May 16, 2007
The Secession Campaign; The American South on the Brink of War
Stephanie McCurry
Professor of History, Princeton University
Minutes of the 32nd Meeting of the 65th Year
President Giordmaine called the 32nd meeting of the 65th year of the Old Guard to order at 10:15 AM for the 150 members and visitors present for the annual Guest Day at the Carl Field Center. John Marks led the invocation.
Juliana McMcIntyre read the minutes of the May 9 meeting.
Joan Fleming introduced her guest, Don Edwards.
The annual Guest Day is the occasion for the recognition of members for long service as officers or committee chairs, with the award of a blazer patch of the Old Guard's Coat of Arms. Five members with three years of service received both the award and grateful applause: Phil Cruickshank, Al Kammerlen, John Lasley, John Marks, and Ray Thompson. Also recognized were the contributions of David Dodge and Charles Jaffin, who had earlier received the award, but whose terms of office ended this year.
The Fall Session of the Old Guard will start at 9:30 am on Sept. 19th at the Friends Center. The speaker will be Sarah Nelson, Advisor to the Pontifical Council on Culture, Vatican City. The title of her talk is "Rethinking the Vatican." The speaker will be introduced by Bill Haynes.
Jim Johnson introduced the speaker, Professor Stephanie McCurry of the Department of History at Princeton, currently on leave from the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Association of University Women, Prof. McCurry previously taught at Northwestern University and the University of California in San Diego. She is a specialist in 19th century American history of the South, slavery, and the history of women and gender. Prof. McCurry's first book, "Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country", received five awards, including the John Hope Franklin Prize for the Best Book in American Studies in 1995. She is currently working on a second book, under contract with Harvard University Press, entitled "The Brothers' War: The Political Transformation of the Civil War South", which explores southern political culture in the Civil War.
The subject of Prof. McCurry's talk was the "Secession Campaign: The American South on the Brink of War." She noted that the popular view of the Civil War is the series of dramatic campaigns and battles from 1861 to 1865 that eventually led to the defeat of the Confederacy, the restoration of the Union and the end of slavery in the United States. Somewhat overlooked in popular history is the political campaign in South Carolina from 1859 to 1861 that rapidly transformed the majority of southern politicians from nationalists such as Democratic Senator Jefferson Davis, who placed America first, to revolutionary Confederates — under the Presidency of Jefferson Davis!
The Secession Campaign was led by the "fire-eaters," the radicals of South Carolina, who since the 1840's had been pursuing the goal of the minority, rich planter slave-holders of the "Lower South" to "get the South out of the Union" in order to preserve, and spread, the slave economy. By the late 1850's, first in South Carolina, and then in the rest of the Lower South, the fire-eaters focused successfully on the concern of slave-holders that "what 360,000 slave-holders want cannot be dictated to 3 million non-slave-holders." The elements of that strategy, which led to a vote for secession in South Carolina on December 20, 1860, were highlighted in Prof. McCurry's talk.
These strategic elements included propaganda and political mobilization. Propaganda took the form of at least 170,000 pamphlets whose publication was financed by a group of elite slave-holders called the "1860 Organization." These pamphlets included topics such as "why a non-slave-holder should have a positive interest in slavery," "why a white man's labor, in a slave society, is better than that in a non-slave society"; and "If we [secessionists] don't succeed, in 10 years your daughter will marry a black man." Political mobilization caused non-slave-holders to be drawn into the fire-eaters' political network through a "brilliant paramilitary strategy." Vigilantes and "minute men" groups of armed white men revived the militia structure of the American south in order to shape and control the election, and the vote, of delegates to the planned Secession Conventions. Everyone, including women, was "urged to wear the Blue Cockade, so all would know who was with us, and who was against us" as the groups were drilling day and night in the small towns. Membership in the Blue Cockade was coerced, and if you did not wear the Blue Cockade you would be the target of the Blue Cockade.
Fire-eater strategy was also directed at the control of the election of 1860, when after the break-up of the Whig party, the national political scene was dominated by a national Democratic party and a sectional Republican party. In the Democratic convention in April and June, 1860, the fire-eaters manipulated the Lower South representatives to split the Democratic party into two parts, neither of which could win: the pro-slavery Southern Democrats with John Breckinridge and the national Democrats, with Stephen Douglass offering the possibility of compromise. In May of 1860 the Republican party nominated Abraham Lincoln. A fire-eater, noting the absence of a national party that might compromise to keep the South in the Union, wrote to a Southern Senator, "So far so good!" As anticipated by the fire-eaters, Lincoln won the election in November of 1860, with a majority of 180 electoral votes from the northern states but only a plurality of the popular votes. Breckinridge lost with 72 electoral votes from the southern states. However, as Prof. McCurry noted, "the Civil War was still not inevitable after the election."
The last section of the talk focused on Lincoln's efforts to avoid war, but keep the territories free, as well as the fire-eaters' search for a "coup" that would precipitate the Civil War. The search for a "coup" began with the heavily-armed state militias of South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi seizing federal arsenals and forts, to ensure that they would have even more firepower. It culminated in South Carolina's demand of the immediate surrender of the garrison of Fort Sumter on April 11, 1861, after being informed of President Lincoln's intention to supply provisions to this Federal unit. The occupation of Fort Sumter by South Carolinaforces on April 13 led to Lincoln's declaration of a state of "insurrection" and a call for 75,000 volunteers for three months' service on April 15. The subsequent secessions of Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee led to the formation of the Confederacy on May 21, 1861 with its capital in Richmond, Virginia. On April 8, 1865, four years after the fire-eaters' "victory," Lee surrendered to Grant, ending the brutal war between two million Northern soldiers, who suffered 360,000 deaths, and one million Confederate soldiers, who suffered 160,000 deaths.
Prof. McCurry's talk generated many questions from an enthusiastic audience who wanted to learn even more about the cultural and historical story of the relatively unknown "secessionist campaign," from 1859 to 1861, throughout America.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:30 AM.
Respectfully submitted,
George D. Cody
Juliana McMcIntyre read the minutes of the May 9 meeting.
Joan Fleming introduced her guest, Don Edwards.
The annual Guest Day is the occasion for the recognition of members for long service as officers or committee chairs, with the award of a blazer patch of the Old Guard's Coat of Arms. Five members with three years of service received both the award and grateful applause: Phil Cruickshank, Al Kammerlen, John Lasley, John Marks, and Ray Thompson. Also recognized were the contributions of David Dodge and Charles Jaffin, who had earlier received the award, but whose terms of office ended this year.
The Fall Session of the Old Guard will start at 9:30 am on Sept. 19th at the Friends Center. The speaker will be Sarah Nelson, Advisor to the Pontifical Council on Culture, Vatican City. The title of her talk is "Rethinking the Vatican." The speaker will be introduced by Bill Haynes.
Jim Johnson introduced the speaker, Professor Stephanie McCurry of the Department of History at Princeton, currently on leave from the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania. A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Association of University Women, Prof. McCurry previously taught at Northwestern University and the University of California in San Diego. She is a specialist in 19th century American history of the South, slavery, and the history of women and gender. Prof. McCurry's first book, "Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country", received five awards, including the John Hope Franklin Prize for the Best Book in American Studies in 1995. She is currently working on a second book, under contract with Harvard University Press, entitled "The Brothers' War: The Political Transformation of the Civil War South", which explores southern political culture in the Civil War.
The subject of Prof. McCurry's talk was the "Secession Campaign: The American South on the Brink of War." She noted that the popular view of the Civil War is the series of dramatic campaigns and battles from 1861 to 1865 that eventually led to the defeat of the Confederacy, the restoration of the Union and the end of slavery in the United States. Somewhat overlooked in popular history is the political campaign in South Carolina from 1859 to 1861 that rapidly transformed the majority of southern politicians from nationalists such as Democratic Senator Jefferson Davis, who placed America first, to revolutionary Confederates — under the Presidency of Jefferson Davis!
The Secession Campaign was led by the "fire-eaters," the radicals of South Carolina, who since the 1840's had been pursuing the goal of the minority, rich planter slave-holders of the "Lower South" to "get the South out of the Union" in order to preserve, and spread, the slave economy. By the late 1850's, first in South Carolina, and then in the rest of the Lower South, the fire-eaters focused successfully on the concern of slave-holders that "what 360,000 slave-holders want cannot be dictated to 3 million non-slave-holders." The elements of that strategy, which led to a vote for secession in South Carolina on December 20, 1860, were highlighted in Prof. McCurry's talk.
These strategic elements included propaganda and political mobilization. Propaganda took the form of at least 170,000 pamphlets whose publication was financed by a group of elite slave-holders called the "1860 Organization." These pamphlets included topics such as "why a non-slave-holder should have a positive interest in slavery," "why a white man's labor, in a slave society, is better than that in a non-slave society"; and "If we [secessionists] don't succeed, in 10 years your daughter will marry a black man." Political mobilization caused non-slave-holders to be drawn into the fire-eaters' political network through a "brilliant paramilitary strategy." Vigilantes and "minute men" groups of armed white men revived the militia structure of the American south in order to shape and control the election, and the vote, of delegates to the planned Secession Conventions. Everyone, including women, was "urged to wear the Blue Cockade, so all would know who was with us, and who was against us" as the groups were drilling day and night in the small towns. Membership in the Blue Cockade was coerced, and if you did not wear the Blue Cockade you would be the target of the Blue Cockade.
Fire-eater strategy was also directed at the control of the election of 1860, when after the break-up of the Whig party, the national political scene was dominated by a national Democratic party and a sectional Republican party. In the Democratic convention in April and June, 1860, the fire-eaters manipulated the Lower South representatives to split the Democratic party into two parts, neither of which could win: the pro-slavery Southern Democrats with John Breckinridge and the national Democrats, with Stephen Douglass offering the possibility of compromise. In May of 1860 the Republican party nominated Abraham Lincoln. A fire-eater, noting the absence of a national party that might compromise to keep the South in the Union, wrote to a Southern Senator, "So far so good!" As anticipated by the fire-eaters, Lincoln won the election in November of 1860, with a majority of 180 electoral votes from the northern states but only a plurality of the popular votes. Breckinridge lost with 72 electoral votes from the southern states. However, as Prof. McCurry noted, "the Civil War was still not inevitable after the election."
The last section of the talk focused on Lincoln's efforts to avoid war, but keep the territories free, as well as the fire-eaters' search for a "coup" that would precipitate the Civil War. The search for a "coup" began with the heavily-armed state militias of South Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi seizing federal arsenals and forts, to ensure that they would have even more firepower. It culminated in South Carolina's demand of the immediate surrender of the garrison of Fort Sumter on April 11, 1861, after being informed of President Lincoln's intention to supply provisions to this Federal unit. The occupation of Fort Sumter by South Carolinaforces on April 13 led to Lincoln's declaration of a state of "insurrection" and a call for 75,000 volunteers for three months' service on April 15. The subsequent secessions of Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee led to the formation of the Confederacy on May 21, 1861 with its capital in Richmond, Virginia. On April 8, 1865, four years after the fire-eaters' "victory," Lee surrendered to Grant, ending the brutal war between two million Northern soldiers, who suffered 360,000 deaths, and one million Confederate soldiers, who suffered 160,000 deaths.
Prof. McCurry's talk generated many questions from an enthusiastic audience who wanted to learn even more about the cultural and historical story of the relatively unknown "secessionist campaign," from 1859 to 1861, throughout America.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:30 AM.
Respectfully submitted,
George D. Cody