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Antislavery Violence and Secession, October 1859

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Antislavery Violence and Secession, October 1859 ANTISLAVERY VIOLENCE AND SECESSION, OCTOBER 1859 – APRIL 1861 by DAVID JONATHAN WHITE GEORGE C. RABLE, COMMITTEE CHAIR LAWRENCE F. KOHL KARI FREDERICKSON HAROLD SELESKY DIANNE BRAGG A DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History in the Graduate School of The University of Alabama TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA 2017 Copyright David Jonathan White 2017 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the collapse of southern Unionism between October 1859 and April 1861. This study argues that a series of events of violent antislavery and southern perceptions of northern support for them caused white southerners to rethink the value of the Union and their place in it. John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and northern expressions of personal support for Brown brought the Union into question in white southern eyes. White southerners were shocked when Republican governors in northern states acted to protect members of John Brown’s organization from prosecution in Virginia. Southern states invested large sums of money in their militia forces, and explored laws to control potentially dangerous populations such as northern travelling salesmen, whites “tampering” with slaves, and free African-Americans. Many Republicans endorsed a book by Hinton Rowan Helper which southerners believed encouraged antislavery violence and a Senate committee investigated whether an antislavery conspiracy had existed before Harpers Ferry. In the summer of 1860, a series of unexplained fires in Texas exacerbated white southern fear. As the presidential election approached in 1860, white southerners hoped for northern voters to repudiate the Republicans. When northern voters did not, white southerners generally rejected the Union. This study relies on primary sources of white southerners where available and devotes considerable attention to southern newspapers, especially as they described the working of county-level government. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the assistance of a number of people who made this possible. Professor Kari Frederickson took a chance with my admission, and thus was there at the beginning of my graduate career at Alabama and the end. I am grateful for faith in me and her assistance. Professor Harold Selesky offered excellent critiques of the argument. I am thankful for his mentorship. Professor Diane Bragg’s close reading and innumerable helpful comments saved me from many mistakes. Professor George Rable and Professor Lawrence Kohl long- suffering comments on this dissertation made the final work much stronger. My only regret from my time as a graduate student at the University of Alabama is not spending more time with these gentlemen. Any mistakes in this work are mine. Doug Overdeer, my friend and boss graciously arranged work schedules to accommodate my dissertation writing. He also encouraged me to see this through. I am grateful to him. My wife Susan has aided me throughout. She has been travel agent, driver, logistics officer, Texas barbecue and Cajun restaurant joint locator. She has suffered long for me to reach this point and I am eternally grateful. I would never have accomplished this without her. iii CONTENTS ABSTRACT . ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . iii LIST OF TABLES . v LIST OF FIGURES . vi INTRODUCTION . 1 CHAPTER 1. THE HARPERS FERRY RAID AND LOCAL REACTIONS . 8 CHAPTER 2. STATE REACTIONS TO ANTISLAVERY VIOLENCE . 61 CHAPTER 3. NATIONAL RESPONSES TO ANTISLAVERY VIOLENCE. 122 CHAPTER 4. THE TEXAS TROUBLE . 180 CHAPTER 5. ANTISLAVERY VIOLENCE AND SECESSION . 222 CONCLUSION. 287 REFERENCES. 292 iv LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1: STATE CONVENTIONS 1860-61 . 258 v LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: RECONSTRUCTED MAP OF SOUTH CAROL . 21 FIGURE 2: GEORGIA VOLUNTEER UNIT FORMATION . 96 FIGURE 3: REPORTED LOCATIONS AFFECTED BY THE TEXAS TROUBLES . 188 FIGURE 4: GEORGIA COUNTY RESOLUTIONS AND SECESSION VOTES . .256 FIGURE 5: VOTES OF VIRGINIA DELEGATES ON APRIL 4 AND APRIL 17, 1861. 283 vi INTRODUCTION Violence of speech or act on the one side, will unavoidably produce violence of speech and act on the other. Each new grievance is alternatively cause and effect—and if, before resorting to healing counsels, we are determined to run over the dreary catalogue, to see who was earliest or who has been most to blame, we engage in a controversy in which there is no arbiter, and of which there can be no solution. Edward Everett, December 18591 Alabamian Thomas Watts wrote his friends on November 10, 1860, about Alabama’s relationship with the Union.2 A few days prior, Watts had been a Constitutional Unionist, supporting John Bell and Edward Everett, “men of great ability, long experience in public affairs, wise in counsel, patriotic in action, loving their whole country,” for the presidency and vice presidency; he had embraced their platform of “the Constitution of the country, the Union of the states, and the enforcement of the laws.” Now, however, Watts had become a committed secessionist. The election results, Watts wrote, showed that “fanaticism rules the hour.” In Massachusetts, John Andrew, “a John Brown-raid man,” had won the state by one hundred thousand votes. “The black flag of abolition dominion and Southern subjugation” had been raised. The Republican triumph meant that “misguided, reckless, bloated hatred of us and of our institutions” held sway in the North. “‘The irrepressible conflict’ doctrine of fanaticism stands to-day, triumphant!” If the South remained in the Union, the lot of the southern people would be 1 Speech in Boston, December 1859. “The Union Meeting in Boston,” Nashville Patriot, December 17, 1859, p. 2, col. 2-4. 2 Thomas H. Watts to Judge Samuel J, Bolling and L. D. Steele, November 10, 1860. “To Hon. S. J. Bolling and L. D. Steele,” Greenville (Ala.) Southern Messenger, November 21, 1860, p. 3, col. 1-2. 1 “new attacks, new insults and new injuries.” To those who urged a “wait and see” approach, Watts had little patience. “Why delay longer? … What ‘overt act’ do we wait for? … Why delude ourselves with the futile hope of obtaining new securities – new guards for our safety within the present Union?” No, Watts felt, “the remedy for the past and security for the future lies in a separation of the ties which have bound us together as one people.” In closing, Watts suggested Alabama act. “Without bluster or bravado, let us act, with the deliberation, the calm determination of a brave and Christian people. The time for resolves has passed.” How did a conservative, erstwhile Constitutional Unionist come to endorse the radical solution of secession? This is the question this dissertation seeks to address. This dissertation examines the fear of antislavery violence as a key but often underestimated factor in the decision for secession, especially in the Deep South states. Antislavery violence consists of unlawful acts that use force or the threat of force to bring about the abolition of slavery or render the institution less secure. In the analysis that follows, the term “conservative” means those, on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, who wished to maintain the status quo, an Union which consisted of states that allowed slavery and those that did not.3 Radicals, on both sides, wished to see this change. The radical southern position coalesced around the policy of secession. Events in 1850-1852 demonstrated that conservative sentiment outweighed radical sentiment across the South. Northern radicals, on the other hand, opposed the status quo and sought an end to chattel slavery in the United States. Some were willing to embrace violent means to achieve this end. Antislavery violence, or more commonly the threat of such violence, in the period between Harpers Ferry and secession brought about a crisis of legitimacy in the 3 To put a finer point on this, conservatives differed on the territorial question, southern conservatives wishing to allow slavery to expand into the territories, northern conservatives wishing to prevent it by law from expanding. 2 eyes of southern voters and helped secessionists make the case for independence.4 The emphasis is on how white southerners including politicians, local leaders, and voters in general interpreted various key events as signs of northern (specifically Republican) support for antislavery violence. Many white southerners, in turn, viewed these developments as significant threats to the institution of slavery and to the southern social order more generally. Studying southern reactions to the perceived threat of antislavery violence helps explain why opinion on secession was not divided along class lines. Planters, small slaveholders, and nonslaveholders all responded with alarm to events they saw fitting into a pattern of mounting danger not only to slavery but to the racial hierarchy. Such concerns about security led states and local communities to respond with both legal and extralegal measures. In justifying secession and making appeals to voters at both the state and county level, disunionists readily and repeatedly appealed to fears of antislavery violence with highly charged (and often exaggerated) reports that circulated widely throughout the southern states. In this process, which had escalated since the John Brown raid at Harpers Ferry, newspapers played a key role in publicizing what was described as northern toleration (if not outright encouragement) of slave insurrections and other forms of antislavery violence. In a political struggle, violence or just the threat
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