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2019 Why Did Florida Secede from the Union? Alexander J. Bowen

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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

WHY DID FLORIDA SECEDE FROM THE UNION?

By

ALEXANDER J. BOWEN

A Thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with Honors in the Major

Degree Awarded: Spring, 2019

Introduction

On January 11th, 1861, Governor Madison S. Perry met with the state’s secession commissioners on the east portico of the state capitol building to witness and confer Florida’s official Ordinance of Secession that had been passed the previous day in the Convention of the People of Florida. This public ceremony officially began the process of separating Florida from the federal union of the United States and established the state as an independent republic. In the coming weeks, what was the secession convention would transform into the Constitutional Convention of 1861 to establish a reformed government in Florida similar to the U.S. Constitution. The following month, delegates would be sent to the Montgomery Congress to commit

Florida to a union between the Southern slaveholding states and draft a constitution for the Confederate States of America. Through the course of these events, the delegates of the state convention married Florida to the rest of the South and to a bloody war with a massive loss of life, defeat at the hands of the very government they sought to separate from, and a Reconstruction government protecting the rights of newly emancipated slaves.

The histories of other Southern states like South Carolina and Virginia prior to the

Civil War are well known. South Carolina was the home of John C. Calhoun and the

Nullification Crisis and therefore has a rich history with secession. Virginia was crucial to forming the Confederacy and was home to revered general Robert E. Lee. Today, these states are seen as the epitome of the Old South while Florida has become forgotten as one of the first, seceding slaveholding states. Is this new image due to the influx of

Latinx people and northern Americans in the 20th century who brought their culture with

them? Did Florida join with its fellow Southern states to defend its way of life from

Northern aggression? Or maybe Florida has been forgotten as a “Southern” state because it was a reluctant member of the Confederacy and had no other choice politically due to the state’s geographic location? Regardless of whether Florida is seen as Southern by the rest of the country, the state still has a unique connection to its antebellum period and the Confederacy that is present in Florida public history. At the same time, it is the state’s connection to the Confederacy and antebellum history that is cited by victims of racial tensions today. This thesis is designed to answer the question: why did Florida secede from the Union?

Why Did Florida Secede from the Union?

Early Florida’s Society and Foundation

In the same way that Southern slaveholders would eventually look towards Cuba in the mid-1800s, territorial Florida was seen as a Promised Land. Due to its subtropical climate, the land had potential to be a paradise for cash crops. Additionally, the territory’s location below the Missouri Compromise demarcation of 36°30" made it an opposition-free home for slavery. In 1821, following Andrew Jackson’s military campaign to quell conflicts between natives, settlers, and escaped slaves in the First

Seminole War, Florida was admitted to the United States under the Adams-Onis Treaty.

Once open to American migration, the allure of the southernmost territory increased with rumors from early pioneers’ claiming that the clay soil was conducive to sea-island cotton and sugar production leading to dreams of Florida as a super-plantation on par with the West Indies. The rumors would eventually lose their strength as the concept of

a mainland sugar power was realized as farfetched and sea-island cotton would not become a significant crop until the 1850s.1 Nevertheless, settlers of all kinds began the migration to Florida with common hopes of honor, wealth, and political power. But similar to the rest of the South, these hopes were the only thing that many settlers had in common.

To the superfamily planters of the "Old South," Florida was the land of second chances. Virginians and North Carolinians who had once thrived in the Middle Atlantic faced multiple hardships in the 1810s and 1820s. In 1818, the Bank of the United States reversed its policy of expanding credit and began the immediate collection of debts from borrowers, throwing the U.S. into the Panic of 1819 as debtors defaulted on loans.2 At the same time, the soil of the Atlantic coastal states from Virginia to Georgia had grown worn out and unable to grow crops aside from tobacco. Intensive cotton production following the advent of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin in 1793 combined with global temperature decline in the 1820s lead to planter migration to the newly acquired southwestern territories.3 This migration was gradual as many families would send a few members first with a company of slaves to begin clearing the land of trees and building farming structures. In many cases, these land improvements were initiated before the land was put up for public sale. In the new frontier that lacked the economic establishments of the settled "Old South," planters relied on obtaining cash and credit

1 Edward E. Baptist, Creating An Old South: Middle Florida’s Plantation Frontier Before the Civil War (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 18-21. 2 Hezekiah Niles, "Congressional Report," Niles’ Weekly Review 26, no. 669 (1824): 290, https://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?collection=cow&handle=hein.journals/nilesreg27&id=298&me n_tab=srchresults. 3 Baptist, Creating An Old South, 23.

from family and business ties from home. Kinsmen invested money into one another to fund travel and business expenses in addition to accepting mortgages for slaves and farm equipment. In turn, these planter elites would use the credit obtained to increase their labor force and machinery.4 A majority of the resources available to these elite planter superfamilies of the Middle Atlantic were nowhere near obtainable for their migrant cohorts, the common settler.

While Florida may not have been a part of the United States before 1821, that did not stop American settlers from entering into foreign territory. The lack of pre-modern technology and manpower in the Spanish-controlled Florida left the boundary with

Georgia unprotected and porous. With the inclusion of new territory after the First

Seminole War, non-elite planter whites moved southward. Many of these common planters were veteran migrators, previously coming from southern Georgia and North

Carolina where they left behind pine-covered lands that were harder to farm on.5

Arriving with dreams of obtaining wealth from the cotton industry, early Florida settlers faced a harsh reality. As migrants settled, they would take up a section of land and begin improving it before the land came up for sale at public auction. Lacking the slave labor of the elite planters, squatters would take an immensely longer amount of time to clear the land of trees and prepare the soil for farming. As was the case with migrants to surrounding Alabama and southwestern Georgia, when the time came to purchase the land that squatter-settlers had spent years living on, many had the land bought from

4 Baptist, Creating An Old South, 29-32. 5 Baptist, Creating An Old South, 40.

under them by speculators.6 The only protection common white settlers had against being outbid by their elite planter cohorts was a political loophole known as

"preemption." But this option was difficult to utilize as it required occupants to register their cultivated land by proving, prior to the land auction, they had settled in Florida before Jan. 25, 1825 and purchase at least 80 acres of a specific 640-acre plot.7

Additionally, this federal legislation was enacted in 1826 and did little to aid those who lost their land in auctions conducted in the previous year. Land ownership was only one issue that separated the elite and non-elite planters; slave ownership was a compounding method of attaining wealth and power in the cotton economy.

The institution of slavery existed long before the Florida territory was brought into the United States. In the "Old South" states of the Atlantic coast, slavery existed before the United States was a country when each of these states were colonies in the British empire. Whether rice, tobacco, or sugar, slave labor was utilized to increase the amount of crops put in the ground in one season to therefore maximize the amount of yield that a plantation owner could send to market. In short, a higher slave force equals a higher planted crop, equaling a higher profit. The same held true when cotton became king as the invention of the cotton gin combined with the global demand for textiles. But slavery as merely a profit multiplier was not all there was to it. Enslaved labor, like any other commodity, had a clear supply and demand that an entrepreneur took notice of and

6 Daniel S. Dupre, Transforming the Cotton Frontier: Madison County, Alabama, 1800-1840 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1997), 11-13, https://books.google.com/books?id=ArQjT0d99aoC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_su mmary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=speculator&f=false. 7 An Act giving the right of pre-emption, in the purchase of lands, to certain settlers in the states of Alabama, Mississippi, and territory of Florida, 4 U.S.C. § 28 (1826), accessed March 11, 2019, https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/19th-congress/session-1/c19s1ch28.pdf.

began trading. Additionally, slavery was so essential to increasing profits that, in the same way a planter would take out a mortgage on a plot of land, one would take out a mortgage on a slave or group of slaves as the cost of free labor grew so high.8 What the marriage between cotton and slavery created was a cotton economy that depended on both commodities to prevent collapse. And as cotton expanded across the southwest and into Florida, so too did slavery and the slave trade. The demand for slaves in

Florida led slaveowners to purchases entire family units in the plantation regions of the

Upper South while schooners of slaves arrived at Apalachicola and St. Marks from New

Orleans in the 1830s.9 In the same way that cotton and slavery formed an economic marriage, the two institutions also had an effect on Southern society that migrated to

Florida with the settlers.

The common hopes of wealth, honor, and power that all settlers sought in Florida began at the same point: obtaining wealth. The goal for all settlers in frontier Florida was to grow enough cotton to increase one’s possession of slaves and land. In turn, one who could increase their capital holdings could multiply their profit and continue the cycle of increasing wealth. To have wealth was to have honor, and to have honor was to have power. This principle applied not only in Florida, but in the entire South. Slave ownership not only affected the amount of wealth an individual might possess, but the social hierarchy of slavery had an impact on Southern society. A man who is honorable is the master of a domain that stretched from the household, to the plantation, to the community as a whole. Elite planters who were considered the most honorable men in

8 Bonnie Martin, "Slavery’s Invisible Engine: Mortgaging Human Property," The Journal of Southern History 76, no. 4 (2010): 7, https://www.jstor.org/stable/27919281. 9 Baptist, Creating An Old South, 73.

society were the leaders of their wives and children, their slaves and employees, and other men in their locality. The social impact that slavery had stretched to legal statute as men in Florida, prior to the Constitution of 1838, were required to own at least fifty acres of land to vote in the territory.10 These requirements were, to Florida settlers, what defined them as men. To not be able to vote was a sign of submission and meant one was similar to slaves and women. Of course these masculine requirements were put in place by individuals already in power, the elite planters. In frontier Florida, elite planters used every advantage they could to maintain dominance in their society including limiting others’ access to resources and capital.

Florida politics in the territorial and early statehood period was not focused on defending slavery in the United States. Instead, early Florida politics was divided between powerful groups of planters fighting over the allocation of land and credit growing ever more scarce by the day. In territorial government, the majority of public offices were obtained through federal appointment as opposed to popular election. For the few positions determined by election, the voting body was primarily limited to the planter elites and few yeoman settlers that held enough land to qualify for suffrage. The superfamilies who migrated from the "Old South" utilized patronage connections to gain appointments from political allies at the federal level. Once in control of public office, elites held the power to decide who purchased public land and what price the land would be sold at auction at. This allowed factions of elites controlling such public positions to divert land held by squatters or lower class planters to other political allies or relatives. Such was the case in 1825 when Richard K. Call and George W. Ward

10 Florida Const. (1838) art. 1 sec. 4

were appointed to registrar and receiver of public lands, respectively, by President

James Monroe at the opening of the Tallahassee Public Land Office. In addition, Call and Ward had to power to assist their fellow elites by making final decisions on preemption requests, a predominately squatter-settler action.11 These powers, in turn, allowed public office holders like Call to gain additional influence and allies through the granting of privilege over land sales. In the early days of territorial Florida, the elite planters exercised and maintained their masculine authority over their settler cohorts by utilizing patronage ties to control land sales.12 As land grew scarce and political patronage grew weak, elites pointed their attention to the other crucial pathway to wealth: capital growth.

The Union Bank, charted in 1833 by the Legislative Council, was "Old South" planters’ solution to expanding the availability of credit and capital in the face of a declining public land sector. John Gamble, the Virginia-born first president of the bank, modeled the institution after the newly established Bank of Louisiana in New Orleans.

The Union Bank operated by selling bonds in the name of the Territory of Florida to

Northern and foreign investors to accumulate operating cash. Landholders residing in the territory then purchased stocks in the bank through forty-year mortgages of land and slaves with a 6% interest rate. Shareholders then had access to loans equal to two- thirds of the value of their mortgaged property that would typically be used to increase slave forces for maximum plantation output.13 The bank was designed to be a source of

11 Clarence E. Carter and John P. Bloom, "George Graham to Richard K. Call and George W. Ward," Territorial Papers of the United States: Florida Territory: 1824-1828, 607-608. 12 Baptist, Creating An Old South, 91. 13 Kathryn T. Abbey, "The Union Bank of Tallahassee: An Experiment in Territorial Finance," Florida Historical Quarterly 15, no. 4 (1937), 209, https://www.jstor.org/stable/30138257.

revenue for the territory, but in the case of shareholder default, Florida’s government was responsible for paying any debts owed to bondholders. While on paper the bank seemed to be an ingenious way of creating a center of credit for Floridians, the institution was charted for biased reasons. Then governor of the territory, William DuVal, gave his blessing to the Union Bank as the proposal was sponsored by his ally John

Gamble and other associates loyal to R.K. Call in his previous land office scheme.

Under the conditions of the bank’s charter, the board created by gubernatorial appointment held the responsibility of estimating the value of to-be-mortgaged properties. This allowed the powerful alliance of elite planters to over-value each other’s property and grant access to greater sources of credit that was designed to be accessible to all white landholders in the territory. The Union Bank was yet another tactic for a faction of elite planters to exert a level of dominance over their community.

The outrage experienced by enemies of the bank would lead to an evolution in Florida politics as common whites and excluded planter elites would join forces and begin the movement of national parties in the territory.

Having officially been a territory of the United States for sixteen years, the

Legislative Council of Florida moved for the formation of a constitutional convention in

1837 to begin petitioning Congress for statehood. The convention called for the popular election of delegates across the states to meet in St. Joseph of lower Middle Florida.

With the St. Joseph convention split into factions of bank supporters and bank opposition, a key fight over the constitution was its stance on the Union Bank and other charted banks in Pensacola and St. Augustine. The result was the combined efforts of

Jacksonian-republicans from East and West Florida teamed with anti-bankites in Middle

Florida passing a constitution that restricted the power of the bank in 1839. To celebrate the passage of a favorable constitution, the members of the anti-bank faction announced the first meeting in a local hotel of the Florida Democratic Party. In said meeting, the members adopted a platform in line with the national party dedicated to

Jeffersonian-Republicanism and opposition to abolitionism.14 The revolutionary actions of these early Florida Democrats introduced powerful movements in the territory: a shift away from a political sphere oriented on planter factionalism, the genesis of national party politics, and the first strong instance of common white political power. From 1839 onward, the government of Florida was affected by national political debates as the

Democrats (and eventually the rival Whigs) would adjust their platforms in reaction to current issues. Additionally, for the planter elites that controlled the allocation of land and capital, they would now have to appeal to the wishes of the general population instead of the powerful few to survive in a state government organized by popular election.

Over the course of decades, as Florida matured from a newly acquired territory of the United States to a member state, the politics of the land matured as well. What once was a territory dominated by a collection of society’s elites from the "Old South" became a state with a government that flexed to the will of the general population. And while Florida and its residents embraced a system relevant to national debate, the society that early settlers brought with them remained the same. All members of the southernmost state had aspirations of wealth, honor, and power and the avenue for such was still the same: the production of cash crops on the backs of enslaved African

14 Baptist, "The Migration of Planters to Antebellum Florida: Kinship and Power," The Journal of Southern History 62, no. 3 (1996), https://www.jstor.org/stable/2211501.

Americans. The next section will analyze how the newly accepted State of Florida entered into the Union and how it would ultimately follow its fellow Southern states into the Confederacy of the United States over the threat to slavery.

Florida Joins the South

While the Constitution of 1838 helped usher Florida into the national debate among political parties, the territory itself would not be included in the Union until March

3, 1845. Nevertheless, the newly founded Florida Democratic Party continued operations following the St. Joseph Convention, aiming to mobilize common whites against the pro-banking faction. Early Florida Democrats gained support from commoners by appealing to the principle of white male equality embodied in the

American Revolution. These principles were borrowed from Jeffersonian-Republicanism and helped to paint the allies of the Union Bank in the same light as the Federalists of the early republic: aristocrats who achieved personal gain from the industrious working class. By directing commoners to perceive the pro-banking faction as "anti-republican," early Florida Democrats played to the Southern sentiments of masculinity. If these elitists sought to force their fellow while men into submission through economic, political, and cultural domination, the only option was to answer such an insult in order to prove their manhood. The tactic of the early Florida Democratic Party of appealing to its commoner-constituency gave it an image as "the people’s party" while beginning to organize local community rallies to raise party nominations and excite political sentiment. For instance, a barbecue in Centerville in the January of 1840 assembled to reassure the principles of the party, praise the actions of territorial and federal

politicians, and allow citizens to make declarations of their sentiments. Some of the declarations included "the speedy admission of Florida into the Union," "public honor…in bank parlance…immunity to private peculation," and "Centerville - the stamping ground of true Jeffersonian Democracy in Florida."15 The actions of the early

Democrats embodied Florida’s shift from a territory dominated by ruling-class factions to more republican values guided by a greater majority of the population. It is important to add that, while state elections were democratic in nature and the 1838 Constitution granted universal male suffrage, many white males in the territory still did not own their own land and may have felt like they had no impact in politics. But this early manipulation of a popular government by the Democratic elites would not always be the case as in the coming years the newly enfranchised common whites would utilize their power to support a motion favorable to struggling farmers. Nonetheless, Floridians’ adoption of the two party system was a sign, beyond the formality of the state constitution, that the territory was ready for statehood.

For a period following 1838, the Democrats acquired a majority of representative seats in the territorial government as "the people’s party," but this one-sided domination would not last forever. Seeing the need to evolve with territorial politics, the pro-banker elites began aligning themselves with the national Whig Party which had already formed an alliance with bankers, businessmen, and other large-scale Southern planters.16 The movement towards the Whigs placed the pro-bankers under the party’s platform and

15 Samuel Sibley, "Centerville Barbecue," The Floridian (Tallahassee, FL), January 25, 1840, accessed March 29, 2019, http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00079927/00343?search=tallahassee+%3dfloridian, 3. 16 Michael F. Holt, The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 83-84.

assisted the elites in appealing to the commoner-constituency more than they had previously. During the elections of 1840, the Whigs’ change in strategy bore some fruit as the "Conservative" party won a majority of seats in Leon and Jackson counties.17

This success came through the Whigs’ campaigning for stay laws in the midst of the

Panic of 1837 which would allow the debtors to protect a portion of land for subsistence under economic turmoil, a law planters sought to expand to protect their slaveholdings.

While the Democrats attacked the Whigs’ intended use of stay laws to protect their capital wealth, the debtors’ relief was appealing to the commoners who would otherwise become landless in the face of the Panic. Additionally, the Panic of 1837 occurred under a national government controlled by the Democrats which aided the Whigs in their campaign. The Whig success following 1840 was short-lived as planters, seeking to re- exert a patronage relationship with their commoner-constituency, would experience a push back in the following election of 1841-42 as the voters changed their support to the

Democrats. From the territorial elections to the federal elections that took place after

Florida was admitted to the United States, the Whigs and Democrats would see relatively equal success until the 1850s as the general public exerted a greater voice in politics. The solidified role of the people in politics pushed the two parties towards a more modern method of campaigning that included a strong party platform that candidates would attempt sell to the populace.

Aside from local party barbecues, political newspapers arose as an instrument of the commoner-constituency in Florida’s cities to show support for either party. Some of the key papers in the land were the Pensacola Gazette (Whig), Tallahassee Sentinel

17 Sibley, "The Election," The Floridian (Tallahassee, FL), October 17, 1840, accessed March 29, 2019, http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00079927/00375/3j?search=tallahassee+%3dfloridian, 3.

(Whig), The Floridian and Journal (Dem.) of Tallahassee, and The Ancient City (Dem.) of St. Augustine. These newspapers functioned as any other by posting advertisements from community businesses and patrons, featuring articles relevant to the region, and notifying the public of major events. Additionally, these newspapers held a strong bias for one party over the other that was apparent in commentary on news and political bulletins. Editors would utilize their print to throw support behind a party candidate, reprint speeches, as well as announce and recap resolutions passed at party meetings throughout the region. In most papers, every edition would feature the party ticket that was nominated for election underneath the terms of subscription for the paper followed by the political news. And while editors could keep track of how many people regularly read their paper through subscription rosters, editors understood that their message reached a far greater audience. Non-planter whites could hear the contents of newspapers from the comings and goings of literate men in "local taverns, stores, and post offices" as well as from "'stump speeches’" and "pulpit preaching."18 Therefore, even the illiterate could be impacted by the speeches of an election candidate ranging from topics on the Union Bank to the value of the cotton crops. As Florida neared its

1845 admission to the United States, candidate speeches began shifting from primarily territory-centric issues to nationwide interests and debates including the admission of other states into the Union and the expansion of slavery.

18 Baptist, "Accidental Ethnography in an Antebellum Southern Newspaper: Snell’s Homecoming Festival," The Journal of American History 84, no. 4 (1998), accessed March 30, 2019, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2568085, 1361; Ellen Call Long, Florida Breezes, Old and New (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1962), 186, http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00101388/00001/218j.

In order to understand the debates occurring in the United States in the decades preceding the Civil War, there needs to be an understanding of the Missouri

Compromise. The Missouri Compromise, or the Compromise of 1820, was legislation passed by Congress to permanently solve the question of slavery. The act admitted

Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state while declaring the 36°30" parallel as the future boundary between slave and free territory in the United States. This meant that any territory acquired by the United States following the act’s passage was declared slave territory, and eventually a slave state, if south of the 36°30" parallel. The act allowed slavery room to expand as the western boundary of the U.S. grew, influenced by the belief in Manifest Destiny. As 36°30" cut the country down the middle, the Compromise additionally allowed for relative political equality (at least in the Senate) between the free and slave factions that were at odds in Congress. The Missouri

Compromise would be applied to Florida and allowed the territory to enter the United

States as a slaveholding area without debate in 1821. For the next fifteen years after

Florida was acquired by the U.S., each territory would enter the country with its slavery question decided based on its geographical location with relatively little debate. To

Floridians, the Missouri Compromise was legislation that they would initially accept as it was the same act that made the territory enticing to migrants from the "Old South."

Following the Mexican-American War, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo granted the

United States a large influx of territory that was ceded by Mexico, most of which was below the 36°30" parallel. Congress, tasked with how to organize the abundance of new territory, experienced a re-ignition of slavery debates. To the Southern states, a threat

to slavery’s expansion and Southern political power was significant as the region needed to keep the slave economy and population density in check.

As previously mentioned, slavery and the slave trade was a major component of the cotton economy of the South with Florida being no exception this rule. The greater the slave force a planter might have, the greater ability he would possess to harvest crops and access loans to expand his capital. Therefore, it is in his best interest for a planter to expand his ownership of slaves whether through auctions or natural reproduction. With a steadily increasing slave population, Southerners grew increasingly concerned over slave insurrection as the black population of most states slowly surpassed the white population. To the South, the expansion of slavery was necessary for maintaining its economy and keeping the slave population in check. As long as slaveholders had access to new markets, the market value of slaves would remain high.19 Additionally, if slaveholders are able to sell slaves to a market that is expanding into the western territories, the states have a solution to maintaining the slave population while boosting the economy. In summary, the expansion of slavery was crucial to the survival of the cotton economy, the South, and Florida. To Florida specifically, the expansion of slavery allowed residents a greater opportunity to repay loans taken out with banks protected by the state government. Therefore, a strong slave market prevented Florida from being responsible for the repayment of defaulted loans to

Northern and foreign bank bondholders. This was an issue that the general public was aware of and as David Levy Yulee, James Wescott, and Edward Cabell prepared to

19 Hilton & Dyke, "The Enhanced Value of Slave Property, Through a Free Access to the Mines," The Floridian and Journal (Tallahassee, FL) 2, no. 38, Sept. 18, 1850, accessed March 30, 2019, http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00079928/00087/1, 2.

represent Florida as the state’s first Congressional delegates, they all understood the importance of expanding slavery.

Within Florida’s first years as a state, national debate over what to do with the

Mexican Territory impassioned both the North and the South. In 1846 as the Mexican

War was still ongoing, David Wilmot (Democrat) of Pennsylvania proposed a proviso that would prevent slavery from entering any new territory acquired in the fighting

(California and New Mexico had already been conquered by this point).20 While David

Wilmot’s amendment to the 1846 House bill would never be applied to any legislation beyond 1850 outright, the Proviso did kickstart new debates on the slavery question as

Northern politicians continually pressed for limitations on the institution. This was the beginning of the end for the Missouri Compromise and in many ways the Union of the

United States as the next decade would polarize the North and South into separate political factions. Florida, enraged by the Wilmot Proviso along with the rest of the

South, would assemble in Nashville with representatives of other states to discuss the

Southern platform against the prohibition of slavery in the June of 1850.

The Nashville Convention met from June 3-11, 1850 and held delegates from nine Southern slave states: Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee,

Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, and Florida. The states that did not attend typically encountered opposition from the state government from individuals, mostly Whigs, who did not see the Wilmot Proviso as a regional crisis. Debates occurred regarding a response if the omnibus bill by Henry Clay, what would become the Compromise of

1850, was passed admitting California as a free state, redrawing the boundaries of

20 Michael A. Morrison, Slavery and the American West: the Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 41.

Texas, prohibiting slavery in the Mexican Territory, outlawing the slave trade in

Washington, D.C., and enacting the Fugitive Slave Act. These debates saw some of the most serious cries for state secession since the Nullification Crisis of 1832-33 in South

Carolina, but those suggestions were tabled by moderates in attendance.

At the conclusion of the convention, an address was dispersed throughout the

South outlining the platform that the slaveholding states were encouraged to stand upon. The address stated that the convention was assembled to determine a course of action to preserve Southern "rights, liberty, and honor" in the face of Northerners who have transformed Congress into a sectional power that does little for the South and its sentiments (by this time, the population of the Northern states was greater than that of the South granting the North greater representation in the House). Northern delegates sought to expand Congress’ reach and include slavery into its jurisdiction when slavery was a state issue, weaken the South and make the slave states colonial subjects of the

North, and impose the Wilmot Proviso to keep the Southerners from the Mexican

Territory. In response to the Compromise of 1850, the Nashville Convention claimed that California was the size of four states and would be unfair to admit to the Union as a free state, the boundaries of Texas are indisputable and it would be wrong to remove territory form a slave state, banning the slave trade in D.C. would be illegal as the territory sat between two slave states: Maryland and Virginia. The Southern states felt that it was wrong for the North to fail to return fugitive slaves to their owners, who were the owner’s property. In addressing the Fugitive Slave Act, the Nashville Convention felt that the proposed act would be a false benefit to the South as it would allow slaves to sue for their freedom. In concluding the address, the convention stated that the

Southern states had stood idly by as the North transformed the Constitution, the South should stand by the Missouri Compromise and extend it to the Pacific, and called for another assembly of the convention once Congress had adjourned.21

In Florida, the call for slave states to send delegates to Nashville was met with debate between Whigs and Democrats. Thomas Brown, then Governor of Florida and strong Union Whig, denied that he was able to select delegates to send to Tennessee and saw the proposed convention as a violation of the Constitution saying, "I consider such a convention as revolutionary in its tendency and directly against the spirit if not the letter of the constitution of the United States, which declares that 'no State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation.'"22 The Democrats, led by David L.

Yulee, were strongly in support of the convention as they saw the proposal of the

Wilmot Proviso as a violation of the Missouri Compromise that needed to be addressed.

It took fellow Whig E.C. Cabell, who was in support of the convention to avoid compromising with the North, to convince Gov. Brown to reverse his decision and allow for Florida to send delegates to Nashville.23 Through a series of "courthouse meetings," bipartisan support of the convention throughout the state selected Gen. Joseph

Hernandez, Col. B.M. Pearson, Gen. C.H. Dupont, E.C. Cabell, James F. McClellan, and Foreman.24 Once the convention had assembled, newspapers throughout the state

21 Ramon Canova, "Address of the Southern Convention," The Ancient City (St. Augustine, FL) 1, no. 26, June 29, 1850, accessed March 31, 2019, http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00048575/00023/1x, 1. 22 Canova, "Southern Convention," The Ancient City (St. Augustine, FL) 1, no. 29, September 28, 1850, 2. 23 Dorothy Dodd, "The Secession Movement in Florida, 1850-1861, Part I," The Florida Historical Society Quarterly 12, no. 1 (1933), https://www.jstor.org/stable/30150152, 7-8. 24 Hilton & Dyke, "Florida Delegates to Nashville," The Floridian & Journal (Tallahassee, FL) 2, no. 19, May 18, 1850, accessed March 31, 2019. http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00079928/00087/1, 2.

printed updates of the convention minutes as they became available until the publication of the convention’s address. Across the state, reception of the convention’s platform was generally positive between both parties. Democrats strongly supported the resolutions and declared the address a true declaration of Southern sentiments with

Democratic meetings around the state utilizing it as the party platform in the upcoming election. The Democratic paper, The Ancient City, would declare the Nashville address

"an able document [that] clearly elucidates the true interests of the South."25 For the

Whigs, the convention was met with reluctant support as the party sought to support the

South while maintaining positive relations to the Union. Ultimately, the Nashville

Convention would have an impact on the Compromise of 1850 as the South’s seemingly unified stance against Henry Clay’s bill would push Northern politicians into offering concessions. Moreover, the convention helped to preserve the Union for another decade, but not without some outrage against portions of the Compromise in

Florida and nationwide.

The Compromise of 1850, as previously mentioned, was a large bill proposed by

Henry Clay designed as a resolution to debates over the Mexican Territory and issues related to slavery. Originally a set of motions that would severely restrict the expansion of slavery, the Nashville Convention pressured Congress into making some adjustments. The final form of the compromise would be a series of five separate bills that admitted California as a free state, redrew the boundary of Texas in return for

Congress assuming the state’s debts, prevented the Wilmot Proviso by allowing the

New Mexico and Utah territories popular sovereignty on the question of slavery,

25 Canova, "Address of the Southern Convention [II]," The Ancient City, June 29, 1850, 2.

outlawed the slave trade in D.C., and imposed a Fugitive Slave Act that required free states to cooperate with fugitive slave hunters. For the South, the admission of

California as a free state was seen as a slight against slavery and was heavily opposed by Democrats in Florida. David L. Yulee would speak on the Senate floor following the admission of California declaring that the legislation granted the free states greater political power than the South despite a Congressional precedent of preserving the balance of power.26 Democratic newspapers in Florida would protest the new state by highlighting how the action endangered the slave states’ and their economies by preventing the opening of a new market and the bleeding of the growing slave population.27 Overall, the legislation passed in the September of 1850 was met with popular support and allowed moderate Southerners to prevail over extremist secessionists until 1860. The same rang true in Florida as disunionist Democratic candidate for the House, Maj. John Beard, would lose the election of 1850 to incumbent

Whig candidate and Unionist, E.C. Cabell. Nevertheless, the Compromise of 1850 did have Floridians pondering secession as the Southern Rights Association, an organization resistant "to the encroachment of the North on the constitutional rights of the South, sprang up in at least four counties after the election.28 For the national Whig

Party, the Compromise was the beginning of the end as the regional divide was growing stronger and the party was reaching its death toll, the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

26 Canova, "Extract from the Speech of Mr. Yulee," The Ancient City (St. Augustine, FL) 1, no. 37, Sept. 14, 1850, 1-2. 27 Hilton & Dyke, "The Enhanced Value of Slave Property" and "Doom of the Southern States," The Floridian & Journal (Tallahassee, FL), Sept. 18, 1850, accessed March 31, 2019, http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00079928/00087/1, 2-3. 28 Dodd, "The Secession Movement in Florida, 1850-1861, Part I," The Florida Historical Society Quarterly 12, no. 1 (1933), 12.

Seeking to expand the railroads and open the territory up to farming, Congress began working towards legislation to organize the land north of Texas. What would become the Kansas-Nebraska Act would establish the individual territories of Kansas and Nebraska while repealing the Missouri Compromise. The Compromise of 1820 would be effectively nullified by allowing Kansas and Nebraska to decide whether to be slave or free when each territory drafted a state constitution when applying for statehood. The act would ultimately be passed in the May of 1854 with overwhelming rejoicing from the South who saw the legislation as a strengthening of states’ rights and removing the slavery question from Congress. In Florida, the act found heavy support with Rep. Augustus Maxwell (D) who spoke on the House floor declaring the bill as a benefit to the North and South as it was reminiscent of the same sentiment between the

Founding Fathers who devised the 3/5ths Compromise. Maxwell said that the Kansas-

Nebraska Act strengthened states’ rights and was only met with opposition by an abolitionist minority who wanted the Union to separate. Additionally, this speech was a rare instance where a Florida politician renounced the Missouri Compromise, stating the

1820 legislation restricted popular sovereignty and the people’s right to own property.29

The Ancient City, in its May 20th issue, fully supported the measure stating that it

"embodies the principles of the Constitution" and called its opponents abolitionists.30

The Floridian & Journal would proceed to reprint Augustus Maxwell’s speech in its June

3rd issue and express joy at the Nebraska Act’s passage calling it a bill "pregnant with

29 Benjamin F. Allen, "Nebraska and Kansas: Speech of Hon. A.E. Maxwell of Florida," The Florida Sentinel (Tallahassee, FL) 15, no. 25, June 6, 1854, accessed March 31, 2019, http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00079923/00137/1, 1. 30 Canova, "Nebraska Bill," The Ancient City 5, no. 20, May 20, 1854.

hope for the future" for the South.31 The Whig Florida Sentinel would throw support behind the act not from a pro-slavery stance, but in support of the legislation’s prolonging of the Union.32 The passage of the Nebraska bill would result in multiple consequences that would shake the nation, one of which was the gruesome civil unrest over slavery known as Bleeding Kansas. Additionally, the act that gave Kansas and

Nebraska life brought the death of the Union closer as differences between Northern and Southern sections of each party would separate the country into regional factions.

By the beginning of the 1850s, the Democrats and Whigs were still the two key national political parties, but each had always experienced regional divides between the

North and the South. In the Democratic Party, both regions were in favor of small government, but when slavery was in question Southern Democrats were strongly in favor while a majority of Northern Democrats were in favor of limitations on the institution. For the Whigs, nationally the party was in favor of maintaining the Union and promoting a market economy, but was deeply divided over slavery. Northern Whigs were strongly anti-slavery while Southern Whigs favored slavery, but did not want to highlight the issues to maintain connections with Northern manufacturing.33 Of the two parties, the Whigs were more divided with various sections of Northern Whigs separating from the party to join political organizations such as the Free Soil Party that made abolition the primary issue. For the United States as a whole, the debates over

31 Charles E. Dyke, "The Nebraska Bill Triumphant!," The Floridian & Journal 6, no. 22, June 3, 1854, 2. Accessed March 31, 2019, http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00079928/00087/1, 2. 32 Allen, "Mr. Maxwell’s Speech," The Florida Sentinel (June 6, 1854), 2. 33 Reinhard O. Johnson, "The Liberty Party in Massachusetts, 1840-1848: Antislavery Third Party Politics in the Bay State," Abolitionism and American Politics in Government (New York: Taylor & Francis, 1999), edited by John R. McKivigan, https://books.google.com/books?id=WBW2tvCheJYC&pg=PA120#v=onepage&q&f=false, 254.

slavery and the Mexican Territory were beginning to divide the country between the

North and the South. Southern Democrats became more solidified under the banner of slavery as their brethren to the north became apparently wearier of the institution with

Northern Democrats voting 44-42 in favor of Kansas-Nebraska. For the Whigs, the

Kansas-Nebraska Act was the party’s last hoorah as all Northern Whigs voted in opposition of popular sovereignty and Southern Whigs, torn between supporting the

South and preserving the Union, voted 12-7 in favor of the bill.34 While the Democratic

Party would survive until the Election of 1860, the Whigs would soon disband with most

Northern Whigs joining to create the Republican Party. Moreover, the argument between slavery and abolition was about to transcend ideological debate on the

Congressional floor and manifest in a physical way.

As Bleeding Kansas continued, Congress looked for a way to end the fighting.

Charles Sumner, abolitionist Republican senator from Massachusetts, brazenly called for the admission of Kansas to the Union as a free state. In the process, Sumner made a metaphor alluding to slavery as slaveholders raping slaves which many Southern senators in attendance took as an insult. Preston Brooks, Democrat from South

Carolina, took exception to Sumner’s speech which also included an attack on Brooks’ cousin, Andrew Butler, who had recently suffered a stroke and was left with a speech impediment. Originally intending to challenge Sumner to a duel, Brooks believed that

Sumner would not accept the challenge and was not worthy of dueling. Calling upon

Southern etiquette, Brooks deemed that the best course of action to achieve satisfaction for Sumner’s speech was to humiliate him by beating. And so Preston Brooks did on the

34 Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union: A House Dividing 1852-1857 (New York: Scribner, 1947) 2, 156-157.

Senate floor after the body had disbanded from official duty, beating Sumner unconscious and to the point that he suffered chronic pain for the remainder of his life.35

In the aftermath of the attack, Sumner would not return to service on the Senate floor for three years. Nationally, the event was representative of how divided the United States had become over the issue of slavery as the North would condemn Preston Brooks for the attack while the South would commend him. In Florida, the state had become dominated by the Democratic Party as the Whigs had not succeeded in electing a candidate to the House, Senate, or Governor’s mansion since E.C. Cabell in 1850 and newspapers reflected this in their unflinching support of the Southern cause. The

Floridian & Journal seemed to deem the attack as warranted, calling Sumner’s speech a

"wanton and atrocious…" attack on "…not only on the State of South Carolina where

Mr. Brooks is a representative, but Senator Butler, who is a near relative of Mr. Brooks, an aged gentleman, and now, at the time of the attack, absent at home." In the same paper, while discussing a group of University of Virginia students who wanted to purchase Preston Brooks a new cane to show their support, the editor of the Journal declared "the chivalry of the South has been thoroughly aroused."36 While this incident was an early example of the nation’s tensions becoming physical in relation to the slavery issue, the debate on slavery would not reach a fever-pitch until three years later when abolitionist John Brown raided the U.S. arsenal at Harper’s Ferry would be raided, igniting serious calls for Southern secession.

35 Class Lecture, Old South, Katherine C. Mooney, Tallahassee, FL, 2017. 36 James B. Jones, "Mr. Brook’s Assault on Mr. Sumner," The Floridian & Journal 8, no. 22, May 31, 1856, 2-3.

In the North, John Brown was seen as an admirable, yet misguided abolitionist.

To the South, Brown had legitimated the region’s deepest fears since the Haitian

Revolution and Nat Turner Rebellion as a fanatical Christian abolitionist had hatched a plan to overthrow slavery, putting slaveowners’ lives and their position as the superior race in jeopardy. News throughout the South covered Brown’s capture and the subsequent investigation in minute detail and began blaming his radicalism on Northern politicians and religious fanaticism. To the slave power, this was the warning sign secessionists had been waiting for and the Florida press was no different in portraying this sentiment. The editors of the Floridian & Journal, after extensive coverage of the letters found in Brown’s belongings and their ties to Northern abolitionists including

Frederick Douglass, Rep. Gerrit Smith, and William Seward, placed the blame on the

"Black Republican" doctrine and declared that the next election would decide the fate of the Union.37

In the period leading up to the Election of 1860, the Republican Party was gaining greater support throughout the Northern states which had grown more populous than the South over the course of the decade. Calls for secession following Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry were not the cries of extremist Southerners as the conspiracy that the

South had referred to throughout the 1800s had occurred. And as the election drew nearer, the South was seeking firm guarantees that slavery would remain intact regardless of what political party was in power. The Democratic Party prepared for its national convention in Charleston, SC to decide what ticket to run for President and

37 Jones & Dyke, "The Harper’s Ferry Insurrection" and "The Insurrection at Harper’s Ferry," The Floridian & Journal 11, no. 44, October 29, 1859, accessed March 31, 2019, http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00079928/00087/1,1-2.

Vice President with Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois seen as a front-runner. In 1858, while campaigning against Abraham Lincoln as an incumbent senator, Douglas proposed a solution to the Supreme Court decision in the Dred Scott case (a decision stating that it was unconstitutional for slavery to be excluded anywhere in the United States under a slaveholder’s right to property) and declared that territories did not have to pass legislation that supported slavery. The Freeport Doctrine, as it came to be known, enraged slaveholders throughout the South and came to a head at the Charleston

Convention that was unable to decide a party ticket, leading to the Northern and

Southern Democrats running separate candidates for executive office. With Democratic voters split regionally, this opened up the door for Republican candidate Abraham

Lincoln to claim the presidency. The election of Lincoln was the final straw for many

Southern states which refused to accept a "Black Republican" president who was content with limiting slavery to its current bounds. To the South, if the slave states were to remain in the Union, it would spell the end to slavery as Lincoln’s abolitionist government would eventually outlaw the institution with a majority in both houses of

Congress. In Florida, Governor Madison S. Perry called for the state to secede with its fellow slave states and join a Southern confederacy independent of the United States.

The state legislature would answer Perry’s call and issued a statewide election on

December 22, 1860 to elect delegates for the state’s secession convention to decide

Florida’s next action.38 Florida’s fate as a member of the Union of the United States fell in the hands of sixty-nine men beginning on January 3rd, 1861.

38 Convention of the People of Florida, "Ordinance of Secession, 1861," Florida Memory, accessed March 31, 2019, https://www.floridamemory.com/exhibits/floridahighlights/secession/.

Conclusion

Becoming a territory through the Adams-Onis Treaty in 1821 following the First

Seminole War, forty years later Florida was set to leave the Union that it had only joined as a full member sixteen years previous. In many ways, the dominating-submissionist politics of the early Florida Territory never died. Slaveholders throughout the peninsula were fearful of becoming an equal to the same race of humans that they had fought so hard to keep enslaved, invested money into, and had made money off the backs of.

Florida planters wanted to retain their status as the superior race, maintain their capital vested in human labor, and keep expanding their wealth through the harvest of cotton through slavery. Florida had become a full member of the Southern slave power that stood together in the face of the Wilmot Proviso, solidified its relationship at Nashville, fought for concessions in the Compromise of 1850, won popular sovereignty in Kansas and Nebraska, stood behind the metaphor that Preston Brooks represented when he beat that Yankee Charles Sumner into submission, watched in fear as the raid of

Harper’s Ferry happened, and sought to unite as one confederacy after the election of

Abraham Lincoln. The southernmost state that profited from King Cotton was willing to place its faith into a region that lacked the railroads, manufacturing power, and freeman labor that the North held, pending the decision of the sixty-nine men that the people of

Florida trusted to make the right choice.

How Did Florida Secede?

"We have not acted in haste or in passion but with the utmost deliberation and from what we regard immeasurable necessity."39 These words mark the beginning of

Florida’s unpublished Declaration of Causes written by the Florida secession convention and were representative of the state convention’s sentiment. From January 3-10, 1861, delegates from throughout Florida assembled in Tallahassee to represent their constituents in deciding what course of action to take in response to the election of

Republican President Abraham Lincoln. Ultimately, Florida elected to separate from the

United States and eventually join the Confederate States of America, but how did

Florida secede? Of the sixty-nine delegates to the secession convention, who were they and where did they come from? In the eight days it took for Florida to sign the

Ordinance of Secession, what did the convention take into consideration prior to voting and did any members question leaving the U.S.? Did any of the other states seeking to leave the Union attempt to influence Florida’s decision? People are familiar with what action Florida decided to take in the winter of 1861, but how did the state arrive to that point? Would the society of wealth, honor, and power that ruled early Florida society prevail as it had in the previous forty years and push the state towards secession to oppose submission to the abolitionist North?

In order to understand the decisions that the Florida secession convention would make, the backgrounds of the sixty-nine delegates must be recognized. The average age of the delegates was 42.5 years old with forty-two men between the ages of 30-49,

39 Letter, Convention of the People of Florida, "Florida Declaration of Causes" (1861), Series 577, Carton 1, Folder 6, Gov. Madison Starke Perry - Constitutional Convention 1861 Collection, Florida State Archives, Tallahassee, FL.

nineteen older than 50, and seven younger than 30. In regards to the delegates’ home states, 66.1% of the convention was born in the "Old South" states of Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Virginia. Only ~10% of delegates were native Floridians and only two men were born in the southwestern states of Mississippi and Alabama, outnumbered by the six men who called the North their birthplace. In comparison with census data, the state convention was not representative of the rest of Florida with

40.6% being born in the "Old South," 47.2 being native Floridians, and 6% of the state being born in Alabama, alone.40 The assembly in Tallahassee included a collection of immensely wealthy planters who raised the wealth per average to $11,224 (1860). The median wealth paints a realistic image of the average wealth of delegates at $7,000 real property and $15,000 personal holdings.41 The thirty members of the convention whose property value was assessed at less than $5,000, may seem more representative of the general population of Florida that was 34.3% farmers.42 In reality, the common wealth was probably less than the median value in a convention composed of twenty-five delegates who were farmers themselves, ten merchants, seven planters, and 11 men who practiced law and medicine. ~72% of the assembly were slaveowners and among them, a majority owned upwards of 20 slaves. By understanding the background and statistics of delegates, the motivations behind electing these individuals to the

Convention of the People of Florida becomes clearer. Although the members of the

40 U.S. Census Bureau, "Table No. 5 - Nativities of the Free Population," Population of the United States in 1860: Florida, accessed April 1, 2019, https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1860/population/1860a-09.pdf#. 41 Ralph A. Wooster, "The Florida Secession Convention," The Florida Historical Quarterly 36, no. 4 (1958), 374-5, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30139845. 42 U.S. Census Bureau, "Table No. 6 - Occupations," Population of the United States in 1860: Florida.

convention were wealthier than the vast majority of Floridians, the men of the state seemed to be united behind the motion for secession. Voters seemed to support delegates that were reflective of the general population or for those who would support the wishes of the people. And for the people, the biggest decision to make when electing a delegate was to support immediate secession, the favored choice for disunionist Democrats, or co-operation which was primarily supported by former Whigs and Unionists.

At the conclusion of the Election of 1860, Floridians knew that the state was preparing for an inevitable secession when electing officials to the state convention on

Dec. 22, 1860. To voters, the only question that remained was how Florida was going to exit the Union: immediate secession or co-operation? Immediate secession was the option to abandon the United States as soon as possible through convention, regardless of the actions of fellow slave states. Co-operation was exiting the Union with another state which, if favored, would be Florida’s neighbors Alabama or Georgia. Most cooperationists were residents of far West Florida near Pensacola or East Florida

(predominately residents of Suwanee, New River, and Clay counties). For residents of

West Florida, co-operation was enticing as many Floridians living in the panhandle were engaged in business with Alabama so much so that Pensacola and the surrounding area held a referendum in 1854 to decide if they should be annexed by the northern state.43 In East Florida, most residents were in favor of co-operating with Georgia due to the region’s dependence on the Georgian economy.44 For some cooperationists, former

43 Dyke & Williams, "The Election," The Floridian & Journal 6, no. 41 (October 14, 1854), accessed March 31, 2019, http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00079928/00087/1, 2. 44 Wooster, "The Florida Secession Convention," The Florida Historical Quarterly, 380.

Whig sentiments encouraged prominent Florida planters like George T. Ward to hold of secession as long as possible to preserve the Union. In an address by Ward following his election to the state convention, he claims that secession is imminent and the connection was more so designed to reorganize the state to occupy current federal duties. Additionally, Ward states that the election of a Republican president is not enough to seceded, but impending actions by abolitionists who abide by a power

"greater than the Constitution" is alarming. The address concludes with Ward supporting co-operation with Alabama and Georgia due to Florida’s "geographical location, paucity of resources, and immense extent of sea coast."45 On the secessionist’s side of the debate, supporters were more likely to be slaveholders than cooperationists and tended to be native Alabamians. The immediate secessionists consisted of many powerful members of the Florida government, including Gov. Perry who was working diligently to prepare the state to assume command of federal military installations along with other states. Perry’s cooperation with other state governments was also political maneuvering to encourage Georgia and Alabama to secede with

Florida.46 Among other supporters of immediate secession were the commissioners sent by other Southern states to influence Florida’s decision.

Upon the election of Abraham Lincoln and the news of Florida assembling a state convention, three states sent secession commissioners to urge Florida to secede immediately. Edward Bullock, commissioner from Alabama, was sent by Governor

45 Address, George T. Ward, "Address by G.T. Ward to Leon Co." (1860), Box 158, O: 256, Special Collections, Strozier Library, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL. 46 Edmund Ruffin, "Edmund Ruffin’s Account of the Florida Secession Convention: A Diary," The Florida Historical Society Quarterly 12, no. 2 (1933), https://www.jstor.org/stable/30150159, 68.

Andrew B. Moore independent of legislation from the Alabama state assembly to rally the Southern slaveholding states in defense of Southern "peace, interests, security, and honor" that was imperiled by a Republican government.47 Bullock would speak on

January 7th, 1861 by decision of the Florida assembly, calling for immediate and separate secession and the creation of an union between the Southern states once

Alabama had seceded. Second to be invited to speak was Leonidas W. Spratt of South

Carolina. Spratt had been chosen by the independent nation of South Carolina as a worthy commissioner to Florida due to his history practicing law in the state and the radical longing for secession in the peninsula. Assuming the floor, Spratt addressed the convention saying that he welcomed the rise of the Republicans as "contest was inevitable" between the North and the South. The South Carolinian claimed that "within this government two societies have developed…one of one race, the other of two races…one based on free labor, the other slave labor…one embodying the social principle that equality is the right of man; the other, the social principle that equality is not the right of man, but the right of equals only."48 Spratt concluded his address by urging the State of Florida to join the independent South Carolina. Final commissioner to speak, Edmund Ruffin of Virginia, was not an official agent of the Commonwealth, but was only in attendance to witness the imminent secession of Florida. Upon the conclusion of Leonidas Spratt’s speech, chairman of the convention John Pelot invited

Ruffin to remove himself from the gallery and speak to the assembly. Ruffin addressed the convention, making it known that he did not speak for the State of Virginia, but

47 Charles B. Dew, Apostles of Disunion (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2001), 23. 48 Dew, Apostles of Disunion, 43.

asked Florida to swiftly act on the question secession so that Virginia and the remaining border states might be encouraged to joined the rest of the Southern states.49 Once the visitor from Virginia had finished speaking, the assembly went to recess and began preparations for a vote on the ordinance of secession.

At 1 o’clock, following the addresses by the visiting secession commissioners,

Chairman John Pelot announced the committee assignments of members of the state convention to reorganize the government in preparation for secession. Following the chairman’s notification, the assembly resolved to order a Committee of Thirteen selected by the President to prepare an ordinance for the convention. Two days later on

January 9th, the Committee on Ordinances submitted a report deeming the Constitution

"as simply a compact in solemn form entered into between equals…which had declared themselves free and independent States." The report concluded, stating, "Your

Committee find no clause in the Constitution prohibiting the States from re-assuming these delegated powers, and are of the opinion that the right of Secession, or taking back the powers so delegated to the Federal Government, was one of the rights reserved to the States respectively." The drafted Ordinance of Secession was then presented to the convention, where George T. Ward proposed an amendment calling for the Ordinance to not take effect until the assembly received notification of the advised actions of Georgia and Alabama. Allison then offered an amendment delaying the passage of the Ordinance until Gov. Perry received notification of the secessions of

Alabama and Georgia, and if neither state seceded then the decision would be presented to the voters of Florida. Ward and Allison’s amendments were defeated 27-

49 Ruffin, "Edmund Ruffin’s Account of the Florida Secession Convention: A Diary," The Florida Historical Society Quarterly 12, no. 2 (1933), 72.

42. Ward then proposed an amendment delaying the Ordinance of Secession until its passage by the Florida voters. The motion was defeated 26-41. The remaining cooperationists faction lead by George T. Ward, A.K. Allison, and Jackson Morton would attempt to delay secession two more times, both motions being defeated by margins of 28-40. Upon the last attempt, the convention would adjourn till the next day.

On January 10th, 1861, the state convention would reconvene. The Ordinance of

Secession was read and the question of its passage was presented to the assembly.

The motion would pass by a margin of 62-7, effectively adopting the ordinance and separating Florida from the United States of America.50

With the Ordinance of Secession passing Florida’s state convention, the following day the members of the assembly would converge at the state capitol building in the presence of the state supreme court to sign the document. Once the celebrating had ended, the secession convention would transform into a constitutional convention for the newly sovereign state of Florida. In one of its first orders of business, the convention would draft a declaration of causes listing the state’s reasons for turning its back on the Union. The issues included the North condoning John Brown’s raid on

Harper’s Ferry, the non-slaveholding states’ consistently attempting to encroach on the

Constitution’s promise of a right to property, the formation of a despotic Congress, the circulation of abolitionist material to incite insurrection and servile war, the election of an inexperienced Republican president, and the imposition of disproportionate tariffs on the

50 Dyke and Carlisle, "Journal of the Proceedings of the People of Florida," (Tallahassee: Office of the Floridian and Journal, 1861), accessed April 1, 2019, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Journal_of_the_proceedings_of_the_Convention_of_the_people_ of_Florida.

slaveholding states.51 Florida’s declaration of causes is indicative of a state that, despite being one of the newest admits to the Union, felt a greater connection to the slave

South than the United States as a whole. This sentiment is not surprising when considering Florida’s early population was primarily migrants from the "Old South,"

Florida is the southernmost state, and its economy was so heavily tied to the success of cotton and the slave trade. Unbeknownst to the delegates of the secession convention,

Florida had just committed itself to the losing side of a bloody civil war that would change the states forever.

Conclusion

The American Civil War would begin in the April of 1861 at the Battle of Fort

Sumter and, for the most part, concluded at Appomattox Courthouse in the May of 1865 as Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union general U.S.

Grant. In many parts of the South, the war would continue till autumn as the remainder of Confederate forces were rounded up and surrendered. The federal government would begin the process of Reconstruction to reorganize the South back into the United

States. The 13th Amendment was passed during the war in the absence of Southern politicians in Congress, emancipating the slaves. If all these great events occurred and the country was reunited, why is the modern study of the Old South and Civil War so highly controversial? If the slaves were freed and the United States was whole once again, what is there to look into? If Florida is not seen as a member of the South

51 Convention of the People, "Florida Declaration of Causes" (1861).

compared to the other southern states, why is it necessary to study this particular state’s secession movement, today? In short, why does all this matter?

To begin, the end of the Civil War did not mean that the United States was united once again. The actions of eleven seceding states who fought in an armed conflict against the U.S. military cannot simply be wiped out and absolved with surrender. There were many roadblocks on the way to fully reuniting the United States that we as a nation still struggle with today. In many ways, although the nation is reunited politically, the United States has never fully reunited culturally. Reconstruction was an event that

President Abraham Lincoln intended to be as painless as possible to quickly heal the nation and move forward. Lincoln’s tragic death at the hands of John Wilkes Booth would open the presidency to Vice President Andrew Johnson who had a personal grudge against former Southern slaveholders. Additionally, Radical Republicans in

Congress sought to make Reconstruction a punishment on the South and did so by enforcing a military occupation, requiring Southerners to pledge loyalty to the Union while disavowing the Confederacy, and requiring Southern states to pass a new state constitution prohibiting secession and accepting the 13th and 14th Amendments under the First Reconstruction Act.52

From the Southern perspective, Reconstruction was a terrible reality to live under. An entire race of humans that white Southerners believed they were superior to and whom they had previously enslaved were now emancipated and considered their equals. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments and Reconstruction had invalidated a

52 An Act to provide for the more efficient Government of the Rebel States, 15 U.S.C. § (1867), accessed April 6, 2019, https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/39th-congress/session- 2/c39s2ch153.pdf.

racial hierarchy that was not only legally enforced for over 200 years, but embedded in

Southern culture. The temporary disenfranchisement of a majority of white men also allowed for the election of numerous Republican candidates in Democratic strongholds, including newly emancipated black freemen. This culture shock to the region was a direct cause of the most infamous white supremacy organization in American history, the Ku Klux Klan, which utilized terrorism to continue to subjugate black freeman. When

Reconstruction ended, racism continued in full force. Once the last of the Republican governments was lifted with the federal military occupation, Southern states began passing Jim Crow laws to restrict the rights of African Americans to vote and be full members of society. In Florida, Reconstruction was no different than the rest of the

South. In fact, Reconstruction was in force in Florida longer than in most Southern states. When Southern politicians negotiated the Compromise of 1877, Florida was one of the last states in the region to be "redeemed" from Republican oversight as President

U.S. Grant removed the federal occupation force. In the aftermath of Reconstruction, infringement upon African American civil rights continue to this day despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The manner in which the much of the South views the Civil War is not consistent with the rest of the United States. The Lost Cause, an ideology that views the South’s motivation for fighting the Civil War as a just and heroic one, is as strong today in 2019 as it was in its inception near the turn of the 19th century. In summary, the Lost Cause views Southern secession and the Civil War as a defense from Northern aggression which attacked the Southern way of life and states’ rights. Simultaneously, the ideology minimizes and disavows the role of slavery in the South’s decision to leave the Union.

The primary supporters of the Lost Cause, the Daughters of the Confederacy, were an integral part of the movement. The organization helped fund the construction of

Confederate monuments throughout the South and aided in helping alter the curriculum of public schools to be more sympathetic of Southern actions. Today, Florida subscribes to the ideology of the Lost Cause as much as the rest of the South does and this is apparent in the state’s public history. Five counties today in the State of Florida are named after prominent Confederates including Lee Co. which is named after Gen.

Robert E. Lee.53 Multiple cities in Florida are named after Confederates including the county seat of my home county of Polk, Bartow, FL, which was named after Francis S.

Bartow who was one of the first Confederates to die at the First Battle of Manassas.54 In recent events, the mayor of the City of Ocala has called for a "Confederate Memorial

Day" to be celebrated. When journalists asked him about the Confederate’s proslavery ideology, he stated, "It was about more than just slavery."55 Additionally, after Florida voters passed a referendum in the 2018 Election reinstating convicted felons’ right to vote after completing their sentence, the majority-Republican state legislature has received backlash by civil rights advocates. In a series of bills, the state legislature is seeking to require felons to pay all court fees before voting rights may be reinstated.56

The ACLU and other such organizations have called the proposed legislation a "poll tax" reminiscent of the Jim Crow era considering that African American felons in Florida that

53 Henry Gannett, The Origin of Certain Place Names in the United States (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1905), 184. 54 City of Bartow, "About the City," City of Bartow, accessed April 4, 2019, http://www.cityofbartow.net/index.aspx?page=2. 55 Reis Thebault, "Mayor Announces 'Confederate Memorial Day.' A city council member says it should cost him his job," The Washington Post (Washington, D.C.), April 5, 2019. 56 Jessica Lipscomb, "ACLU to Hold Sit-Ins as Florida Republicans Try to Limit Felon Voting Rights," Miami New Times (Miami, FL), April 4, 2019.

are currently unable to vote account for over 20% of the voting-eligible population of the minority group. By minimizing the role of slavery in starting the Civil War, you minimize the experience that victims of slavery and racism had and continue to have.

To conclude, Florida seceded from the United States in the January of 1861 in defense of slavery. Like its sister Southern states, Florida was dependent on enslaved labor to prevent the collapse of its planter economy and the racial hierarchy that was embedded in its culture. Each of Florida’s motivations for secession in the Convention of the People’s Declaration of Causes was what the South as a whole viewed as an attack or an imminent attack on the institution of slavery. Answering the question of

Florida secession is important because the actions taken by the assembly of sixty-nine delegates over 150 years ago has an impact on the events occurring in the state in the present. Although today Florida is not seen as "Southern" as the rest of the South, that does not diminish the history of the state and the impact that said history has had on racial tensions in the past 150 years. Confederate memorabilia is dotted throughout the state ranging from flags to statues. In my hometown of Lakeland, FL, a monument to the Confederate dead was removed from the city’s central park in 2019 after a period of protests. In order for Florida to overcome the racial tensions that the state experiences, its citizens and leaders must come to disavow the Lost Cause and take responsibility for the events that took place in the 19th century and understand how such actions effect

Florida today.

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