Rethinking the Secession of the Lower South: The Clash of Two Groups

Despite almost a century and a half of writing on secession by participants, engaged amateurs, and professional historians, there is no clear answer to the question, "Why did the Lower South secede?" In a thoughtful discussion of several books on the topic, James Moore remarked in 1986 that the picture that emerges is more a "mosaic than a monolith, a cacophony rather than a consensus."¹ That conclusion still holds true. Some historians contend that psychology trumped rationality. Steven Channing, for example, argues that South Carolina seceded because of a "crisis of fear" fed by anxieties about abolitionists and the large slave population. Others point to more rational motives. William Barney's book on Mississippi and Alabama underscores the desperate need of the planters for fresh soils, which the newly elected Republican party now denied them.² Still others emphasize ideology. Lacy K. Ford Jr. argues that South Carolinians were dedicated to republican values and preferred secession to abandoning their principles. A few scholars bring internal discord to the fore: Michael P. Johnson suggests that the tension between wealthy slaveholders and poorer whites lay at the heart of the story in Georgia. The slave lords spearheaded secession and created a "patriarchal republic" because of concerns that Republican patronage might exacerbate class conflict.³ Finally, and most recently, many historians have returned to the traditional wisdom that the defense of slavery drove the Confederates. James McPherson remarks that "the primacy of the slavery issue . . . has reemerged in modern historiography as the principal cause of secession."⁴

Serious problems, however, confront any interpretation that explains secession by reference to a single ideology or mind-set, whether rational or irrational, whether focused on slavery or republicanism. Citizens in almost every state in the Deep South were seriously divided over the wisdom of secession. Explanations that trumpet a single theme might explain those who chose disunion, but they ignore the sizeable minority that rejected such rash actions. At least 40 percent of voters, and in some cases half, opposed immediate secession in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida. In Texas more than 20 percent of the electorate rejected disunion, and even South Carolina had important pockets of resistance.⁵

The nature of this division has proven elusive. Several scholars have suggested a split between unionist small farmers and secessionist slaveholders, but any generalization that seeks to link the split over secession in the Deep South to wealth or slaveholding will not stand. The ranks of ardent secessionists included many small farmers in the southern districts of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi; in peninsular Florida; and in southwestern Louisiana. To be sure, some nonslaveholding farmers in the Lower South were consistent, outspoken unionists; but their role should not lead us to generalize about a whole class.⁶

Two studies that closely analyze the opposing sides in the secession debate highlight the weak connection between slaveholding and disunion in the Lower South. An analysis of the votes for the secession conventions in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana concludes that "the variance in the cooperationist vote is explained by factors other than the percentage of slaveholders." The correlation computed was extremely low, with slaveholding explaining only 17 percent of the vote for secession.⁷ Another scholar reaches the same conclusion through a different method. Ralph Wooster's study of the members of the secession conventions demonstrates that comparable groups of small farmers and slaveholders stood on both sides of the issue. Wooster observes: "In the conventions of the lower South the percentage of those who held 20 slaves or more was almost the same for the secessionists and their opponents, 41.8 percent of secessionists and 41.0 percent of the cooperationists."⁸

This essay suggests a new approach to secession and the events leading up to that crisis by contending that the battle over secession in the Lower South was the culmination of a long...