DOCSLIB.ORG

Azu Etd Mr 2011 0090 Sip1 M.Pdf

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Azu Etd Mr 2011 0090 Sip1 M.Pdf Expectant Immediatism: The South Carolina Secession Movement, 1859-1861 Item Type Electronic Thesis; text Authors Harvey, Sean Parulian Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 01/10/2021 01:20:16 Item License http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/144326 Table of Contents Introduction: A Reputation for Disunion .............................................................................................. 1 Part I: To Sow the Seeds of Disunion: Christopher Memminger’s Mission to Virginia .......................... 10 Part II: The Ties that Bind: The Association of 1860, Circular Letters and Fort Sumter ......................... 25 Conclusion: Expectations Fulfilled ...................................................................................................... 36 Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................... 38 Introduction: A Reputation for Disunion In the fall of 1860, South Carolinians thought they were living in precarious times. A group of concerned citizens, ever‐fearful of the growing power of the Republican Party, met in the waterfront town of Charleston, South Carolina. Wary of the imminent Republican ascendancy which would lead to the installment of the dreaded “Seward Platform,” these denizens of the Palmetto state eagerly sought any way to avert the potentially disastrous anti‐slavery effects of a GOP administration.1 In order to combat the menace to slavery that Lincoln and his cronies presented, these common citizens banded together to voice their displeasure and to devise methods to thwart the incoming administration. The device by which these men decided to combat the Republican Party was an organization that they dubbed the “1860 Association,” whose primary stated goal was: “to conduct a correspondence with leading men in the South, and by interchange of information and views prepare the slave states to meet the impending crisis.”2 This association, instead of banding together to effect political change by persuading voters, was preparing for war and openly advocated for disunion. To those familiar with the narrative surrounding South Carolina in the antebellum era, groups such as the “1860 Association” fit the prototypical conception of South Carolina as the paragon of disunionist sentiment. From the days when fiery Southern ideologue John C. Calhoun figuratively taunted the commander‐in‐chief over the tariff issue, South Carolina was viewed as the leader of the political fringe. South Carolina was filled with calculating characters eager to sever the ties with the federal government and concoct schemes and theories to justify a political and legal separation from the rest of the country. Due to the highly‐visible and salient rhetoric of people such as Calhoun,by 1859 the Palmetto State cultivated a reputation for being precipitate, rash, and hot‐headed. 1 Steven A. Channing, Crisis of Fear: Secession in South Carolina, (New York: WW North and CO, 1974), 95. 2 Robert N. Gourdin, as excerpted from John G. Nicholay and John G. Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, (New York: The Century Co, 1914), 305. 1 This radical image had its primary origins in the Nullification Crisis of 1832, in which South Carolina boldly faced down the federal government. Emboldened by the rhetoric of John C. Calhoun, the South Carolina legislature declared a symbolically‐reduced tariff null and void within their state boundaries. South Carolina was abandoned by the rest of the South to face down the irascible Andrew Jackson. The dearth of support from the rest of the South, coupled with the pressure from Washington caused South Carolina to ultimately retreat from its position. The nullifiers’ stance was ultimately untenable, so they decided to recede from its extreme rhetoric and remain within the Union. Even though the nullifiers ultimately receded from their position out of anxiety and a lack of Southern empathy, the dominant political view highlighted South Carolina’s propensity towards disunion. South Carolina tentatively advocated secession several other times in the antebellum years and their proclivity towards disunion would eventually culminate in the Palmetto State’s “Ordinance of Secession” on December 20, 1860. This decree formally dissolved any ties between the state of South Carolina and the federal government and was issued before any other Southern state even considered the secession. According to the historiography, South Carolina’s rapid secession process symbolized the rashness and irrationality that dominated the political machinations of the Palmetto state. To the analysts that ascribe a reputation of unbridled disunion upon South Carolina, the narrative of disunion begins and ends in South Carolina. It was not a question of if but how South Carolina would secede. In this historiographical tradition, the reputation of South Carolina as a petulant disunionist preceded itself. Whether this reputation is warranted or not, is a matter that has been largely ignored by historians. On the surface, Robert N. Gourdin and his coterie of disunionists appear to fit into the typical mold of South Carolina immediatists—or, as the parlance of the day would describe them, “separate‐ state actionists.”3 According to historians, an unseen cabal of powerful politicians and prominent citizens provided the impetus for disunion. Recent treatments of secession describe a secret network of 3 Charles Edward Cauthen, South Carolina Goes to War, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1950), 4 2 powerful individuals, most prominent among them Governor William H, Gist who, “by clandestine communication with other Southern governors… offered assurances, as early as October, that his state would secede immediately upon Lincoln’s election and solicited their commitment to follow.”4 In this view—which is typical of the historiography surrounding the subject—South Carolina had unequivocally decided to exit the Union alone, with the cooperationof other states merely serving as an afterthought, or perhaps an added bonus. This framework posits a paradigm in which two opposing camps jostled to control the direction of secession in South Carolina and scholars tend to bifurcate secessionists into immediatists and coooperationists.5 Traditionally, people like Governor William H. Gist and the members of the 1860 Association are described as immediatists, since they advocated “immediate secession, alone if necessary.” In the typical narrative surrounding the secession movement, immediatists, or separate‐ state actionists comprised the overwhelming majority of secessionists, and were confined to the upper‐ echelons of the political elite. In contrast to that faction stood the cooperationists, who claimed to “stand for secession ultimately alone if necessary, but only after an attempt had been made in a Southern conference to enlist the cooperation of other Southern states.”6 The primary argument states that cooperationists comprised the majority of South Carolinians, and were largely coerced by immediatists into exiting the Union, or falsely‐informed that cooperation with other states was imminent.7 While the separation of secessionists into two discrete camps is a useful tool to understand the political tension among the Gulf‐Squadron states upon the eve of the Civil War, this starkly‐divided conception over‐simplifies the ultimate purpose that motivated both immediatists and cooperationists 4 Stephanie McCurry, Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South, (Harvard University Press, 2010), 51. 5 Charles Edward Cauthen, South Carolina Goes to War, 4. 6 Ibid. 7 McCurry, Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South, 51‐52. 3 to depart from the Union. Undeniably, the goal for both immediatists and cooperationists was the creation of an independent Southern nation, which inevitably required the collaboration of other slaveholding states.8 This goal remained foremost on the minds of immediatists such as Robert N. Gourdin and the 1860 Association, which engaged in practices such as pamphleteering and circular correspondence directed at other Southern states to bolster support for “the cause of Southern Union and Independence.”9 Consistent with the goals of cooperationists, Governor William Henry Gist eagerly eagerly sought the assurance of other Southern states. The Governor declared: “It is the desire of South Carolina that some other state should take the lead or move at least simultaneously with her… [i]f no other State takes the lead, South Carolina will secede…alone, if she has any assurance that she will be soon followed by another or other States; otherwise it is doubtful.”10 When examining the secession movement from its genesis in 1859 to its consummation in 1861, it becomes apparent that the movement was founded upon the notion that even if secession were undertaken separately, it required the eventual cooperation of other states. In order to fully comprehend the secession movement in South Carolina, it is critical to understand that cooperationism and immediatism were not mutually‐exclusive. To be sure, leaders such as Gist felt that cooperation
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Popular Sovereignty, Slavery in the Territories, and the South, 1785-1860
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2010 Popular sovereignty, slavery in the territories, and the South, 1785-1860 Robert Christopher Childers Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Childers, Robert Christopher, "Popular sovereignty, slavery in the territories, and the South, 1785-1860" (2010). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 1135. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/1135 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY, SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES, AND THE SOUTH, 1785-1860 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of History by Robert Christopher Childers B.S., B.S.E., Emporia State University, 2002 M.A., Emporia State University, 2004 May 2010 For my wife ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Writing history might seem a solitary task, but in truth it is a collaborative effort. Throughout my experience working on this project, I have engaged with fellow scholars whose help has made my work possible. Numerous archivists aided me in the search for sources. Working in the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill gave me access to the letters and writings of southern leaders and common people alike.
    [Show full text]
  • Unali'yi Lodge
    Unali’Yi Lodge 236 Table of Contents Letter for Our Lodge Chief ................................................................................................................................................. 7 Letter from the Editor ......................................................................................................................................................... 8 Local Parks and Camping ...................................................................................................................................... 9 James Island County Park ............................................................................................................................................... 10 Palmetto Island County Park ......................................................................................................................................... 12 Wannamaker County Park ............................................................................................................................................. 13 South Carolina State Parks ................................................................................................................................. 14 Aiken State Park ................................................................................................................................................................. 15 Andrew Jackson State Park ...........................................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Archaeological Survey at Rose Hill Plantation State Historic Site
    University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Archaeology and Anthropology, South Carolina Faculty & Staff Publications Institute of 9-2020 Archaeological Survey at Rose Hill Plantation State Historic Site Stacey L. Young Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/sciaa_staffpub Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons Archaeological Survey at Rose Hill Plantation State Historic Site By Stacey L. Young, Director, SCIAA Applied Research Division The South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, Applied Research Division (SCIAA-ARD) recently completed a Phase I archaeological survey of Rose Hill Plantation State Historic Site located along the Tyger River in Union County, South Carolina. The work was performed on behalf of SC Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism (SCPRT) to assist park staff with management of the property and site interpretation. Rose Hill is an early 19th to mid-20th-century plantation site that was home to William Henry Gist, his family, and families of enslaved laborers, sharecroppers, and tenant farmers, until it was sold in 1939 to the US Forest Service (USFS). The site now operates as a State Historic Site operated by SCPRT. Rose Hill was listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1970 for its association with William Henry Gist, his prominence in politics, and the architecture of the house. Figure 3: 1933 aerial image showing tenant house locations, fields, and Gist house. (Photo by SCIAA-ARD) William Henry Gist (1807-1874), Cotton and corn were grown on the perhaps mostly known for his secessionist plantation that was maintained by a views, served various positions in the population of about 200 enslaved laborers.
    [Show full text]
  • Study Guide for the Georgia History Exemption Exam Below Are 99 Entries in the New Georgia Encyclopedia (Available At
    Study guide for the Georgia History exemption exam Below are 99 entries in the New Georgia Encyclopedia (available at www.georgiaencyclopedia.org. Students who become familiar with these entries should be able to pass the Georgia history exam: 1. Georgia History: Overview 2. Mississippian Period: Overview 3. Hernando de Soto in Georgia 4. Spanish Missions 5. James Oglethorpe (1696-1785) 6. Yamacraw Indians 7. Malcontents 8. Tomochichi (ca. 1644-1739) 9. Royal Georgia, 1752-1776 10. Battle of Bloody Marsh 11. James Wright (1716-1785) 12. Salzburgers 13. Rice 14. Revolutionary War in Georgia 15. Button Gwinnett (1735-1777) 16. Lachlan McIntosh (1727-1806) 17. Mary Musgrove (ca. 1700-ca. 1763) 18. Yazoo Land Fraud 19. Major Ridge (ca. 1771-1839) 20. Eli Whitney in Georgia 21. Nancy Hart (ca. 1735-1830) 22. Slavery in Revolutionary Georgia 23. War of 1812 and Georgia 24. Cherokee Removal 25. Gold Rush 26. Cotton 27. William Harris Crawford (1772-1834) 28. John Ross (1790-1866) 29. Wilson Lumpkin (1783-1870) 30. Sequoyah (ca. 1770-ca. 1840) 31. Howell Cobb (1815-1868) 32. Robert Toombs (1810-1885) 33. Alexander Stephens (1812-1883) 34. Crawford Long (1815-1878) 35. William and Ellen Craft (1824-1900; 1826-1891) 36. Mark Anthony Cooper (1800-1885) 37. Roswell King (1765-1844) 38. Land Lottery System 39. Cherokee Removal 40. Worcester v. Georgia (1832) 41. Georgia in 1860 42. Georgia and the Sectional Crisis 43. Battle of Kennesaw Mountain 44. Sherman's March to the Sea 45. Deportation of Roswell Mill Women 46. Atlanta Campaign 47. Unionists 48. Joseph E.
    [Show full text]
  • Georgia Historical Society Educator Web Guide
    Georgia Historical Society Educator Web Guide Guide to the educational resources available on the GHS website Theme driven guide to: Online exhibits Biographical Materials Primary sources Classroom activities Today in Georgia History Episodes New Georgia Encyclopedia Articles Archival Collections Historical Markers Updated: July 2014 Georgia Historical Society Educator Web Guide Table of Contents Pre-Colonial Native American Cultures 1 Early European Exploration 2-3 Colonial Establishing the Colony 3-4 Trustee Georgia 5-6 Royal Georgia 7-8 Revolutionary Georgia and the American Revolution 8-10 Early Republic 10-12 Expansion and Conflict in Georgia Creek and Cherokee Removal 12-13 Technology, Agriculture, & Expansion of Slavery 14-15 Civil War, Reconstruction, and the New South Secession 15-16 Civil War 17-19 Reconstruction 19-21 New South 21-23 Rise of Modern Georgia Great Depression and the New Deal 23-24 Culture, Society, and Politics 25-26 Global Conflict World War One 26-27 World War Two 27-28 Modern Georgia Modern Civil Rights Movement 28-30 Post-World War Two Georgia 31-32 Georgia Since 1970 33-34 Pre-Colonial Chapter by Chapter Primary Sources Chapter 2 The First Peoples of Georgia Pages from the rare book Etowah Papers: Exploration of the Etowah site in Georgia. Includes images of the site and artifacts found at the site. Native American Cultures Opening America’s Archives Primary Sources Set 1 (Early Georgia) SS8H1— The development of Native American cultures and the impact of European exploration and settlement on the Native American cultures in Georgia. Illustration based on French descriptions of Florida Na- tive Americans.
    [Show full text]
  • Civil War 150 Years Ago June 1864
    Civil War 150 Years Ago June 1864 Grant pounds away in the East while Sherman maneuvers through Georgia. June 1 Major Union attack at Cold Harbor, Virginia June 3 All-out Union assault at Cold Harbor, Virginia. On May 31, Sheridan’s cavalry seized the vital crossroads of Old Cold Harbor. Early on June 1, relying heavily on their new repeating carbines and shallow entrenchments, Sheridan’s troopers threw back an attack by Confederate infantry. Confederate reinforcements arrived from Richmond and from the Totopotomoy Creek lines. Late on June 1, the Union Sixth and Eighteenth Corps reached Cold Harbor and assaulted the Confederate works with minimal success. By June 2, both armies were on the field, forming on a seven-mile front that extended from Bethesda Church to the Chickahominy River. At dawn June 3, the Second and Eighteenth Corps, followed later by the Ninth Corps, assaulted along the Bethesda Church-Cold Harbor line and were slaughtered at all points. Grant commented in his memoirs that this was the only attack he wished he had never ordered. The armies confronted each other on these lines until the night of June 12, when Grant again advanced by his left flank, marching to James River. On June 14, the Second Corps was ferried across the river at Wilcox’s Landing by transports. On June 15, the rest of the army began crossing on a 2,200-foot long pontoon bridge at Weyanoke. Abandoning the well-defended approaches to Richmond, Grant sought to shift his army quickly south of the river to threaten Petersburg.
    [Show full text]
  • The Other Side of the Monument: Memory, Preservation, and the Battles of Franklin and Nashville
    THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MONUMENT: MEMORY, PRESERVATION, AND THE BATTLES OF FRANKLIN AND NASHVILLE by JOE R. BAILEY B.S., Austin Peay State University, 2006 M.A., Austin Peay State University, 2008 AN ABSTRACT OF A DISSERTATION submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History College of Arts and Sciences KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY Manhattan, Kansas 2015 Abstract The thriving areas of development around the cities of Franklin and Nashville in Tennessee bear little evidence of the large battles that took place there during November and December, 1864. Pointing to modern development to explain the failed preservation of those battlefields, however, radically oversimplifies how those battlefields became relatively obscure. Instead, the major factor contributing to the lack of preservation of the Franklin and Nashville battlefields was a fractured collective memory of the two events; there was no unified narrative of the battles. For an extended period after the war, there was little effort to remember the Tennessee Campaign. Local citizens and veterans of the battles simply wanted to forget the horrific battles that haunted their memories. Furthermore, the United States government was not interested in saving the battlefields at Franklin and Nashville. Federal authorities, including the War Department and Congress, had grown tired of funding battlefields as national parks and could not be convinced that the two battlefields were worthy of preservation. Moreover, Southerners and Northerners remembered Franklin and Nashville in different ways, and historians mainly stressed Eastern Theater battles, failing to assign much significance to Franklin and Nashville. Throughout the 20th century, infrastructure development encroached on the battlefields and they continued to fade from public memory.
    [Show full text]
  • Carl Sandburg, the Confederate States of America, and the UNC Herbarium by Herbarium Natural Science Technician Carol Ann Mccormick
    Carl Sandburg, The Confederate States of America, and the UNC Herbarium by Herbarium Natural Science Technician Carol Ann McCormick This summer Rickie White, Regional Vegetation Ecologist with NatureServe, spent many weeks in the University of North Carolina Herbarium identifying and mounting plant specimens that he and fellow botanists Alan Weakley, Tom Ferguson, and Anne Ulinski had collected at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, North Carolina. In addition to managing the antebellum home, the National Park Service preserves the 264-acres of surrounding pastures, rock outcrops, forests, and woodlands. NatureServe is working collaboratively with park service staff and volunteers to update the herbarium at the park and to attempt to collect and to voucher at least 90% of the vascular plants located in the park. As Rickie glued and sewed herbarium sheets, I asked him to tell me about the Sandburg Home. I learned that Carl Sandburg, poet and essayist whom I’d always associated with the Midwest, moved to Flat Rock, North Carolina in 1945. Lilian Sandburg used the pastures around the antebellum house to raise champion goats, while Carl continued to write. The house, Rickie had learned, was built ca. 1838 by Christopher Gustavus Memminger, the first Secretary of the Treasury of the Confederate States of America. Memminger, a banker from Charleston, South Carolina, built this house in the mountains of North Carolina to escape the summer heat of the coast. The name “Memminger” rang a bell in my mind, and being neither a Sandburg scholar nor deeply informed about Confederate fiduciary matters, I was confident it was a botanical bell.
    [Show full text]
  • Information to Users
    INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced trom the microfilm master~ UMI films the text directly trom the original or copy submitted~ Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be fram anytype of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken orindistinct print, colored orpoor quality illustrations. and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandarcl margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction~ ln the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upperleft.-hand ccmer and continuing tram left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. ProQuest Information and Leaming 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 Secession, Sequence, and the State: South Carolina's Decision to Lead the Secession Movement in 1860 Lawrence Anderson Department ofPolitical Science McGill University, Montreal July2001 A thesis submitted to the FacultyofGraduate Studies and Research inpartial fi,dfillment orthe requirements ofthe degree ofDoctorofPhilosophy. • © Lawrence Anderson 2001 National Ubrary BmIiothèQue nationale 1+1 ofC8nada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 315 WeliaglDn SIr_ 315. rue WeIingtDn 0IawaON K1A 0N4 OI-.ON K1A0N4 c.nada c.n.da The author bas granted a non­ L'auteur a accordé me licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive pennettant à la National Library ofCanada ta Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, 10aD, distnbute or sen reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies ofthis thesis inmicroform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats.
    [Show full text]
  • Legacy & Pastwatch Institute Of
    University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Archaeology and Anthropology, South Carolina SCIAA Newsletter - Legacy & PastWatch Institute of 9-2020 Legacy - September 2020 South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology--University of South Carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/leg Part of the Archaeological Anthropology Commons, and the Military History Commons Inside... DIRECTOR’S NOTE New Battlefield Archaeology Book–– Partisans, Guerillas, and Irregulars Two New Book Chapters by SCIAA Staff RESEARCH VOL. 24, NO. 1, SEPTEMBER 2020 Artillery Ammunition from Star Fort Wateree Bug Ceramic Motif Scale Weights from Santa Elena Early Human Life on the Southeastern Coastal Plain Book Update of Southeastern Paleoamerican Survey Field Slave Quarters at Historic Brattonsville Castle Pinckney Project APPLIED RESEARCH Vietnam War-Era Training Villages at Fort Jackson Archaeological Survey at Rose Hill Ancient Weapons from the Siege of Plantation State Historic Site Ninety Six SAVANNAH RIVER By James Legg and Steve Smith ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH PROGRAM During the summer of 2020, we have been The Americans successfully employed Cemetery Survey in Jackson, South busy preparing the report for our two fire arrows in the siege of Fort Motte a few Carolina “Maymester” seasons of field work at the weeks before the siege of Ninety Six was SEAC 2019 Patty Jo Watson Award Star Fort, at Ninety Six National Historic undertaken (see Legacy December 2015), Site in Greenwood County. (See Legacy July for the fire arrow point we recovered from ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH 2018, July 2019, and the article on pages the American siege camp at Fort Motte). TRUST (ART) AND SCIAA DONORS 5-7 of this issue).
    [Show full text]
  • Gist Family of South Carolina and Its Mary­ Land .Antecedents
    The Gist Family of South Carolina and its Mary­ land .Antecedents BY WILSON GEE PRIVATELY PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR BY JARMAN'S, INCORPORATED CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA 1 9 3 4 To THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER PREFACE Among the earliest impressions of the author of this gen­ ealogical study are those of the reverence with which he was taught to look upon the austere to kindly faces in the oil portrai~ of his Gist ancestors as they seemed from their vantage points on the walls of the room to follow his every movement about the parlor of his boyhood home. From his mother, her relatives, his father, and others of the older people of Union County and the state of South Carolina,_ he learned much of the useful and valorous services rendered by this family, some members of which in almost each gen­ eration have with varying degrees of prominence left their mark upon the pages of history in times of both peace and war. Naturally he cherished these youthful impressions concerning an American family which dates far back into the colonial days of this republic. As he has grown older, he has collected every fragment of authentic material which he could gather about them with the hope that they might be some day permanently preserved in such a volume as this. But it is correct to state that very likely this ambition would never have been realized had not his cousin, Miss Margaret Adams Gist of York, South Carolina, who for thirty-five years or more has been gathering materials on the Gist family, generously decided to turn over to him temporarily for hi~ use her rich collections of all those years.
    [Show full text]
  • Did Constitutions Matter During the American Civil War?
    DID CONSTITUTIONS MATTER DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR? SUKRIT SABHLOK Monash University, Australia Abstract: The question of why the Confederate States of America lost the American Civil War has been extensively discussed, with scholars such as Frank Owsley and David Donald arguing that constitutional text and philosophy – and a preference for local over central government action – constrained the CSA’s options and therefore prospects for victory. While Owsley and Donald’s portrayal of a government hindered by constitutional fidelity has been countered by Richard Beringer, Herman Hattaway and William Still, who have pointed out that the Confederate government grew in size and scope during the war in spite of apparent legal restrictions, there has been limited examination of the factual basis underlying the thesis that constitutions functioned as a restraint. This paper addresses the US Constitution and the Confederate Constitutions (provisional and final) with special attention to how certain provisions and interpretive actions may have constrained the central government in the realm of economic policy. I find that both documents were not clearly relevant due to being inconsistently obeyed. The Confederacy disregarded provisions relating to fiscal, monetary and trade policy, even though it is likely that adhering to its Constitution in these areas could have strengthened its position and allowed it to supply its armies more adequately. It is likely that non-constitutional discretionary factors primarily account for the Confederacy’s defeat. I INTRODUCTION Now, our Constitution is new; it has gone through no perils to test and try its strength and capacity for the work it was intended to perform.
    [Show full text]