Читать книгу American Civil War For Dummies - Keith D. Dickson - Страница 69

On December 20, 1860, 169 delegates of the state of South Carolina met in Charleston to consider leaving the Union. The convention was organized to mimic the first state convention that assembled for voting to join the United States in 1788. The logic of secession went like this: Each state was sovereign after independence from Great Britain. In 1788, the states entered into a federal union under the Constitution voluntarily. The Constitution was thus a compact, an agreement of sovereign, independent, and self-governing states allowing the central government to have specific powers as outlined in the Constitution. According to the Tenth Amendment, all other power resided with the states. Therefore, any state, if it so desired, could voluntarily leave the Union (secede) and could become a sovereign state again. This was not a rebellion, the South Carolina delegates insisted, but a legal act.

Given the climate after the election of 1860, and the growing fear of what the Republican Party would do to the South after taking control of the government in March when the new president was inaugurated, South Carolina took the first drastic step to dissolve its fraternal bonds with the United States. To the surprise of many Southerners, there was no reaction. After all of the emotionalism, the threats, and the sense of high purpose enmeshed in their world-shaking event, nothing happened. The people of South Carolina must have felt a bit sheepish and uneasy in the roaring silence coming from the federal government. Congress, with its members divided along sectional lines, could take little action, even if it wanted to and President Buchanan had no interest in making waves at the moment. The new citizens of South Carolina also felt a bit lost, lacking any means whatsoever to function independently. The newly declared nation awaited help from her sister states in the lower South, or some indication from Washington. That help came quickly and raised morale higher. Mississippi voted on January 9, 1861, to secede. Two more days passed with two more states, Florida and Alabama, leaving the Union. By the first of February, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had also voted themselves out. These states of the lower South had the most to lose from a national government controlled (probably permanently) by Republicans hostile to slavery and condemning the institution to a slow death, which meant eventual economic ruin and social chaos.

The rationale for secession can be summed up in one sentence taken from the Mississippi ordinance of secession: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world.” The key words here are “material interest.” Slavery was the basis of the cotton economy, the greatest generator of wealth in the world. These seven states were not willing to risk their wealth, economic security, and social dominance on the Republican-dominated government. This material interest is highlighted by the fact that whites in these states made up only 32% of the South’s total population. Slaves in these states made up 47% of the total slave population. In fact, in Mississippi and South Carolina (the first two states to secede) the enslaved population actually exceeded the white population.