of affection (and they are close and
enduring), which have bound her to the Union; and thus divesting herself of
every benefit, taking upon herself every burden, she claims to be exempt from
any power to execute the laws of the United States within her limits” [1]. Davis was also in favor of state property
rights and held extremely pro-slavery views which are shown by his declaration
that “when our Constitution was formed, the same idea was rendered more
palpable, for there we find provision made for the very class of persons as
property; they were not put upon the footing of equality with white men - not
even upon that of paupers and convicts; but, so far as representation was
concerned, were discriminated against as a lower caste, only to be represented
in the numerical proportion of three-fifths” [2].
The views of Davis were echoed throughout the south and the
new Confederacy, and this is clear by his nomination and election to Confederate
presidency. The Vice President of the
Confederate states was Alexander H Stephens, a long term Representative in the U.S.
House from the state of Georgia, who held similar views as Davis. In his address dated March 21, 1861, he
described the new Confederate government as one where “no citizen is deprived
of life, liberty, or property” [3], a hypocritical proclamation to protect the interests
of slavery under a government where “all the essentials of the old
Constitution, which have endeared it to the hearts of the American people, have
been preserved and perpetuated” [4]. To leaders
such as Davis and Stephens, the issues that had caused southern succession were
predominantly based on Constitutional and state rights. Despite enslaving other human beings, the human
injustice of slavery was second nature to these types of white southern leaders
as the majority of this demographic truly felt that their rights had been
severely victimized by the federal government.
The arguments of constitutional and property rights while protecting the
economic interests of human slavery must certainly must have been one of the most
hypocritical argument views of human history.
1. Jefferson
Davis. 1861. Senate Chamber Speech dated January 21,
1861. Public Domain. Accessed on February 10, 1861. https://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=87
2. Jefferson
Davis. 1861. Senate Chamber Speech dated January 21,
1861. Public Domain. Accessed on February 10, 1861. https://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=87
3. Alexander H.
Stephens. 1861. Conerstone Address dated March 21, 1861. Public Domain. Accessed on February 10, 1861. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1861stephens.asp
4. Alexander H.
Stephens. 1861. Conerstone Address dated March 21, 1861. Public Domain. Accessed on February 10, 1861. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1861stephens.asp
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