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State Rights and the South 1850–1860
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2011
Extract
“Our people”, declared Jefferson Davis on February 22, 1862,“have rallied with unexampled unanimity to the support of the great principles of constitutional government, with firm resolve to perpetuate by arms the rights which they could not peacefully secure”. The President of the newly formed Confederacy was delivering his inaugural address; and, in so doing, was using the language – when he talked about defending ‘rights’ and ‘constitutional government’ – in which Southerners had consistently stated their case over the preceding decade. They had argued, in the main, that the policies to which they objected were not merely harmful; they were unconstitutional. Northern interests had not merely desired the Federal Government to act unfairly; they had desired it to enforce measures it simply had no power to deal with.
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- Copyright © British Association for American Studies 1965
References
1.For examples of an argument of this sort see the extracts from President Pierce's vetoes, belowGoogle Scholar
2.This position – that strict constructionist doctrine was tied to the argument that the Union was a compact-comes out well in Jefferson Davis speech quoted below.Google Scholar
3.For views on the Conservative nature of these theories, see Louis Hartz “South Carolina and the United States” in “America in Crisis”, ed. D. Aaron.Google Scholar
9.See R. Russell Economic Aspects of Southern SectionalismGoogle Scholar
10.Speech at Jackson, Miss. Jan. 8, 1852, Dunbar Rowland: Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist. His letters, papers and Speeches, Vol. II pp. 117–125. The whole speech is an argument against the charge that the State Rights party is a disunion party.Google Scholar
11.Jefferson Davis is a good example of a man whose pro-Union sentiments were continually being smothered by his political associates: see P.L. Rainwater Mississippi: Storm Centre of Secession: 1856–61, pp. 57–59, for the way in which he found it impossible to speak in Unionist terms without having to recant. For example, his statement in Boston in 1858 that a foreign power that insulted the American flag would find that “we are not a divided people”, that it was only “trifling politicians” who “talk otherwise”, and that a common sentiment of nationality was too strong to allow the United States to break up, provoked flat indignation. As the Holly Springs Democrat wrote: “Southern Statesmen… have no right to tell the Yankees that the Union cannot be dissolved; for that is just what those Yankees assert themselves”. Davis had to back down.Google Scholar
13.In practical terms, also, the secessionist wanted to drive home the idea in the South that secession could take place peaceably. In this he was in great measure successful: the mass of people who voted for secession late in 1860 did so believing they could leave the Union in perfect safety.Google Scholar
14.Bloomington Speech, May 29, 1856. The argument in this paragraph is in large measure based upon the article by Hamilton, J. G. De R. published in the American Historical Review for July, 1932, entitled “Lincoln's Election an Immediate Menace to Slavery in the States”.Google Scholar
16.See Elkins, Stanley & McKitrich, C.: “A Meaning for Turner's Frontier” Political Science Quarterly, Sept. & Dec. 1954.Google Scholar