Secession as an International Phenomenon: From America?s Civil War to Contemporary Separatist Movements

“Lincoln, the Collapse of Deep South Moderation, and the Triumph of Secession: A South Carolina Congressman’s Moment of Truth”

CHARLES B. DEW Lincoln, the Collapse of Deep South Moderation, and the Triumph of Secession A South Carolina Congressman’s Moment of Truth Among the complex sequence of events that led to the American Civil War, none was more important than the secession of South Carolina. On December 20, 1860, less than two months after the election of Abraham Lincoln as president, delegates to the South Carolina convention voted unanimously to sever all ties with the Union. South Carolina’s action was the trigger for a disunion movement that swept across the Deep South in the opening months of 1861. By February 1, six more states—Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas—had joined the secessionist tide. By early April, the stage had been set for the explosive confrontation at Fort Sumter that began the bloodiest war in American history. Thousands of documents, both public and private, have survived from this era, offering insight into the secessionist mindset in South Carolina and the lower South on the eve of the Civil War. Nothing I have read, however, is more revealing than a single letter written the day before Lincoln’s election by John Ashmore, a moderate first-term congressman from the South Carolina Upcountry . Ashmore’s four-page reply to friend and fellow Democrat Horatio King of Washington, D.C., dated Monday, November 5, 1860, is the clearest and most compelling statement of the secessionist persuasion that I have encountered during all the years I have been trying to understand the coming of the [98] Charles b. Dew Civil War. That letter and the political journey of the man who wrote it are the subjects of this chapter. Unlike many of South Carolina’s antebellum political leaders, John Durant Ashmore came into the world with neither wealth nor high social standing behind him. Born in the Upcountry district of Greenville in 1819, Ashmore lost his father at the age of thirteen and, as he wrote later, “was thrown on my own resources without education or money.” He was a bright, hard-working young man, however , and he learned enough on his own to begin moving up in the world. After his father’s death, he moved to central South Carolina, where he served as a clerk for a Sumter merchant. He became a teacher in a country school at age eighteen and stayed in that position for three years. His next step was to spend another three years reading law, but he soon abandoned the legal profession for what he referred to as “the quiet independence of a farmer’s life.” Ashmore prospered as a cotton farmer, acquiring land and slaves in the Sumter District, and he soon became a leader in local affairs. As was often the case in the Old South, militia service became a stepping stone to a political career. Ashmore was elected to three terms in the South Carolina legislature beginning in 1848 and then served two terms as comptroller-general of the state from 1853 to 1857. Ashmore’s success came at a cost. His residence in swampy Sumter District led to his contracting malaria, and after several severe attacks, he decided to move back to his native Upcountry. He purchased a farm in Anderson District, and in January 1855 he left the Sumter area for good. During these years, Ashmore also married and began raising a family. By 1860, he and his wife, Mary, had six children, two boys and four girls. The 1860 census also revealed that he owned twelve slaves—two adult men, two adult women, and eight children. Ashmore told the census taker in Anderson that he owned real estate valued at $8,500 and a personal estate (this figure included the value of his slaves) worth $29,500. John D. Ashmore had come a long way from the indigent youth who had set out on his own at thirteen. Ashmore’s political views in the late 1850s placed him squarely in the mainstream of his Upcountry constituents. This mountainous area of western South Carolina was primarily a region of small- and medium-sized farms, and the local yeomen took great pride in their independent views. The Democratic Party dominated the Upcountry, and two men, Benjamin F. Perry and James L. Orr, dominated the Upcountry Democratic Party. Perry was a prominent lawyer and the editor of the Greenville Patriot and Lincoln and the Triumph of Secession [99] Mountaineer...