The Secession Conventions of the South

By Ralph A. Wooster

The result of painstaking and detailed research, Ralph A. Wooster, offers a fascinating insight into the men that participated in the conventions, and Legislatures that led the abortive rebellion of the Southern states. Delving into their professions, backgrounds, land and slave holding, the author elucidates the trends, voting records and party politics of the members.

A fascinating and necessary study on the proponents of the Confederate cause.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barakaldo Books
• Release date: May 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781839743870

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The Secession Conventions of the South

BY

RALPH A. WOOSTER

Table of Contents

Contents

Table of Contents 4

DEDICATION 5

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 6

1 — INTRODUCTION 8

PART I — The Lower South 11

2 — SOUTH CAROLINA 11

3 — MISSISSIPPI 20

4 — ALABAMA 35

5 — FLORIDA 47

6 — GEORGIA 56

7 — LOUISIANA 70

8 — TEXAS 83

PART II — The Upper South 93

9 — VIRGINIA 94

10 — ARKANSAS 105

11 — TENNESSEE 117

12 — NORTH CAROLINA 129

PART III — The Great Border 138

13 — KENTUCKY 139

14 — MISSOURI 149

15 — MARYLAND and DELAWARE 161

16 — CONCLUSIONS 165

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE WITH SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 165

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 165

DEDICATION

FOR

EDNA AND ROBERT WOOSTER

AND

BARNES F. LATHROP

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THE debt owed to various individuals for their aid and encouragement in the preparation of this work cannot be adequately expressed. To Professor Barnes F. Lathrop of the University of Texas, in whose seminar the idea for this study was conceived and who has guided my work from beginning to conclusion, I owe a debt for advice and counsel that cannot be repaid. As those who have been fortunate enough to study under him are well aware, his demands are exacting and his standards are high, but the rewards in intellectual stimulation far exceed what small efforts we have made. Whatever contribution to the understanding of the secession movement may come from my work is due largely to him.

My particular thanks are extended to Miss R. Miriam Brokaw, Managing Editor of the Princeton University Press; it was Miss Brokaw who first encouraged me to extend my study of the lower South to include all of the fifteen slaveholding states. Over the past two and one half years she has provided invaluable assistance as I have worked to complete my task. To Professor David Donald of Princeton University I owe a debt not only for encouragement but also for several suggestions in regard to methodology. And to Professor Ernest C. Shearer, formerly of the University of Houston and now of Sul Ross State College, I wish to express my appreciation for the trust and inspiration that encouraged me to pursue graduate work in history.

Appreciation is extended to various librarians and their staffs, especially to Dr. Llerena Friend of the Texas Collection of the Library of the University of Texas, to Miss Julia Plummer, Head Librarian of Lamar State College, and to Miss Maxine Johnston, Research Librarian of Lamar State College, for the many, many courtesies that were furnished to me over a period of several years.

Several students have provided valuable assistance and have helped in various ways to make my task a more pleasant one. Gail Stevenson Michaels, my secretary for the past two years, served with such efficiency that I was relieved from numerous time-consuming clerical duties; Carol Ann Stevens gave assistance in researching the microfilm returns for the state of Maryland; and Linda Elizabeth Malin helped in the final stages of proofreading and rechecking statistical tables. My particular thanks and appreciation are extended to Mary Allbritton for her aid in researching, copyreading, and compiling statistical and bibliographical materials.

The editors of the Journal of Southern History, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Journal of Mississippi History, Alabama Review, Florida Historical Quarterly, Georgia Historical Quarterly, Maryland Historical Magazine, and the South Carolina Historical Magazine have been kind enough to permit me to use portions of my articles that have appeared previously in their journals.

The author received generous financial support from the Lamar Tech Research Fund and the Penrose Fund of the American Philosophical Society. Without assistance from these funds my work could not have been completed, and I am extremely appreciative to the administrators of these funds for their faith and confidence in my work.

Finally, I wish to express my gratitude to my family for their patience and understanding in this long journey. Not only has my wife, Edna Jones Wooster, provided invaluable assistance in the actual preparation of the manuscript itself, but more important, she furnished the encouragement and inspiration which sustained me throughout my work. And for little Robert, who has cheerfully given up playtime with his parents for a cause he is too young yet to understand, I express my love.

Ralph A. Wooster

September 3, 1961

Beaumont, Texas

THE SECESSION CONVENTIONS OF THE SOUTH

1 — INTRODUCTION

FOLLOWING Lincoln’s election as President of the United States in November 1860, the states of the lower South began leaving the Union. By early February 1861, seven states had seceded and had formed a new nation, the Confederate States of America. During the spring and early summer of 1861 the four states of the upper South withdrew from the Union and joined their sister states of the lower South in the Confederacy. The four slave states along the great border between North and South—Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware—were torn in their loyalties but remained in the Union; in all of them, however, there were strong elements which favored and worked through the legislature for secession. Thus, all of the fifteen slave states in some way considered the matter of secession in the winter and spring months of 1860-61. In eleven of these states a special convention was called by the legislature specifically for the purpose of considering what action the state should take in the sectional crisis. Ten of these conventions adopted ordinances of secession, while the eleventh, that of Missouri, adhered to the Union and rejected secession. In each of the other four states the legislature did not call a convention but did itself consider at length what course the state should follow; three of them opposed secession but the fourth, Tennessee, adopted an ordinance of secession.

Seldom in American history have representative bodies played roles of equal importance to these eleven conventions and four legislatures. Composed in many instances of the very elite of southern society, these gatherings assumed and wielded tremendous power. Not only did they in many instances destroy allegiance to the old government and create allegiance to a new, but they also performed such other functions as amending the existing state constitutions and preparing for the military defense of the states. In one case, that of Texas, the convention removed the state governor for failure to support the Confederacy; in another, that of Missouri, the convention removed the governor for failure to support the Union. In all states they determined the course to be followed for the next four years of sectional conflict. It is the purpose of this study to examine the work of each of these conventions—in the case of Tennessee, Maryland, Kentucky, and Delaware—legislatures, and especially to analyze the characteristics of the delegates thereto in terms of such key data as birthplace, occupation, property ownership, and slaveholding.

For the most part the 1,859 men who participated in these conventions and legislatures have not received the attention of historians. Only the participants whose roles in the political, military, or economic history of the state or nation were extensive, such as Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, R. Barnwell Rhett, Jubal Early, and L. Q. C. Lamar, have had biographers. A few of the other delegates have received brief attention in biographical memoirs or in county histories, but the vast majority has been ignored, largely because historical materials concerning them were either lacking or widely scattered. Fortunately, specific information for most of these dele-gates can be found in the manuscript returns of the Eighth Census of the United States, 1860. These returns constitute the major source for the present study.

As the employment of the manuscript census returns in historical research is still a comparatively new procedure, it is well to give some attention to what the materials are and how they have been used in this study. The returns of population, consisting of Schedule No. 1, Free Inhabitants, and Schedule No. 2, Slave Inhabitants, are of foremost importance.{1} The first of these schedules lists by family groups all free inhabitants within a county, giving their name, sex, color, age, occupation, real property owned, personal property owned, and place of birth by state or country of each person. Where applicable, such facts as illiteracy, insanity, blindness, school attendance in previous year, or marriage in previous year are also shown.{2}

In searching out delegates to the secession conventions or legislatures, the writer went through the voluminous returns for Schedule No. 1 until he found information for each convention member or until he became convinced that such information could not be determined from the census. In such cases as the latter, a complete search through the returns of the county the individual represented in the convention was made at least twice and usually three times. Since the total free inhabitant population for the fifteen states was over eight million and there are forty-two names on a page (plus a number of half-filled pages at the ends of counties and precincts), the writer conservatively estimates that he went through 195,000 pages of manuscript returns in Schedule No. 1 alone.

In Schedule No. 2, Slave Inhabitants, slaves within the county are listed by holders. The writer simply searched through the county of the delegate’s residence to find the number of slaves listed under his name. Only slaves held by the delegate individually or in partnership were counted; thus, all slaves employed by or held in trust by the delegate were excluded, excepting those held in trust for wife or children. In some instances, the delegate had several plantations within the county; in such cases, his total number of slaves was counted. The slave schedule has not yielded entirely satisfactory results for this study. Many southerners, especially wealthy planters, owned lands and slaves in counties other than those of their residence, but the mechanics of working through the returns and the frailties of human memory make it practicable to search systematically only for the slaves held by the delegate in the county of his residence. Thus, slaves held by delegates in counties other than those of their residence have, with one or two exceptions, been omitted in this study. Herein lies the probable explanation of the several instances the reader will notice in which delegates whose occupation and property holdings strongly indicate slaveholding have no slaves listed.

The search through the manuscript returns for Schedule No. 1 resulted in finding 1,780 of the 1,859 delegates to the fifteen conventions and legislatures. Also, 1,395 delegates were found in Schedule No. 2, Slave Inhabitants.{3} By totaling or averaging the information about the individual delegates derived from the manuscript returns it is possible to obtain an insight into the typical membership and work of the state conventions and legislatures in the secession crisis of 1860-61. To assist in this, tables showing such information as the birthplaces, occupations, ages, and slaveholdings of the delegates have been prepared for the chapters devoted to the individual states.{4} The individual states are discussed in the chronological order in which they considered secession, with one exception: Alabama, fourth state to secede, is discussed before Florida, which was third. Only a day separated the secession of the two, and Florida’s action depended heavily upon Alabama’s; Floridians were convinced that the Alabama convention was going to act or there would have been more opposition to separate action in Florida. To facilitate the analysis of the various factions present in each state, a full narrative account of the happenings at each convention or legislature, with a brief background of the secession movement in the state, is included in each chapter.

Each chapter includes also an analysis of the counties which supported various factions in the conventions and legislatures. Such a comparison will further aid in an understanding of the secession movement. What type of counties supported radical secessionists in 1860-61, counties with a high or a low per-capita wealth? Did heavily slave-populated counties support immediate secession, or did the great planters in these areas oppose any upsetting of the boat? Did the old Whig counties, as in the crisis of a decade earlier, oppose separation in 1860-61? By comparing the vote of the county delegations in the state conventions and legislatures with information about the county gained from the printed reports of the Census of 1860, these and other questions can be in a measure answered.

PART I — The Lower South

2 — SOUTH CAROLINA

IN 1860 South Carolina was the most radical state in the South. This was not a new position, for South Carolina had occupied an advanced position in the state-sovereignty concept of thinking since the nullification controversy of 1832. In that year South Carolina had attempted to apply the doctrines of her great leader John C. Calhoun, but receiving little support from her sister southern states had repealed her nullification ordinances. The compromise proposals adopted by the United States Congress in 1850 afforded South Carolina the next opportunity to express her theories regarding state sovereignty, and in an election for delegates to a state convention the extremists who favored immediate secession were victorious over a coalition of cooperationists and conditional unionists.{5} Before the convention could assemble, however, events in other states of the South—particularly Georgia—illustrated to South Carolina that once again she was in advance of her neighbors and would stand alone if secession were attempted. This failure of the other states to act had a restraining effect upon South Carolina, and the state convention that assembled in April 1852 contented itself merely with the passage of resolutions defending the right of secession.{6}

The years following the failure of 1851-52 witnessed a struggle within South Carolina between the extremists headed by R. Barnwell Rhett, Sr., William H. Gist, Lawrence Keitt, and Maxcy Gregg, and the more moderate group led by James L. Orr, Robert Barnwell, Langdon Cheves, and Christopher G. Memminger. The former group were the real fire-eaters of South Carolina who had favored immediate secession in 1851 and looked forward to the day when the rest of the South would advance to their position. The moderates, known as the National Democrats, were certainly not submissionists, but hoped that the Union could be preserved while at the same time southern rights were protected. This group contained the conditional unionists and cooperationists of the 1851-52 crisis, who now hoped to work for southern interests by staying within, and if possible controlling, the National Democratic party.{7} Discredited by their part in the 1851-52 fiasco, the extremists, or immediate secessionists, suffered political reverses during the years 1853-54, but events during the next five years, such as the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the birth of the Republican party, and John Brown’s raid, helped them to regain some of their lost strength. Even so, the National Democrats led by James L. Orr were able to maintain a slight political advantage in the Palmetto State, and the state Democratic convention of 1860, presided over by Orr, adopted resolutions in harmony with his ideas.{8}

At the Democratic National Convention of 1860, held in Charleston, the South Carolina delegation was composed of moderates who had no inclination to precipitate a division of the party. Only after the Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana delegations had stormed from the hall, did the South Carolina group bolt the convention.{9} This support from the other southern states and the public reaction to the action of the northern-controlled National Convention greatly encouraged and strengthened the extremists of South Carolina, and in a meeting of the state Democratic convention to determine who should represent the state in the convention called for Richmond, the radicals were able to elect a new delegation that included some of their number. Heading this delegation was R. Barnwell Rhett, Sr., champion of the immediate secessionists. The extremists were again in control of the state, and this time were supported by other southern states.

During the following weeks, the extremists increased their strength in South Carolina politics. The main question was no longer who would win the presidential election, since most leaders in the state realized that the Republicans would be victorious nationally, but what South Carolina would do when Lincoln was elected president. The extremist leaders argued that immediate secession was the only possible course the state could follow. Even the National Democrats in the state had committed themselves in the election of 1856 to disunion should a Republican be elected as president, and the support of the other southern states convinced many of the old cooperationists of 1852 that South Carolina was no longer alone in the secession movement. Sentiment for secession was rapidly crystallizing within the state.

Amidst an atmosphere of excitement and tension, the state legislature of South Carolina convened on November 5 for the routine task of choosing presidential electors, In his message Governor William H. Gist, an extremist of the Rhett school, requested that after its electoral task was completed the legislature remain in session to await the outcome of the national election. He asked also for a state convention to consider necessary action should the Republicans be victorious.{10} By November 7 South Carolina knew that Lincoln had been elected; and by November 13 the legislature had adopted an act calling a state convention.{11}

The campaign for election of delegates to the state convention took place in late November and early December, In most instances there was a lack of issues, and personalities determined the outcome of the election. The secessionists, rather than antagonizing their old foes of 1852, insisted that their policy was in reality southern cooperation. The states, they argued, were separate sovereignties and had to act separately; some states simply had to act first so others could follow.{12}

The opponents of disunion did make an effort to defeat the secessionists in some areas, but the effort was usually haphazard and unorganized. The coalition that had won the election of 1852 was now divided. The former cooperationists were now committed to separate action by South Carolina; and without support from their former allies the unionists had little chance for victory. In Greenville county, a five-man unionist ticket headed by Benjamin F. Perry was announced three days before the election, but two of the candidates withdrew their names, and Perry himself made no active campaign, receiving only 225 votes against more than 1,300 for each of the five secessionist candidates.{13} In a few other districts the unionists entered a slate of candidates, but everywhere the secessionists were victorious.{14} The popularity of secession seemed overwhelming throughout most of the state.{15}

On Monday, December 17, 1860, the Convention of the People of South Carolina convened in the Baptist Church at Columbia. Numbering among its membership four ex-governors (John Hugh Means, John L. Manning, James H. Adams, and William H. Gist, whose term had just expired) and three future governors (A. G. Magrath, James L. Orr, and John P. Richardson), the convention was truly a gathering of notable persons. Four of the delegates (R. W. Barnwell, T. L. Gourdin, F. H. Wardlaw, and John I. Middleton) had served in the nullification convention of 1832 and the convention of 1852; while three others (R. B. Rhett, Sr., John L. Nowell, and James H. Adams) had served in the 1832 body, but not in the 1852 convention. The convention included prominent educators (R. W. Barnwell, President of South Carolina College, W. P. Finley, President of Charleston College, R. J. Devant, President of the Board of Visitors of the Citadel, and James Furman, President of Furman University); leading industrialists and railroad men (William Gregg, founder of the Graniteville Company, and William W. Harllee of the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad); and some of the great planters of the South (Langdon Cheves, John Townshend, T. G. Gourdin, John I. Middleton, and John S. Palmer). Four former United States Senators (R. W. Barnwell, R. B. Rhett, Sr., James Chesnut, Jr., and W. F. De-Saussure) and five former United States Congressmen (W. P. Miles, L. M. Keitt, James L. Orr, R. F. Simpson, and J. P. Richardson) were among the members of the convention.{16}

Data from the United States Census of 1860 permit various analyses of the characteristics of the members of the convention as a whole. The ages of one hundred and fifty-eight of the one hundred and sixty-nine delegates have been ascertained. The age group 40-49 comprised 29 per cent of the entire convention, while 27.8 per cent of the convention fell in the age group 50-59 years. Only thirty-five delegates, or 20.7 per cent of the convention, were under 40 years of age. The median age of the delegates was 49.0 years, illustrating that the convention was comprised primarily of middle-aged men.{17}

One hundred and forty-four delegates, or 80.5 per cent, were born in South Carolina. On the surface this would appear to be a high rate of native-born delegates, but South Carolina was a state that received few immigrants; 96.6 per cent of the entire population of the state in 1860 had been born in South Carolina.{18} Only two other states (North Carolina with five, and Virginia with two) were the birthplaces of more than one delegate to the convention. Three delegates at the convention were born outside the United States—one each in England, Scotland and Württemberg; The place of birth of eleven members could not be ascertained.

In regard to occupations represented in the convention, the agricultural interests ranked high. Forty-eight delegates, or 28.4 per cent of the entire convention, were returned as farmers, and thirty-three others, or 19.5 per cent, as planters.{19} Taken together, planters and farmers (without five delegates who listed their occupation as planter or farmer and something else) comprised 47.9 per cent of the convention. This compares with 46.1 per cent of the entire population of the state whose occupation was listed as planter or farmer in 1860.

As might be expected, lawyers were numerous in the South Carolina convention. Numbering thirty-three members, or 19.5 per cent of the entire convention, they far exceeded their percentage in the total population, which was only 0.6 per cent. Physicians, of whom there were twelve; judges, six; ministers, five; merchants, four;