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 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS STUDIES' 
 
 IN THE 
 SOCIAL SCIENCES 
 
 Vol. XI 
 
 March-June, 1923 
 
 Nos. i and 2 
 
 TH UltARV or THC 
 
 23 1924 
 IUINOIS 
 
 BOARD OF EDITORS 
 
 ERNEST L. BOGART JOHN A. FAIRLIE 
 
 LAURENCE M. LARSON 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL 
 
 URBANA, ILLINOIS 
 
BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 COPYRIGHT, 1924 
 
ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN 
 SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 
 
 ROBERT ROYAL RUSSEL 
 
 Instructor in History 
 
 Western State Normal School 
 
 Kalamazoo, Michigan 
 
305 
 IL 
 All 
 
 cow* 
 
 fc^7? 
 
 f 1 1' 
 
 To My Father and Mother 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Preface 9 
 
 Introduction: The Bases of Southern Sectionalism. ... n 
 
 I. Agitation in Behalf of Direct Trade with Europe, 
 
 1837-1839 15 
 
 II. Movement for the Diversification of Industry, 
 
 1840-1852 33 
 
 III. Economic Aspects of the Southern Movement, 
 
 1844-1852 65 
 
 IV. Plans for Establishing Direct Trade with Europe, 
 
 1847-1860 93 
 
 V. The Southern Commercial Convention, 1852-1859 123 
 
 VI. Attitude toward Protective Legislation, Federal, State, 
 
 and Local, 1840-1860 151 
 
 VII. Economic Aspects of the Disunion Movement, 
 
 1852-1860 179 
 
 VIII. Factors which Tended to Allay Discontent with the 
 
 South's Economic System, 1850-1860 199 
 
 IX. Economic Aspects of the Secession of the Cotton 
 
 States, 1860-1861 231 
 
 X. Early Economic Policies of the Confederate States, 
 
 1861-1862 255 
 
 XI. Economic Considerations Affecting the Decision of 
 
 the Border States 273 
 
 XI. Summary and Conclusions 289 
 
 Appendix 295 
 
 Bibliography 299 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The object of this monograph is to attempt to evaluate some of 
 the causes for the secession of our Southern states which, to me, 
 seem generally to have been underestimated. Lack of time has 
 prevented the utilization of much available newspaper, pamphlet, 
 t and manuscript material of considerable value; but great confi- 
 dence is felt that the evidence is typical, if not exhaustive. The 
 work deals with matters which even today in a measure arouse 
 the passions or prejudices of men; the greatest effort has been 
 made, therefore, to preserve a detached point of view. A better 
 contemporary understanding of the economic relations of the sec- 
 tions before 1861 might have moderated the bitterness of the 
 sectional controversy; a better understanding of them even now 
 would soften its memories. 
 
 The subject of this study was suggested to me while I was 
 preparing a master's thesis on the subject "Early Projects for a 
 Railroad to the Pacific" under the direction of Professor F. H. 
 Hodder, of the University of Kansas. The preparation of the 
 study was begun in 1916 under the supervision of Professors E. 
 B. Greene and A. C. Cole and completed under the supervision 
 of Professor T. C. Pease, of the University of Illinois. I am in- 
 debted to each of these men for very valuable criticisms and sug- 
 gestions. I have used the works of many men who have written 
 on related subjects, and am under greater obligations to them 
 than citations in the footnotes or bibliography can indicate. The 
 materials used in the preparation of this monograph were found, 
 with few exceptions, either in the Library of the University of 
 Illinois, the Library of Congress, or the Library of the Univer- 
 sity of Chicago. To the officials and staffs of these institutions, I 
 am grateful for much assistance and many courtesies. 
 
 ROBERT R. RUSSEL. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 THE BASES OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM 
 
 The most significant fact of American history from about 1820 
 to 1875, at least, was sectionalism. The section which was at all 
 times most clearly defined was the South. The term South, how- 
 ever, did not have the same connotation at all times and to all 
 men. Until about 1845 the term South was commonly applied 
 only to the South Atlantic states. The states of the lower Missis- 
 sippi valley were gradually brought under the term as their 
 economic and social organization and general conditions approx- 
 imated those in the old South and differentiated from those of the 
 states of the upper part of the valley, for Southern sectionalism 
 had bases in several distinctive features besides latitude. 
 
 Foremost of these was the existence of slavery. For reasons 
 chiefly geographical, slavery had never flourished in colonial days 
 above Mason and Dixon's Line as it had below it, and the insti- 
 tution had been abolished there during or shortly after the Revo- 
 lutionary War. Into the Old Northwest, slavery had not been 
 extended; while into Kentucky and Missouri and the region to the 
 south it had been carried in the same form as in the South At- 
 lantic states. To be sure, the slave population was not evenly dis- 
 tributed throughout the South. The great majority of the slaves 
 were concentrated in the so-called black belts, which corres- 
 ponded roughly to the areas best adapted to the cultivation of 
 cotton, tobacco, sugar cane, rice, and hemp, and the concentra- 
 tion became more pronounced as the Civil War approached. Out- 
 side the black belts the South was upon an essentially free-labor 
 basis. Within the black belts the plantation predominated over 
 the farm; outside, the farm prevailed. But the slaveholding 
 planters were the dominant element in Southern society, and the 
 people of the farming districts had interest in slavery in that they 
 found markets for their surplus products chiefly in the planting 
 regions. The institution of slavery came to be regarded as abso- 
 lutely essential to Southern prosperity. Consequently Southern 
 men defended it as right, shaped their political policies to protect 
 it and secure its extension, and demanded that attacks upon it 
 cease. 
 
12 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [l2 
 
 There was basis for sectionalism, also, in divergent economic in- 
 terests and conditions. To what extent the divergence was due to 
 geography, to what extent due to other factors, including social 
 organization, it is not necessary here to inquire. The Southern 
 states, however, were engaged largely in the production of a few 
 great staples cotton, tobacco, and sugar not produced in other 
 states of the Union. Of these staples only a small proportion was 
 consumed at home; much the greater part was exported either to 
 the North or to Europe. The portion exported abroad constituted 
 considerably more than half the nation's total exports. Manu- 
 facturing and mining had made, and were making during the 
 period under survey, little progress in the South compared with 
 the same industries in other sections; the exports of the South 
 were exchanged in part for agricultural products of the West but 
 chiefly for manufactured goods of the East or Europe. The ocean 
 commerce of the South, whether coastwise or foreign, was carried 
 almost altogether in Northern or European vessels; foreign goods 
 for Southern consumption came largely by way of Northern 
 ports. Only a small percentage of the Southern population was 
 urban; the cities and towns of the section were few and small 
 compared with those of the East or even those of the growing 
 Northwest. The banking capital of the country was largely con- 
 centrated in the East; the South was not financially independent. 
 
 Divergent economic interests of the sections led to the advocacy 
 of different policies, on the part of the Federal government, as re- 
 gards tariff, taxation, navigation laws, and the amount and ob- 
 jects of government expenditures. The disparity of the sections in 
 industry and commerce was to many Southerners an evidence of 
 lack of prosperity in the South commensurate with that of the 
 North, and, consequently, was a cause of dissatisfaction, and was 
 galling to Southern pride. The causes of Southern "decline" 
 were sought for; it was variously attributed to geography and 
 climate, qualities of the people, misdirection of private enterprise, 
 mistaken policies of the state and local governments, and the un- 
 equal operation of the Federal government, but not, generally, to 
 slavery. Remedies were proposed, corresponding roughly to the 
 causes, as analyzed. 
 
 Other bases for sectionalism were of much less importance. Be- 
 cause of early conditions of settlement, and especially because 
 later immigration was mostly into the non-slaveholding states, 
 
13] INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 there were slight differences in the racial types of the sections. 
 The sparsity of population and the social organization in the 
 South were accountable for backwardness in general education 
 and cultural development. Early conditions of settlement, agri- 
 cultural pursuits, slavery and the plantation system, and sparsity 
 of population largely explain the variation from other sections in 
 political ideals and methods. 
 
 It is the purpose of this study to attempt to discover to what 
 extent Southern sectionalism had its basis in divergent economic 
 interests and conditions. The study is primarily a study of public 
 opinion. It will require an examination of the opinions of South- 
 ern men as to the divergence of economic interests and the extent 
 of the disparity of economic development in the sections, the 
 causes of such disparity, and the proper remedies therefor. Actual 
 economic conditions and changes will be described and explained 
 only in so far as such description and explanation are essential 
 to an understanding of Southern public opinion. It is hoped, how- 
 ever, that incidentally some additional light may be thrown upon 
 the economic status of the ante-bellum South, and that some con- 
 clusions may be drawn as to the justification for Southern discon- 
 tent. Frequent references will of necessity be made to the sec- 
 tional quarrel over slavery, and the attempt will be made to main- 
 tain proper proportion between the minor aspects of sectional- 
 ism herein treated and the major issue of the sectional struggle. 
 
 In seeking to analyze Southern opinion relative to the matters 
 mentioned above, several movements in behalf of the economic 
 regeneration of the South will be described, and the accompany- 
 ing discussion examined. Evidence of economic discontent can be 
 found in the discussion of some of the outstanding political ques- 
 tions of the day, and such bodies of discussion will, therefore, be 
 analyzed. In the years 1837-1839, a number of direct trade conven- 
 tions held in the South Atlantic states gave earnest consideration 
 to direct trade with Europe as a remedy for Southern decline. 
 During the 18405, especially the latter half of the decade, there 
 was much discussion of the practicability and desirability of de- 
 veloping manufactures, especially cotton manufactures. The 
 political crisis of the years 1847-1852 furnished the occasion for 
 considerable consideration of the economic relations of the sec- 
 tions. During the 18503, direct trade with Europe was almost 
 constantly a subject before the public. Between 1852 and 1859, 
 
14 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [14 
 
 a series of Southern commercial conventions, whose original ob- 
 ject was to devise measures for effecting the economic regenera- 
 tion of the section, met in various cities of the South. The tariff 
 question was not dead during the period studied, and during the 
 18503 policies of state and local protection of industry were pro- 
 posed and discussed. The agitation of the late fifties in behalf of 
 secession, as well as the movement for the revival of the foreign 
 slave trade of the same period, gave evidence of discontent with 
 the economic position of the South. Finally, every phase of South- 
 ern sectionalism was brought out by the actual dissolution of the 
 Union and the necessity of inaugurating Confederate government- 
 al policies. Time and the scope of this work have not permitted 
 adequate consideration of the sectional aspects of two important 
 problems of the ante-bellum South, namely, the building of rail- 
 roads, especially into the Northwest and to the Pacific, and the es- 
 tablishment of a satisfactory banking and credit system. 1 It is 
 not believed that the omissions will vitiate the conclusions reached 
 in any material degree. The period covered by this study has 
 been rather arbitrarily limited. 
 
 "'Early Projects for a Pacific Railroad" was the subject of an unpublished 
 master's thesis of the author. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 AGITATION IN BEHALF OF DIRECT TRADE WITH 
 EUROPE, 1837-1839 
 
 In colonial days the exports and imports of the Southern col- 
 onies compared very favorably in amount with those of the North- 
 ern; but shortly after independence from Great Britain was 
 achieved, it became apparent that the importing business of the 
 nation was being concentrated in Northern ports. As the years 
 went by the concentration became more and more pronounced. 
 While the exports of the staple producing states grew at a phe- 
 nomenal rate, the value of the imports into Southern ports re- 
 mained almost stationary or grew very slowly. This was particu- 
 larly true in the case of the Atlantic ports. In the case of New 
 Orleans, for long almost the sole outlet for the commerce of the 
 rapidly filling Mississippi valley, there was early in the last cen- 
 tufy^phenomenal increase in both exports and imports; but after 
 about 1835 the latter increased very slowly, while the former con- 
 tinued to grow at the same remarkable rate. Prior to the Civil 
 War the imports of the Northern states greatly exceeded their ex- 
 ports. In the Southern states the reverse was the case. A com- 
 parison of the exports from all Southern ports with those from all 
 Northern ports shows that after about 1830 the former always 
 exceeded, and sometimes greatly exceeded, the latter. The im- 
 ports of the Southern ports, however, were only a fraction of the 
 imports of Northern ports, and became proportionally less as the 
 years went by. 1 If the growing superiority of the North in popu- 
 lation be remembered, and the comparison be made on the basis 
 of population, the disparity is still striking. It indicates that either 
 the people of the South did not consume their proportionate share 
 of the nation's imports, or that Northern merchants imported 
 largely on Southern account, or both. 
 
 A study of the growth of population of Northern and Southern 
 seaports likewise reveals a growing disparity in favor of the 
 former. 2 The ante-bellum South had no large and growing ports 
 except New Orleans and Baltimore, the latter of which was on the 
 line between the two sections. 
 
 ^ee Appendix, Table I. 
 2 See Appendix, Table II. 
 
 [15] 
 
l6 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [l6 
 
 The available statistics of the shipping built or owned in the 
 two sections again reveals a disparity in favor of the North as 
 great or greater than that in the value of imports or the popula- 
 tion of the seaports. If the comparison be limited to vessels en- 
 gaged in the foreign trade, it is even more to the advantage of 
 the North. 3 These facts would seem to indicate that the foreign 
 commerce of the Southern states was carried largely in Northern 
 or foreign vessels, and that the coasting trade of the South, if 
 large, must have been conducted largely in Northern vessels. 
 
 The comparative growth of Northern and Southern seaports, 
 the tendency to concentration of the importing business of the 
 United States in Northern cities, especially New York, and the 
 disparity between the shipping industries of the two sections, in 
 short the "commercial dependence" of the South upon the North, 
 were matters which received considerable attention in the ante- 
 bellum South, not only from citizens of the seaports themselves 
 but from the section as a whole. Southern men quite generally 
 looked upon commercial dependence as an evidence of the failure 
 of the South to prosper as it should. They gave consideration to 
 the relation of commercial dependence to the comparatively slow 
 accumulation of mobile capital in the South and to the inadequacy 
 of credit facilities, because of which they were handicapped in 
 their efforts to construct internal improvements and to develop 
 the varied resources of the section. They canvassed commercial 
 dependence as a cause for the slower increase of population in the 
 South than in the North a matter of much concern because of 
 its bearing upon the sectional struggle over slavery. The causes 
 of commercial dependence were sought, therefore, and efforts 
 were made to devise and apply remedies. 
 
 The whole subject was first thoroughly discussed, and the first 
 efforts made to effect a revolution in the manner of conducting 
 Southern commerce, by a number of direct trade conventions 
 which met in Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia in 1837, 1838, 
 and 1839. 
 
 The direct trade convention originated in Georgia. While the 
 financial crash of 1837 deranged the currency and the exchange 
 and credit operations of the country, it seems not to have affected 
 the old South as disastrously at first as it did other sections of 
 
 "See Appendix, Table III. 
 
17] AGITATION IN BEHALF OF DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE I"] 
 
 the Union.* It was seized upon as affording a good opportunity 
 for attempting to effect the establishment of direct trade and a 
 change in the method of marketing cotton. With these objects in 
 view, William Bearing and other gentlemen, of Athens, issued a 
 call for a convention to meet in Augusta in October, 183 7. The 
 call stated that a crisis had arrived in the commercial affairs of 
 the South and Southwest, "the most favorable that has occurred 
 since the formation of the American government, to attempt a 
 new organization of our commercial relations with Europe." 6 The 
 first Augusta convention was followed in April and October, 1838, 
 by a second and a third and, in April, 1839, by a fourth, in Char- 
 leston. 
 
 Each of this series of conventions was composed of from one 
 hundred to two hundred delegates, elected by local meetings. The 
 great majority in each case was from Georgia and South Caro- 
 lina, but there were scattering representatives from North Caro- 
 lina, Tennessee, Alabama, and Florida Territory, and an attempt 
 was made to enlist as many Southern states as possible. Although 
 the state rights, anti-tariff men gave tone to the proceedings, the 
 conventions were bi-partisan in composition; they were not got up 
 for partisan purposes, and party politics played a minor part in 
 their deliberations. Among the delegates were bankers, merch- 
 ants, and planters, as well as men active in politics. The lists of 
 delegates included such well known names as Robert Y. Hayne, 
 A. P. Hayne, George McDuffie, James Hamilton, Ker Boyce, 
 James Gadsden, Colonel Blanding, F. H. Elmore, H. S. Legare, 
 J. H. Hammond, J. E. and J. A. Calhoun, Chancellor Harper, and 
 C. G. Memminger, of South Carolina, Thomas Butler King, A. H. 
 Stephens, George W. Crawford, J. M. Berrien, G. B. Lamar, 
 Judge A. B. Longstreet, and Joseph H. Lumpkin, of Georgia, A. J. 
 Pickett, of Alabama, and Spencer Jarnaghin, of Tennessee. John 
 C. Calhoun was not present in any of these conventions, but their 
 purposes met with his approval. 7 The presence and active partici- 
 pation of such men are sufficient to indicate the deep interest in the 
 
 'Charleston Courier, Oct. 7, 1837. 
 
 *Niles' Register, LV, 43, 189. The delegates of the third Augusta convention 
 presented William Dearing with a silver cup in recognition of his part in inaugu- 
 rating the direct trade conventions. 
 
 "Charleston Courier, Aug. 14, 1837. 
 
 'Calhoun to Sidney Breese, July 27, 1839, Calhoun Correspondence. 
 
l8 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840-1 86 1 [l8 
 
 objects of the conventions. Numerous local meetings and the ac- 
 companying press discussion give testimony to the same effect. In 
 addition to the debates and resolutions and the newspaper com- 
 ments, the views, objects, and plans of the conventions were set 
 forth in several quite able addresses and reports. The report from 
 the committee of twenty-one of the first convention was read by 
 George McDuffie, chairman. 8 He was made chairman of a com- 
 mittee to address the people of the South and Southwest upon the 
 objects of the convention, and wrote the address. 9 At the second 
 convention the report of the general committee was read by Robert 
 Y. Hayne, chairman, and a committee, of which A. B. Longstreet 
 was appointed chairman, was instructed to prepare an address to 
 the people. 10 At the Charleston meeting, Robert Y. Hayne read a 
 report upon direct trade, which he had prepared, and which was 
 adopted by the convention; 11 F. H. Elmore read a report from 
 another committee, composed chiefly of merchants from interior 
 towns. 12 
 
 Three delegates from Norfolk, Virginia, attended the second 
 Augusta convention and took a prominent part in its proceedings. 
 As a result of growing interest, a direct trade convention was 
 called to meet in Richmond in June, 1838. This meeting was fol- 
 lowed by another in Norfolk in November. Besides these two 
 large conventions there were a number of more local gatherings 
 which discussed the same subjects. The great majority of the 
 delegates at Richmond and Norfolk were from Virginia, but sev- 
 eral came from North Carolina. These gatherings were bi-par- 
 tisan in composition, as were those in Georgia and South Caro- 
 lina, but they did not succeed so well in keeping partisan politics 
 out of the proceedings. Among the delegates were such prom- 
 inent men as John S. Millson, J. M. Botts, James Caskie, Francis 
 Mallory, Edmund Ruffin, Myer Myers, and W. C. Flournoy. At 
 Norfolk, John Tyler presided. These conventions, too, left sev- 
 
 *CharIeston Courier, Oct. 24, 1837. 
 
 DeBow's Review, IV, 208 ff. 
 
 "Report is in Savannah Daily Republican, April 6, 9, 19, 1838. The ad- 
 dress is in the Charleston Mercury, Aug. n, 1838; DeBow' s Review, XIII, 477- 
 93; N iles' Register, LV, 40 f. 
 
 "DeBow, Industrial Resources of the South and West, III, 92-111. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, IV, 493-502; DeBow, Industrial Resources, etc., Ill, m- 
 116. 
 
19] AGITATION IN BEHALF OF DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE 19 
 
 eral ably written reports, notably, the report of the committee on 
 commerce of the Richmond convention, 13 a report prepared and 
 submitted to the same convention by Francis Mallory but with- 
 drawn because of the opposition it encountered, 14 and the report 
 of the general committee of the Norfolk convention, read by John 
 S. Millson. 15 
 
 There was substantial agreement in all of the conventions in 
 regard to the manner in which Southern commerce was con- 
 ducted, the evils attendant thereon, and the benefits to follow the 
 establishment of direct trade with Europe. The staple growing 
 states were described as being in a "state of commercial depen- 
 dence, scarcely less reproachful to their industry and enterprise 
 than it is incompatible with their substantial prosperity." 16 What 
 would be more natural than that those who furnished the nation's 
 exports should also receive its imports? Yet, while the South fur- 
 nished two-thirds of the exports, she received directly only one- 
 tenth of the imports of the United States. Francis Mallory esti- 
 mated that nine-tenths of the exports went directly to Europe, 
 while five-sevenths of the imports from abroad came indirectly 
 by way of Northern seaports. The direct imports of Charleston 
 were said to have amounted to several millions in 1807; by 1833 
 they had dwindled to one-half million; since that time they had 
 gradually increased, but were still insignificant. 17 The same was 
 said to be true of Virginia. At the time of the Revolution exports 
 and imports had been equal; from that time to 1831 imports had 
 steadily declined; since 1831 there had been some, though not 
 marked, improvement. 18 Though Southern exports went directly 
 to Europe, the business was not conducted by home merchants, 
 but chiefly by agents of Northern and English firms. Southern 
 
 "Richmond Enquirer, June 22, 1838. 
 
 "Ibid., June 26, 1838; June 19. Mallory's report may be found in pamphlet 
 form also. 
 
 "Ibid., Nov. 30, 1838. In addition to the reports already mentioned, were 
 a "Report on Manufactures" and a "Supplementary Report on Manufactures," 
 both adopted by the Richmond convention. Ibid., June 26, 1838. 
 
 "Charleston Courier, Oct. 24, 1837, report of the general committee of the 
 first Augusta convention. 
 
 "Savannah Daily Republican, April 7, 1838, report of the general committee 
 of the second Augusta convention. 
 
 "Richmond Enquirer, June 26, 1838, Mallory's report. 
 
2O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 18401861 [2O 
 
 seaports were described as mere appendages of Northern sea- 
 ports, "places where their agents and factors do business, and 
 who, having but little local interest, withdraw from them after a 
 few years residence, with all their gains, to swell the wealth of 
 the place of their early affection and attachment." 19 In Virginia, 
 Northern steamboats often went up the rivers buying and selling 
 directly to the farmers, the lumbermen, and the country mer- 
 chants; the cargoes were paid for by bills on New York, and the 
 money never entered Virginia. Interior merchants purchased their 
 stocks in New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore without the inter- 
 vention of jobbers in Southern ports. 20 
 
 The profits Northern merchants and shippers made from con- 
 ducting Southern commerce were believed to be very great and to 
 account in large measure for the prosperity of Northern cities, 
 while the loss of those profits explained the impoverishment of the 
 cities of the South. The address issued by the second Augusta 
 convention, after estimating at $630,000,000 the duties paid by 
 the Southern states since the establishment of the Constitution of 
 the United States, continued: 
 
 If we suppose the value of the goods upon which the six hun- 
 dred and thirty millions of duties were levied, to have been but 
 four times the value of the duties, it amounted to $2,500,000,000. 
 How were these goods brought to this country and distributed? 
 The northern merchant has come hither and bought from the 
 southern planter produce of equal value, abating from the price 
 all the expenses, direct and incidental, of transportation. He has 
 insured them in northern offices, and shipped them abroad in his 
 own vessels exchanged them at a small profit for foreign merchan- 
 dise brought it home paid one-fourth its value to the govern- 
 ment added that amount and all the expenses of importation, 
 and fifteen to twenty per cent, for his profits, to the price, and 
 exposed it for sale. The southern merchant has now gone to him 
 lingered the summer through at heavy expense bought a por- 
 tion of the goods, reshipped them in northern vessels to southern 
 ports added twenty-five per cent, more to the price, to cover his 
 expenses and profits and sold them to the southern planter. All 
 the disbursements made in this process, save such as are made 
 abroad, are among northern men; all the profits, save the south- 
 ern merchant's, are made by northern men . . . Every item in the 
 endless catalogue of charges, except the government dues, may be 
 considered a voluntary tribute from the citizens of the south to 
 
 "Richmond Enquirer, June 26, 1838, Mallory's report. 
 
21 ] AGITATION IN BEHALF OF DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE 21 
 
 their brethren of the north; for they would all have gone to our 
 own people, had we done our own exporting and importing. 21 
 
 At Charleston, Robert Y. Hayne quoted a report of a com- 
 mittee of the Alabama Legislature in which it was estimated that 
 over one-third the price of cotton went to New York agents and 
 shippers. Hayne himself was content to put the tolls at 10 or 15 
 per cent. 22 George McDuffie thought the "voluntary tribute" paid 
 annually to the North for carrying Southern commerce amounted 
 to $io,ooo,ooo. 23 A Virginia delegate said the state could save 
 $1,000,000 annually by importing directly. 24 But this direct an- 
 nual drain was not the only loss occasioned the Southern people; 
 there were also the "consequential losses," that is, the capital 
 which would have accumulated had the South conducted her own 
 commerce. Commercial dependence had operated to prevent the 
 accumulation of capital in the South, and the deficiency of capital 
 had handicapped enterprise. 
 
 The greatness of New York City was pictured all said to have 
 been built upon Southern staples and Southern trade. "You hold 
 the element," ran the address of one of these conventions, "from 
 which he derives his strength, and you have only to withdraw it 
 to make him as subservient to you, as you now are to him. You 
 have but to speak the word, and his empire is transferred to your 
 own soil, and his sovereignty to the sons of that soil." 25 But the 
 benefits were not confined to New York; the virtual monopoly of 
 Southern commerce had "either directly or indirectly made the 
 whole of the North and Northwest what they are," according to 
 the call of the first Augusta convention. 26 Because of it, "the one 
 people has risen like the rocket, and the other has fallen like its 
 stick their positions must have been reversed, if the southern 
 people had maintained their foreign trade." 27 Glowing descrip- 
 tions were given of the prosperity of Southern states and cities 
 after direct trade should be restored. Were direct trade estab- 
 lished, according to the address calling the second Augusta con- 
 vention, "there would be an end to the unequal barter of which 
 
 "Niles' Register, LV, 41. 
 
 "DeBow, Industrial Resources, III, 93. 
 
 "Charleston Courier, Oct. 24, 1837, report, first Augusta convention. 
 
 "Richmond Enquirer, June 15, 1838. 
 
 ^Nilei Register, LV, 43, second Augusta convention. 
 
 "Charleston Courier, Aug. 14, 1837. 
 
 "Niles' Register, LV, 42. 
 
22 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [22 
 
 we have spoken. The doleful cry for northern funds would be 
 hushed. The speculators upon southern distress would cease. The 
 disorders of the currency would be healed. The relation of the 
 commercial agency would be changed. They would be acquaint- 
 ances and friends, identical in feeling and interest; enjoying 
 mutual confidence, and interchanging mutual favors .... The 
 fountain and the streams of commerce lying all within our land, 
 would enrich it to an extent that none can foresee. Our works 
 of internal improvement would receive a new and ever-accelerat- 
 ing impetus. Our drooping cities would be revived our creeping 
 commerce winged; and all the blessings, physical, moral, and in- 
 tellectual, which invariably accompany affluence and independ- 
 ence, would be ours." 28 
 
 In regard to the causes for the "decline" of the shipping and 
 the import trade of Southern ports, the conventions exhibited dif- 
 ferences of opinion. First, there was the view that for many years 
 the North had possessed great advantages over the South for these 
 lines of business by reason of its superior wealth and larger ac- 
 cumulations of capital. Not only must ship owners and importers 
 be men of large capital, but they must have the backing of 
 wealthy communities. 
 
 And men of the South Carolina school, the followers of Calhoun 
 and McDuffie, who predominated in the Augusta and Charleston 
 conventions, were ready with explanations for the more rapid ac- 
 cumulation of capital in the North than in the South. It was, they 
 said, because of the unequal operation of the Federal government. 
 The tariffs had long enriched the manufacturing sections at the 
 expense of the agricultural. Furthermore, while the people of the 
 South had paid their proportionate share of the Federal revenues, 
 these revenues had been disbursed chiefly in the Northern cities, 
 and this process, going on year after year, had transferred a stag- 
 gering total from the one section to the other. A minority report 
 in the Richmond convention rehearsed the old story of the as- 
 sumption of the state debts by the Federal government and the 
 refunding of the national debt carried out under the guidance of 
 Alexander Hamilton. The refunded debt had been distributed be- 
 tween the North and South in the ratio of three to one, and, 
 because of this inequality of distribution, had acted as a mortgage 
 
 ' Regist'er, LV, 43. Cf. Richmond Enquirer, June 26, 1838. 
 
23] AGITATION IN BEHALF OF DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE 23 
 
 of the one section upon the other, great sums having been trans- 
 ferred from the South to the North in the form of interest paid 
 to Northern bond holders from the common treasury. 29 It was 
 claimed, also, by men in these conventions, that for long the funds 
 of the Federal government had been deposited almost altogether 
 in Northern banks, thus giving Northern business men a decided 
 advantage over Southern in the ability to secure financial assist- 
 ance. Those who held these views of the causes of Southern de- 
 cline saw basis for hope for revival in the gradual reduction of the 
 tariff, according to the provisions of the Compromise Tariff law of 
 1833, the recent extinguishment of the national debt, the destruc- 
 tion of the United States Bank, and the evidence of a new policy 
 in distributing deposits of the public funds. 
 
 Another alleged cause for Southern commercial dependence, 
 closely related to the one just mentioned, was the inadequacy of 
 credit facilities. An examination, however cursory, of business 
 methods in the South in that period makes it clear that a success- 
 ful importing firm would have to command very great resources 
 of capital or credit or both. It was proverbial that the planters 
 lived each year upon the prospective income from the next year's 
 crop. The country merchants, who extended them long credit, 
 could not buy, therefore, except on long time. Importers, who 
 bought on sixty or ninety days time, had to sell to the merchants 
 upon from six to twelve or sixteen months. Country merchants 
 were sometimes unwilling to give negotiable notes; they consid- 
 ered a request to do so a reflection upon their business integrity. 30 
 Southern importers and jobbers did not, unaided, possess the 
 means, and Southern banks were unable to lend them sufficient 
 support, to enable them to extend to retail merchants the long 
 credits which the latter received in the North. 
 
 A correspondent of the Charleston Courier attributed the loss 
 of foreign trade to the fact that country merchants began to buy 
 of Northern jobbers because of the longer credits obtained. 31 
 Robert Y. Hayne enumerated long credits as one of the causes of 
 the decline of Southern commerce. 32 McDuffie said he confidently 
 
 SB Richmond Enquirer, June 26, 1838, Mallory's report. 
 **Ibid., June 22, 1838, remarks of Mr. James and Mr. Caskie; June 26, 1838, 
 Mallory's report. 
 "Oct. 17, 1837. 
 82 DeBow, Industrial Resources, III, 98. 
 
24 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [24 
 
 believed that, if the planters would "adopt the system of expend- 
 ing, in the current year, the income of the year preceding .... 
 it would dispense with one-half of the capital that would otherwise 
 be necessary for carrying on our foreign commerce by a system of 
 direct importation." 33 One of the questions dividing public opinion 
 in Virginia in that period was the policy of authorizing an increase 
 of bank capital in the state. It was the subject of animated de- 
 bates in both the Richmond and the Norfolk conventions. Those 
 favoring the increase thought the unwise policy of the legislature 
 in refusing the authorization largely responsible for the decline of 
 direct trade in Virginia. 
 
 It is to the credit of the men of these conventions that they 
 recognized other causes for Southern commercial dependence 
 than the action or non-action of the Federal and state govern- 
 ments. They recognized that agriculture had in the past proved 
 more attractive to capital than the shipping or mercantile business; 
 land and negroes had been considered the best investments. The 
 existence of a prejudice against other pursuits than agriculture and 
 the professions was admitted. Some were willing to credit the peo- 
 ple of the North with habits of industry not possessed by their own 
 people and with superior commercial enterprise; they spoke of the 
 "voluntary tribute" which the South paid the North. The able re- 
 port of the general committee of the Norfolk convention, read by 
 John S. Millson, traced the decline of Virginia's foreign commerce 
 to a very early date. Before the Revolution, the report said, bus- 
 iness was conducted by British capitalists, and even then the resi- 
 dent merchants were foreigners. At the time of the Revolution, 
 British capital was withdrawn. True, the same thing happened in 
 the North, but to a less degree, and the North was better pre- 
 pared to take the place left by the British. Furthermore, agricul- 
 ture became unprofitable in the North at an earlier day than in the 
 South, and capital had been diverted to other industries. The 
 committee further candidly admitted that "the decline of a con- 
 siderable portion of our foreign import trade may be accounted 
 for in the fact that we now derive from the Northern states 
 many of those articles that we formerly imported from abroad." 
 Such a diversion of trade was not a subject for regret. 34 A com- 
 mittee in the Charleston convention likewise reported that the 
 
 "DeBotv's Review, IV, 221. 
 "Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 30, 1838. 
 
25] AGITATION IN BEHALF OF DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE 25 
 
 consumption of domestic goods had increased greatly, was still in- 
 creasing, and was estimated by merchants to extend already to 
 one-third of the whole consumption. The committee believed, 
 however, that the quantity of foreign goods consumed in the South 
 was sufficient to justify merchants in Southern seaports embarking 
 in the importing business and to enable them to compete with 
 Northern importers, who, of course, supplied a larger demand. 35 
 
 It was generally denied that Northern seaports possessed any 
 natural or physical advantages over Southern seaports for con- 
 ducting foreign commerce. The direct course of trade was the 
 natural course, and the indirect the unnatural. Direct trade would 
 save one set of jobbers' profits, the cost of shipping coastwise, the 
 difference between the discount of Southern notes in New York 
 and Charleston (or the cost of whatever other mode of payment 
 was employed), and the expenses retail merchants incurred in go- 
 ing North to lay in their stocks. Southern harbors were said to be 
 as good as Northern. However that may be, it is certain that 
 ocean going vessels entered Southern harbors to receive their ex- 
 ports. These ships often came in ballast, and, it was reasonably 
 argued, would be willing to carry imports at low freights. Ship- 
 ping was considered adequate, though there was recognition that 
 regular packet lines were needed. 36 The South was said to have 
 timber for ship-building; but, in the thirties, not much was said 
 about the desirability of promoting ship-building or ship-owning: 
 the big object was to save the "importers' profits." Now and then 
 someone suggested that the importing business in Southern cities 
 was rendered precarious by visits of yellow, or "strangers'," fever; 
 but residents of the South were generally ready to defend their 
 coast cities against the prevalent belief that they were unhealthy. 37 
 
 Various plans and measures were suggested for promoting 
 direct importations of foreign goods. Some were intended to over- 
 come the obstacle to direct trade which lay in the lack of mercan- 
 
 **DeBow's Review, IV, 495, Elmore's report. 
 
 M It is a rather significant commentary, however, that much of the import 
 trade of Charleston was made by her own merchants through New York, the 
 goods being transhipped there. DeBow's Review, IV, 499. 
 
 M DeBow, Industrial Resources, III, 98; Buckingham, Slave States of Amer- 
 ica, I, 67 ff. In 1838, Charleston experienced the most costly epidemic of yellow 
 fever of her history to that time. The severity of the epidemic was partly due 
 to the conditions resulting from the great fire earlier in the same year. Charleston 
 Mercury, Sept. 13, Oct. 26, 1838; Niles' Register, LV, 52, 161. 
 
26 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [26 
 
 tile houses with sufficient capital to enable them to embark in the 
 importing business. The first Augusta convention took the view 
 that, while individual merchants were not possessed of resources 
 necessary, the requisite capital could be got together by associa- 
 tions of individuals, and to that end it appointed a committee to 
 memorialize the state legislatures in behalf of limited co-partner- 
 ship laws. In response to the committee's memorials the legisla- 
 tures of Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, 
 and Florida Territory enacted the desired legislation, and subse- 
 quent conventions urged men of means to avail themselves of the 
 opportunity thus afforded. 38 The opinion was expressed that there 
 was an overproduction of cotton in the South, and that planters 
 could profitably invest a portion of the proceeds of their crops 
 otherwise than in land and negroes. If for a few years the plant- 
 ers would apply one-half their net income to commerce, abundant 
 capital would be supplied to conduct the whole foreign com- 
 merce. 39 This suggestion, however, could not carry great weight, 
 for, though subject to fluctuation, it was not until 1839 that there 
 was a marked decline in cotton prices, and the average for the 
 years 1835 to 1839 was fourteen cents, a higher average than that 
 of any equal period since 1820 to 1824.* The question of capital, 
 it was considered, would be a serious one only while the revolution 
 in trade was being effected, for, once established, the profits of 
 direct importations would supply the capital requisite for their 
 continuance. 41 
 
 Other recommendations of the direct trade conventions dealt 
 with the great obstacle to direct trade which lay in the inadequacy 
 of credit facilities in the South. The second Augusta convention 
 was especially detailed in its recommendations. It requested 
 banks to form European connections that they might be able to 
 assist importers with letters of credit. It recommended that the 
 banks in the seaports discount paper from the interior for the 
 
 "Savannah Daily Republican, April 6, 10, 1838; Niles' Register, LV, 43, 189. 
 The Charleston convention adopted a resolution directing the chairman to ap- 
 point and designate the spheres of committees whose duty it should be to call 
 meetings of the people and recommend to them to invest a portion of their sur- 
 plus capital in limited partnerships with merchants in trading centers and towns 
 of their respective states. Charleston Courier, April 19, 1839. 
 
 "Ibid., Oct. 24, 1837; DeBow's Review, IV, 222. 
 
 40 Donnell, E. J., History of Cotton, passim. 
 
 "Savannah Daily Republican, April 10, 1838. 
 
2j] AGITATION IN BEHALF OF DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE If 
 
 importing merchants paper for longer periods than six months as 
 well as for shorter periods. The banks of the interior were re- 
 quested to cooperate by collecting and remitting the proceeds of 
 such paper to the coast with as little delay as possible. "It is not 
 to be concealed that without the aid and support of the banks, the 
 difficulties in our way will be greatly multiplied. It will depend 
 upon them, in great measure, to determine the fate of our great 
 measure." 42 The banks had suspended specie payment in May, 
 1837, and were beset with great difficulties. The convention de- 
 vised a plan for equalizing the domestic exchanges and keeping up 
 the credit of the banks during the period of suspension. In sub- 
 stance the plan was that the banks of the principal Southern cities 
 receive each other's notes and adopt some sort of a clearing house 
 system, and that other banks maintain the value of their notes and 
 keep down the rates of exchange by redeeming their notes at the 
 seaports. A committee was appointed to urge the banks to adopt 
 the plan. 43 The plan had good points, but was too complicated to 
 be adopted at the time. The banks did make a more or less con- 
 certed effort to resume specie payments in 1838, but after a few 
 months were again forced to suspend, in October, 1839. The Vir- 
 ginia conventions contented themselves, after hot discussions, with 
 passing resolutions asking the legislatures of Virginia and North 
 Carolina to authorize increases of banking capital. 44 
 
 Many other suggestions designed to promote direct importa- 
 tions were made. Individual citizens were urged to be more enter- 
 prising. It was declared a sacred duty to buy of those merchants who 
 traded directly in preference to those who bought foreign goods 
 from Northern jobbers. Interior merchants were requested not to 
 go North for their stocks until they had investigated the possibil- 
 ities of making their purchases in their own seaports. A local Vir- 
 ginia convention, in 1838, recommended the organization of an as- 
 sociation of retail merchants pledged to deal, after September I, 
 1839, with the importing merchants of Virginia cities only, "pro- 
 vided those merchants would sell as cheaply as the Northern mer- 
 chants;" and sixty or seventy citizens actually signed a pledge not 
 
 "Savannah Daily Republican, April 10, 1838. 
 "Ibid., April 6, 1838. 
 
 "Richmond Enquirer, June 19, Nov. 23, 1838. These states did not have 
 free banking laws at that time. 
 
28 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [28 
 
 to patronize any merchant who would not join the association. 45 
 The pledge system was advocated in the Norfolk convention, but 
 the convention refused to recommend it. 46 Complaint was made 
 that the tax laws of the states descriminated against commercial 
 capital in favor of land and slaves. 47 Some Southern states and 
 cities taxed sales; port and wharf charges and fees were said to be 
 too high. 48 The Charleston convention adopted a resolution re- 
 questing the state legislatures to repeal discriminatory taxes. 49 
 A motion introduced at Norfolk to ask the Legislature of Virginia 
 to exempt direct imports from taxation was defeated. 50 The 
 prejudices of the people against mercantile pursuits were de- 
 plored: "The commercial class must be elevated in public opinion 
 to the rank in society which properly belongs to it." It was 
 recognized as an evil that the great majority of the merchants, 
 commission merchants, and factors in all the seaport cities of the 
 South (and interior towns too, for that matter) were either 
 Northerners or naturalized citizens. Commercial education was 
 recommended to train Southern youth to enter the field. Robert 
 Y. Hayne advanced to his son, William C., the capital necessary 
 to enter into a partnership with one of the old importers of Char- 
 leston. His purpose, he wrote, was to "try what can be done to 
 rear up a young brood of Carolina merchants, which I believe to 
 be indispensable to put our Southern America on a right foot- 
 ing." 51 Manufacturers and exporters of foreign countries were 
 asked to establish agencies in Southern cities for selling their 
 goods,.as they had done in New York and other Northern seaports. 
 The Norfolk convention considered this quite important; it ap- 
 pointed a committee of seven to get in communication with 
 European firms. 52 
 
 "Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 13, 1838, account of a meeting in Elizabeth City 
 County, Oct. 6, 1838. 
 
 "Ibid., Nov. 20, 1838. 
 
 "Charleston Courier, April 17, 1839, "Report on the Taxation of Commer- 
 cial Capital," submitted by Mitchell King in the Charleston convention. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, IV, 498. 
 
 "Charleston Courier, April 19, 1839. 
 
 ""Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 23, 1838. 
 
 "Hayne to J. H. Hammond, Jan. 18, 1839, /. H. Hammond Papers. 
 
 "DeBow, Industrial Resources, III, loo; Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 20, 30, 
 1838. Early in 1839, George McDuffie was in England in the interest of a plan 
 of his own "to form associations of from twenty to thirty planters to buy directly 
 
29] AGITATION IN BEHALF OF DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE 29 
 
 The direct trade movement of these years was very closely re- 
 lated to efforts being made in the South Atlantic states to es- 
 tablish connections by railroads or canals with the Ohio valley. 
 South Carolinians were the chief promoters of a great project, 
 which ultimately had to be abandoned, to build the "Louisville, 
 Cincinnati, and Charleston Railroad." 63 The State of Georgia had 
 undertaken the construction of a trunk line, the Western and At- 
 lantic, from Atlanta to the Tennessee river. 84 Virginia had chart- 
 ered the James River and Kanawha Canal Company, which, as 
 the name indicates, was intended to provide continuous water 
 communication between the seaboard and the Ohio. 65 All of the 
 direct trade conventions very heartily endorsed these projects for 
 connecting the South and West as most promising measures for 
 securing direct trade. The West sold to the South, it was said; if 
 it could also buy in the South, such a demand for goods would be 
 created in Southern seaports that there could no longer be any 
 question of their ability to import directly. "W T e must contend 
 for the commerce of the West," read Mallory's report, "the sec- 
 tion that gets that commerce will get the commerce of the coun- 
 try." A resolution adopted by the Norfolk convention declared 
 internal improvements to be the foundation cf an import trade. 56 
 The general committee of the Second Augusta convention said 
 that direct trade was inseparably connected with the extension of 
 intercourse to the West. "And when the great West shall find a 
 market and receive their supplies through the seaports of the 
 South, a demand will be furnished, the extent and value of which 
 cannot be too largely estimated." 57 Calhoun, who took a deep in- 
 terest in both projects, believed that direct trade could not be es- 
 
 from English manufacturers without commissions or profits to agents, factors, 
 or merchants except a small commission to Liverpool houses selected to sell the 
 planters' cotton and send their orders to the manufacturers." He believed the 
 planters could save 25 per cent upon their purchases in this way. McDuffie to 
 J. H. Hammond, March 31, 1839 (Manchester, England), J.H.Hammond Papers. 
 
 * 3 This project is discussed at length in U. B. Phillips, History of Transpor- 
 tation in the Eastern Cotton Belt, ch. IV; and T. D. Jervey, Robert Y. Hayne . 
 and His Times. 
 
 "Phillips op. cit., ch. VII. 
 
 "Ambler, Sectionalism in Virginia, from 1776 to!861, p. 182. 
 
 ""Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 20, 23, 1838. 
 
 "Savannah Republican, April 9, 1838. 
 
3O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [30 
 
 tablished until railroads had been extended to the West. 58 On 
 the other hand, discussion of the establishment of direct trade 
 with Europe would stimulate interest in projects for connecting 
 the seaboard and the Ohio valley. Many of the members of the 
 direct trade conventions were closely associated with the internal 
 improvement projects, and, though it would be inaccurate to say 
 that the former were got up to give impetus to the latter, that 
 was undoubtedly one of the objects of the conventions. The rela- 
 tion was made very clear in the message of Mayor Pinckney, of 
 Charleston, August, 1838. During the previous year, he said, 
 Charleston had held meetings, "giving a decided impetus to those 
 great enterprises, the Cincinnati railroad and a direct trade with 
 Europe, of which the latter will supply the former with its life 
 blood, and of which the united operation will assuredly achieve 
 the commercial independence of the South, and, with it, the per- 
 manent prosperity of our beloved city." 59 
 
 Although the money panic of 1837 was the occasion for the 
 convening of conventions which proposed to attempt to change the 
 course of Southern trade, the movement cannot be considered the 
 outgrowth of depressed economic conditions. In 1837 and 1838, 
 it was believed that business had received only a temporary, al- 
 though sharp, check, and that enterprise would soon be in full 
 swing once more. As were the rapid building of railroads, canals, 
 and turnpikes, the direct trade movement was a manifestation of 
 the spirit of progress and enterprise which had seized upon East, 
 West, and South alike. The movement came to a temporary close 
 when general stagnation of business settled upon the country in 
 1839 and continued for several years thereafter. 60 
 
 It is noteworthy that these direct trade conventions were con- 
 cerned almost exclusively with economic conditions and means for 
 improving them. The slavery question, which was being given 
 considerable prominence about this time both in Congress and out 
 
 M Calhoun to Sidney Breese, July 27, 1839: to James Edward Calhoun, 
 Nov. I, 1841, Calhoun Correspondence. 
 
 ""Report; Containing a Review of the Proceedings of the City Authorities 
 from the 4th of Sept., 1837. By Henry L. Pinckney, Mayor. 
 
 60 The Charleston convention adjourned to meet in Macon, Georgia, in May, 
 1840; the meeting did not occur. The Norfolk convention arranged for another 
 to meet in Raleigh, North Carolina, in November, 1839; there is no record of 
 the meeting of the convention. 
 
3l] AGITATION IN BEHALF OF DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE 3! 
 
 by reason of the debates in Congress upon the exclusion of ab- 
 olition literature from the mails and the treatment of abolition 
 petitions in Congress, was rarely mentioned. A decade later no 
 direct trade convention could be held, no plan for achieving 
 commercial independence proposed, nor, for that matter, for erect- 
 ing a cotton mill, building a railroad, opening a mine, or in any 
 wa;/ promoting the material progress of the South, without con- 
 sideration of, or due advertance to, its relation to the sectional 
 struggle over slavery and the extension thereof. The argument 
 would then without fail be advanced that the South must develop 
 her strength and resources and achieve commercial and industrial 
 independence in order to be prepared to defend her rights and 
 honor in the Union, or, if worst came to worst, her independence 
 out of it. George McDuffie did indeed allude to the existence of 
 causes, tariff and slavery, which made the dismemberment of the 
 confederacy "one of the possible contingencies for which it is the 
 part of wisdom to provide"; 61 but as yet such considerations were 
 very infrequently advanced, at least in public. The direct trade 
 conventions of the thirties were in the main what they purported 
 to be, namely, bona fide efforts on the part of Southern men to 
 promote the prosperity and progress of their states and section 
 and, particularly, their seaports. 
 
 Several reasons may be advanced to explain the comparatively 
 little interest displayed in the direct trade movement outside the 
 three states of Georgia, South Carolina, and Virginia. North 
 Carolina had no seaport which was considered to have the requi- 
 site natural advantages for becoming a great Southern emporium. 
 Most of her exports and imports were made by way of Virginia 
 and South Carolina. Her population was conservative and com- 
 paratively devoid of state pride. Alabama and Louisiana had 
 seaports in Mobile and New Orleans. Both states were young, 
 and were growing rapidly in population. Their agriculture had 
 been prosperous. Just before the financial panic of 1837, both 
 had enjoyed several years of speculative prosperity, which had 
 been fully shared by Mobile and New Orleans. The rapidly grow- 
 ing population of the two towns consisted largely of immigrants 
 from the North of Europe; civic pride had not yet developed. The 
 crash of 1837 was more severe in the Southwest than in the older 
 
 "De Bow's Review, IV, 219. 
 
32 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 |j2 
 
 Southern states, and the time was not auspicious for interest in 
 any new movements. 
 
 The direct trade conventions accomplished no tangible results 
 in the way of changing the course of Southern commerce. They 
 afford evidence of discontent in the older states of the South with 
 their material progress. They show that the belief was held, and 
 no doubt they contributed to its spread, that commercial depen- 
 dence was an evidence and, at the same time, a cause of "South- 
 ern decline." It is unnecessary to point out the common element 
 in the view that the East was being enriched at the expense of the 
 South because of the commercial vassalage of the latter and the 
 quite prevalent belief that the operation of the Federal govern- 
 ment had been unequal in its effects upon the material progress 
 of the two sections. The direct trade conventions were another 
 manifestation of the economic discontent of which evidence had 
 been given during the nullification controversy. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MOVEMENT FOR THE DIVERSIFICATION 
 OF INDUSTRY, 1840-1852 
 
 The industrial revolution was not well under way in the South 
 until almost a generation after the Civil War. While the ante- 
 bellum South was not completely devoid of manufacturing and 
 mining, the progress of those industries did not keep pace with the 
 progress of agriculture. Southern industry was no more diversified 
 in 1860 than in the earlier decades of the century. In this respect 
 the South presented a contrast to the North, where the industrial 
 revolution was proceeding apace. Elsewhere in this thesis sta- 
 tistics are given which illustrate the comparative industrial 
 progress of the sections. 
 
 During the 18405, Southern agriculture suffered a long and quite 
 severe depression. During the same period cotton factories were 
 being established at a more rapid rate than in the decades im- 
 mediately preceding or following, and there was unusual progress 
 in a few other lines of industry. The profits of manufacturers 
 seem to have been large in comparison with those of planters. 
 These conditions were chiefly responsible for the beginning of a 
 more or less organized agitation" in favor of the establishment of 
 manufactures. As the agitation developed, social and political 
 arguments were adduced to support the economic. The argu- 
 ments of the proponents of diversified industry did not go uncon- 
 troverted, however. The history and analysis of this discussion 
 shed light upon the subject of economic discontent in the South 
 before the Civil War. An essential similarity will be noted be- 
 tween some of the ideas at the basis of the agitation in behalf of 
 manufactures and ideas which animated the direct trade move- 
 ment described in the preceding chapter. 
 
 The decade 1840-1850 brought the severest depression to agri- 
 culture, particularly to cotton culture, that the South experienced 
 prior to the Civil War. During the preceding decade cotton prices 
 had averaged 12.6 cents, and the industry was profitable. During 
 the 18405, however, the average price was about 8 cents, and the 
 cotton planters were greatly disheartened. The decade opened 
 with cotton between 8 and 9 cents; the following year prices were 
 slightly higher; but after 1841 prices steadily declined until 
 
 33 
 
34 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-lB6l [34 
 
 middling upland sold for 5 cents in New York, January I, 1845, 
 the lowest price ever paid for American cotton. 1 A contributor 
 to the Southern Quarterly Review wrote: "At no period of our 
 history, from the year 1781, has a greater gloom been cast over 
 the agricultural prospects of South Carolina, than at the present 
 time." 2 John C. Calhoun wrote his son-in-law: "Cotton still con- 
 tinues to fall. Its average price may be said to be about 4 cents 
 per pound. The effect will be ruinous in the South, and will 
 rouse the feeling of the whole section." 3 For years, 1845 was re- 
 membered as the year of the great cotton crisis. The depression 
 in agriculture was not confined to the cotton belt. Edmund Ruffin 
 wrote from Virginia that prices were so low that agriculture could 
 scarcely live. 4 Similar reports came from the Northwest, which 
 still depended largely upon the cotton belt for a market for grain, 
 pork and bacon, and live stock. The replies to Secretary of the 
 Treasury Walker's circular (1845) requesting information upon 
 which to base recommendations for a revision of the tariff, even 
 after due allowance has been made for partisan bias, testify to the 
 low state of agriculture in the South and West. 5 A North Caro- 
 linian reported that for three years the profits of agriculture in 
 his state had not been more than 3 per cent, because of poor 
 crops and low prices; horses and mules were imported from Ohio, 
 Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and western Virginia, and prices 
 were one-third lower than they had been during the ten years pre- 
 ceding. Similar replies came from South Carolina, Georgia, and 
 Alabama. Replies from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri rep- 
 resented the profits of agriculture to be from 2 to 5 per cent. 
 Scarcely a response was optimistic about the outlook for agricul- 
 ture. 
 
 The grain growing states were the first to experience a revival 
 of prosperity. In 1846, the crop failure in Ireland and large 
 deficiencies in Great Britain and in many parts of the Continent 
 
 *C. F. M'Cay, "The Cotton Trade from 1825-1850," in Hunt's Merchants' 
 Magazine, XXIII, 595-604; E. J. Donnell, History of Cotton, passim; M. B. 
 Hammond, The Cotton Industry. 
 
 VIII, 118 (July, 1845). 
 
 'Calhoun to Thomas G. Clemson, Dec. 27, 1844, Calhoun Correspondence. 
 
 *Ruffin to Hammond, May 17, 1845, /. H. Hammond Papers. 
 
 'Exec. Docs., 29 Cong., I Sess., II, No. 5. A digest of the replies is in 
 DeBow's Review, VI, 285-304. 
 
35] MOVEMENT FOR THE DIVERSIFICATION OF INDUSTRY 35 
 
 created an extraordinary demand for foodstuffs, which, together 
 with the repeal of the English Corn Laws the same year, led to a 
 remarkable increase in the exports of provisions from America 
 in that and the following year. 6 Other factors soon contributed to 
 the revival, and Western agriculture entered upon a period of 
 remarkable prosperity, unbroken until I85/. 7 The revival of pros- 
 perity in the cotton industry was delayed for two or three years. 
 The crop of 1846 was short, while the very conditions which 
 caused a great increase in the prices of provisions prevented a 
 considerable rise in the price. It was a saying in the South that 
 dear bread in Europe meant cheap cotton. The crops of 1847 and 
 1848 were large, but breadstuffs continued high in Great Britain, 
 Europe, in 1848, was in revolution, and cotton prices remained 
 low. In the fall of 1849, however, cotton was high. Pacification of 
 Europe, revival of business in France, fine harvests and conse- 
 quent cheap bread in England, the exhaustion of old stocks of raw 
 cotton, and the belief that the new crop was short, caused the sea- 
 son to open with cotton at 9.5 to 11.5 cents at New Orleans. The 
 average for the year was between n and 12 cents, and the price 
 was maintained the following year. Though the price fell again 
 in 1851-1852, it never again, before the war, fell to the level of the 
 18403. The average price for the decade 1850-1860 was 10.6 cents. 8 
 As cotton prices fell the older cotton states were the first to find 
 its culture unprofitable. Their lands could not compete on equal 
 terms with the newer lands of the Southwest; they faced not only 
 reduced prices and diminished returns but also loss of popula- 
 tion through emigration. As early as 1841, J. H. Hammond, of 
 South Carolina, in an address before the State Agricultural So- 
 ciety, showed a thorough grasp of the situation and proposed the 
 remedies which were so fully discussed during the following 
 
 "Census of 1860, Agriculture, cxli. 
 
 T Other factors were the construction of railroads and canals connecting the 
 East and the Northwest and the development of the Eastern market. 
 
 *Donnell, History of Cotton, passim. Donnell's annual reviews of the cotton 
 trade were taken from the New Orleans Price Current. His statistics were from 
 the New York Shipping List. I have also used C. F. M'Cay's annual reviews of 
 the cotton trade, which appeared regularly for several years in the December 
 numbers of Hunt's Merchants' Magazine. See also DeBow's Review, XXVII, 106, 
 for cotton prices. 
 
36 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [36 
 
 years. 9 In the past, he said, the production of cotton could not 
 keep pace with the demand, but now production promised to out- 
 run consumption. Already the price had been forced down to a 
 figure, 8 cents, at which cotton culture in South Carolina was 
 profitable only on the richest soils. As remedies, Hammond pro- 
 posed, first, improved methods of cultivation and diversification of 
 agriculture. The planters must grow grain in sufficient quantities 
 to supply the home demand; they must raise live stock and save 
 the "immense sums which are annually drawn from us in ex- 
 change for mules, horses, cattle, hogs, sheep, and even poultry." 
 Tobacco, indigo, sugar cane, and grapes might be introduced. But 
 these remedies would not suffice; capital must be diverted from 
 agriculture to other pursuits. The state had mineral resources 
 which could be developed. "Already furnaces, forges, bloomeries, 
 and rolling mills have been put in operation with every prospect 
 of success at no distant day." He hoped coal would be found near 
 the iron. Manufactures might be developed. The state possessed 
 splendid resources of water-power. A beginning had already been 
 made in cotton manufacture. Manufactures should not be fostered 
 by legislation at the expense of other industries; but where they 
 grew up spontaneously they were undoubtedly a great blessing 
 increasing population, providing a home market for agriculture, 
 and saving large sums which otherwise would be sent out of the 
 state. An industrial revolution was inevitable, and the change 
 could be effected with less anxiety and loss if begun early and 
 conducted judiciously. Hammond regretted the revolution in in- 
 dustry and in "manners and probably the entire structure of our 
 social system" which the failure of the old system was likely to 
 occasion, but saw no grounds for apprehension. 
 
 In the following years the discussion increased in volume. The 
 Charleston Patriot published, in 1842, a series of articles in which 
 it was maintained that there was an overproduction of cotton and 
 the people of South Carolina were urged to abandon in part the 
 raising of that staple and turn their attention to manufacturing. 10 
 
 *F5Ie 20,219, / H. Hammond Papers. It is worthy of note that Hammond 
 had been a nullifier in 1832; as governor, in 1844, he was ready to lead his state 
 in separate resistance to the Tariff of 1842; and shortly after he wrote the famous 
 Letters on Southern Slavery, Addressed to Thomas Clarkson, Esquire. 
 
 "Nuts' Register, LXII, 71. 
 
37] MOVEMENT FOR THE DIVERSIFICATION OF INDUSTRY 37 
 
 Georgia newspapers were recommending to their people to do the 
 same. 11 Professor M'Cay, of the University of Georgia, who for 
 many years reviewed the cotton trade for Hunt's Merchants' 
 Magazine, warned planters that production was outrunning con- 
 sumption. 12 In February, 1845, a convention of cotton planters 
 was held in Montgomery, Alabama, to organize the planters of the 
 cotton belt for the purpose of limiting production and forcing 
 prices up. 13 The committee on agriculture of the Southwest- 
 ern Convention, at Memphis, in 1845, complained that interest in 
 agricultural improvement had given way to interest in internal im- 
 provements and politics, and that there was an overproduction 
 of cotton. The committee recommended that planters grow less 
 cotton and produce their own bread and meat; that scientific 
 agriculture be encouraged by the establishment of agricultural 
 societies and agricultural journals, and by state legislatures; and 
 that capital be diverted from cotton planting to manufacturing. 14 
 There was still talk, however, of possible competition from India 
 if prices should rise, 15 and the low prices were frequently attrib- 
 uted to speculation in cotton and to a combination of English fac- 
 tors with the Manchester buyers. 16 
 
 It was in South Carolina that a serious attempt to arouse the 
 public mind in favor of the diversification of industry was first 
 made. The situation there was unusual. Not only was the de- 
 pression in the cotton industry most severely felt, but the peculiar 
 political bias of a large element threatened, in 1844 and 1845, to 
 lead to another crisis similar to that of 1832 and 1833. When the 
 Tariff of 1842 was enacted, the South Carolina Legislature had 
 been content to pass resolutions denouncing it and declaring that 
 it would be endured as long as there was hope of repeal by the 
 Democratic party after the next election. 17 In the next Congress, 
 1843-1845, the Democrats were in the majority in the House; but 
 an attempt to revise the tariff, by the McKay bill, was defeated, 
 
 ll Niles' Register, loc. cit. 
 "Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, IX, 523. 
 "Niles' Register, LXVIII, 4. 
 
 ^Journal of the Proceedings of the Southwestern Convention began and held 
 at the city of Memphis on the 12th of November, 1845, pp. 41-55. 
 "Donnell. History of Cotton, 276. 
 
 "New Orleans Bee, Mar. 2, 1844; Niles' Register, LXVI, 38. 
 "Ibid., LXIII, 232-235, 344-345. 
 
38 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O1 86 1 [38 
 
 May, 1844, by an alliance of twenty-seven Northern Democrats 
 with the Whigs. 18 This desertion by Northern Democrats and, 
 shortly thereafter, the publication of the celebrated "Kane Let- 
 ter," in which the Democratic candidate for the presidency clever- 
 ly "straddled" the tariff question, 19 caused many in South Caro- 
 lina to abandon hope of relief from the burdens of the tariff 
 through the instrumentality of the Democratic party. Meanwhile, 
 the blocking of the annexation of Texas by representatives from 
 the non-slaveholding states had occasioned the cry of "Texas or 
 disunion" in South Carolina and other Southern states. Under 
 these circumstances a group of South Carolina politicians, led by 
 R. B. Rhett, Armistead Burt, and I. E. Holmes, with the support 
 of the Charleston Mercury and several other papers of like stripe, 
 and the sympathy of Governor J. H. Hammond, George McDuffie, 
 and Langdon Cheves, declared, in the summer of 1844, for state 
 resistance to the Tariff of 1842 and attempted to lead the state 
 to adopt that policy. 20 It was with some difficulty that John C. 
 Calhoun, F. H. Elmore, and other leaders checked the "Bluffton 
 Movement," as it was termed, and caused saner counsels to pre- 
 vail. 21 Governor Hammond, indeed, in his message to the Legis- 
 lature, November 26, 1844, arraigned the tariff, expressed the 
 opinion that no relief could be expected from the incoming Polk 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 28 Cong., i Sess., 622. 
 
 "National Intelligencer, July 25, 1844. 
 
 ""I. E. Holmes to Hammond, July 23, 1844, /. H. Hammond Papers; Ham- 
 mond to Capt. R. J. Colcock, Sept. 12, 1844 (asking for the plans of the Citadel); 
 George McDuffie to Hammond, Sept. 22, 1844; General James Hamilton to Ham- 
 mond, Oct. 4, 1844; R. B. Rhett to Hunter, August 30, 1844, Correspondence of 
 R. M. T. Hunter; Charleston Mercury, Aug. 8, 1844, an account of the dinner 
 given to R. B. Rhett at Bluffton, July 31, 1844, where the movement was 
 launched and whence it got its name; ibid., Aug. 9, editorial, "Our Position and 
 Our Pledges" (by A. J. Stuart, senior editor); Niles' Register, LXVI, 369, quot- 
 ing letter from I. E. Holmes to the Charleston Mercury; ibid., LXVII, 49, quot- 
 ing letter from Judge Langdon Cheves to the Charleston Mercury. Cf. Stephen- 
 son, Texas and the Mexican War, ch. IX. 
 
 M F. H. Elmore to Calhoun, Aug. 26, 1844, Calhoun Correspondence. "The 
 
 excitement in a portion of Carolina has gradually subsided, and will give no 
 
 further trouble. I had to act with great delicacy, but at the same time firmness 
 in relation to it." Calhoun to Francis Wharton, Sept. 17, 1844, Calhoun Corre- 
 spondence. Cf. James A. Seddon to Hunter, Aug. 19, 22, 1844, Correspondence 
 of R. M. T. Hunter; Niles' Register, LXVI, 434, account of the big Charleston 
 meeting of Aug. 19, 1844. 
 
39] MOVEMENT FOR THE DIVERSIFICATION OF INDUSTRY 39 
 
 administration, and urged the Legislature to take such measures 
 as would at an early day bring all the state's "moral, constitu- 
 tional, and, if necessary, physical resources, in direct array 
 against a policy which has never been checked but by her inter- 
 position." 22 But the Legislature tabled all resolutions for resist- 
 ance, and by a large majority voted confidence in the Democratic 
 party. This action was taken just after the notorious Twenty- 
 first Rule of the House, prohibiting the receiving of abolition peti- 
 tions, had been defeated at Washington. 23 The leaders of the 
 Bluffton movement credited their defeat to the presidential as- 
 pirations of John C. Calhoun, and complained very bitterly of 
 what they termed his desertion. 24 
 
 The resistance faction, as well as many anti-tariff men who still 
 placed reliance in the Democratic party, attributed the crisis in 
 the cotton industry to the tariff. They thought the view that 
 there was an overproduction of cotton unworthy of considera- 
 tion. 25 England, they said, could not consume cotton because the 
 Tariff of 1842 had deprived her of the American market for man- 
 factured goods. I. E. Holmes professed to believe that the opera- 
 tion of the tariff would in a few years render cotton planting en- 
 tirely profitless, and that no other industry could be found to 
 which labor could profitably be turned. 26 Rhett and McDuffie 
 warned tariff men in Congress that South Carolina might be 
 "driven" to manufacture for herself. 27 Calhoun wrote: "The 
 pressure of the Tariff begins to be felt, and understood, which will 
 lead to its overthrow, either through Congress or the separate 
 action of the South." 28 
 
 "NileS Register, LXVII, 227 ff. 
 
 Hammond to McDuffie, Dec. 27, 1844, /. H. Hammond Papers; F. W. 
 Pickens to Calhoun, Dec. 28, 1844, Calhoun Correspondence; Niles' Register, 
 LXVIII, 347 (Aug. 1 6, 1845), quoting from the Charleston Mercury a letter 
 from ''Bluffton Politician," dated on the anniversary of the Bluffton dinner; 
 Cong. Globe, 28 Cong. 2 Sess., 7. 
 
 "Hammond to McDuffie, Dec. 27, 1844, /. H. Hammond Papers. 
 
 "Letter of Judge John P. King, Charleston Mercury, Nov. 5, 1844. 
 
 "Niles' Register, LXVI, 369, quoting the Charleston Mercury; National In- 
 telligencer, Aug. 6, 1844. 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 28 Cong., I Sess., 612; Appx. 108, 658; Hunt's Merchants' 
 Magazine, X, 406. 
 
 "Calhoun to Thomas G. Clemson, Dec. 27, 1844, Calhoun Correspondence. 
 
4-O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [40 
 
 Against these convictions, the Whigs and many Democrats took 
 issue. The Charleston Courier declared without equivocation for a 
 moderate tariff. 29 A pamphleteer, replying to a letter of Judge 
 Langdon Cheves, declared that free trade would not save the 
 state. The ruin of the state was due to the lack of stimulus which 
 manufactures would give to agriculture and commerce; and it 
 was the hostility of politicians which prevented manufactures from 
 being established. 30 R. W. Roper, a rich planter, generally aligned 
 in politics with the Hammond or anti-machine faction of the 
 Democratic party, came out for the policy of encouraging do- 
 mestic manufactures as an amelioration of the tariff. In an ad- 
 dress before the State Agricultural Society, in November, 1844, he 
 traced the depression in the cotton industry to overproduction, 
 and declared for diversified agriculture and the encouragement of 
 manufactures and commerce, not only as a remedy for economic 
 ills but also as a means of becoming independent of the North. 
 "As long," he said, "as we are tributaries, dependent on foreign 
 labor and skill for food, clothing, and countless necessaries of 
 life, we are in thraldom." 31 Roper's address was vigorously at- 
 tacked in a series of articles in the Charleston Mercury under the 
 caption, "Shall we continue to plant and increase the overgrowth 
 of cotton? Or shall we become manufacturers of cotton stuffs?" In 
 the opinion of the author of these articles, there was no overpro- 
 duction of cotton; but the ills of the South came from overtaxa- 
 tion. South Carolina, he said, could not develop diversified indus- 
 try with her system of labor, and it was not desirable that she 
 should. 32 
 
 Late in the year 1844, there appeared a series of articles headed 
 Essays on Domestic Industry; or an Inquiry into the Expediency 
 of Establishing Cotton Manufactures in South Carolina, by Wil- 
 liam Gregg, of South Carolina. The articles first appeared in the 
 Charleston Courier. Upon request they were reprinted in pam- 
 phlet form. They attracted wide attention throughout the South, 
 being republished in nearly all the newspapers of Georgia, Ala- 
 
 M Quoted in the National Intelligencer, Aug. 6, 1844. 
 
 *A Reply to the Letter of the Hon. Langdon Cheves. By a Southerner. 
 
 "Roper to Hammond, Oct. 28, 1844, /. H. Hammond Papers; Niles' Regis- 
 ter, LXVIII, 103, 120. The address was reviewed in the So. Quar. Rev., VIII, 
 118-148 (July, 1845). 
 
 "Niles' Register, LXVIII, 54, 103, 120. 
 
41 ] MOVEMENT FOR THE DIVERSIFICATION OF INDUSTRY 4! 
 
 bama, and other states. 33 They constituted the most elaborate 
 argument for the diversification of Southern industry that ap- 
 peared before the Civil War. Already a cotton manufacturer, 
 Gregg later increased his interests. He was known until after the 
 Civil War as the most successful cotton manufacturer in the 
 Southern states and the ablest advocate of the policy of develop- 
 ing manufactures in that section. 3 * 
 
 Gregg described the depressed condition of agriculture in the 
 state and the tendency of capital and enterprise to migrate to 
 more fertile lands. The causes lay not in the tariff but in lack of 
 energy on the part of the people, want of diversified agriculture, 
 and dependence upon the North for numerous articles of manu- 
 facture which might be produced at home. He called attention to 
 the rapid progress then being made in cotton manufacturing in the 
 neighboring states of Georgia and North Carolina and advised the 
 people of South Carolina to emulate the example. He showed 
 that the requisite capital was available. As for a labor supply, 
 slaves could be used, and in many respects would be preferable to 
 whites; but he did not overlook the possibility of employing the 
 thousands of poor whites, who as a class were an unproductive 
 element in society. Later he became an earnest advocate of the 
 employment of this class both on economic and philanthropic 
 grounds. Gregg understood the difficulties which infant industries 
 would have to meet. He, therefore, advised the establishment of 
 factories by joint stock companies rather than by individuals, 
 and confinement for several years to the manufacture of only 
 coarse goods, thus taking fullest advantage of the ability of South- 
 ern mills to command cheaper raw materials than Northern mills. 
 It seemed politic not to antagonize unduly the anti-protectionist 
 sentiment of South Carolina: Gregg assured his readers that no 
 laws would be asked for the protection of the enterprises in which 
 it was proposed to embark. He did not believe that manufactures 
 would ever predominate over agriculture in the state; and those 
 who advocated diversification did not wish such a result, he said. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, X, 349. The essays are, in a somewhat abridged form, 
 in DeBow's Review, VIII, 134-46; also in the appendix of D. A. Tompkins, Cot- 
 ton Mill, Commercial Features, A Text-Book for the Use of Textile Schools, etc. 
 (Charlotte, N. C, 1879). 
 
 **De Bow's Review, X, 348-52, a short sketch of Gregg's career. 
 
42 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84<>l86l [42 
 
 At the next session of the South Carolina Legislature, Novem- 
 ber, 1845, charters for several companies to erect cotton factories 
 were applied for. At the time corporations were somewhat un- 
 popular in the South, and opposition was met. Gregg thereupon 
 wrote a pamphlet entitled An Inquiry into the Expediency of 
 Granting Charters of Incorporation for Manufacturing Purposes 
 in South Carolina. Copies were distributed among the members 
 of the Legislature. After a sharp struggle the charters were grant- 
 ed by large majorities. 35 The Graniteville company, in which 
 Gregg was a large stockholder, was one of those chartered. Only 
 the most substantial citizens were permitted to take stock. 36 
 Gregg was made manager; the factory was soon built and put in 
 successful operation. He was allowed to carry into practice his 
 philanthropic ideas in regard to the poor whites. Cottages were 
 built and rented to the operatives, free and compulsory education 
 established, a church constructed, and intemperance forbidden. 
 No negroes were employed. The factory was one of the few in 
 the South that continued to pay dividends during the hard years 
 of 1850-1854." 
 
 Many others, following the publication of Gregg's essays, came 
 forward to advocate the diversification of Southern industry, par- 
 ticularly by the erection of cotton factories near the cotton fields. 
 Governor Crawford, of Georgia, urged the Legislature to adopt 
 some plan to restore the fertility of the soil and foster manufac- 
 tures. 38 The Tennessee House of Representatives appointed a 
 select committee to report on manufacturing resources. 39 The 
 state of Alabama engaged Mr. Tuomy, professor in the State 
 University, to make a survey of the mineral resources of the 
 state. 40 The Richmond Whig published, in 1846, the Letters from 
 the Hon. Abbott Lawrence to the Hon. William C. Rives of Vir- 
 ginia, which, while primarily a plea against the repeal of the tariff, 
 hailed the movement in the South for diversification of industry, 
 
 ""De Bow's Review, X, 351. 
 
 86 Ker Boyce to Hammond, Dec. 12, 1845, /. H. Hammond Papers. 
 
 '"DeBow's Review, X, 351; XVIII, 789 f.; Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, 
 XXI, 671. Cf. Ingle, Southern Sidelights, 85. 
 
 "Niles' Register, LXIX, 162. 
 
 "Ibid., LXIX, 400. 
 
 *"DeBow's Review, IV, 404. Tuomy later became state geologist and issued 
 his First Annual Report, 1850. 
 
43] MOVEMENT FOR THE DIVERSIFICATION OF INDUSTRY 43 
 
 and urged the people of Virginia to manufacture and develop the 
 state's mineral resources. 41 DeBow's Review, the first number of 
 which appeared in January, 1846, lent its influence to the cause. 42 
 Numerous articles in that journal testify to the growing conviction 
 that there was an overproduction of cotton, and that the South 
 should diversify agriculture and divert capital to other industries. 
 In South Carolina, 1849, an organization styled the "South Caro- 
 lina Institute for the Promotion of Art, Mechanical Ingenuity, 
 and Industry" was formed. This organization was a direct out- 
 growth of the movement for diversification of Southern industry. 43 
 
 The .interest in cotton manufactures spread to the Ohio valley. 
 One of the most active advocates was Hamilton Smith, a wealthy 
 lawyer and business man of Louisville, Kentucky, who had ac- 
 quired large holdings in coal lands near Cannelton, Indiana. In 
 1847, he wrote a series of articles for the Louisville Journal dem- 
 onstrating the advantages of coal over water power in cotton fac- 
 tories, and the advantage of the Ohio valley over the East as a 
 seat for such factories by reason of proximity to the cotton fields. 
 His articles were widely copied in Southern and Western news- 
 papers, and some of his letters were inserted in the Manchester, 
 England, Guardian. In the following year, Smith and several 
 other public spirited citizens of Kentucky, Indiana, Mississippi, 
 and Louisiana, being desirous of proving their faith by works, 
 organized a company which constructed a model factory at Can- 
 nelton. Charles T. James of Rhode Island, the most successful 
 builder of steam cotton factories in the United States, became in- 
 terested in the project, and superintended the erection of the fac- 
 tory. A journal, the Cannelton Economist, was established to con- 
 duct a campaign in the behalf of manufactures.** 
 
 The agitation in behalf of building cotton factories received en- 
 couragement from the fact that considerable capital was actually 
 being invested in the new branch of industry and seemed to be 
 
 "Also published as a pamphlet, 1846. 
 
 **I, 5. In the number for Nov., 1847, a Department of Domestic Manufac- 
 tures was begun, which was continued with few interruptions for several years. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, VIII, 276; XI, 123. 
 
 ^Ibid., XI, 90 f.; VI, 75 ff.; VIII, 456-61; Western Journal and 
 Civilian, II, 139; Hamilton Smith, The Relative Cost of Steam and Water Power, 
 the Illinois Coal Fields, and the Advantages Offered by the West, particularly on 
 the Lower Ohio, for Manufactures. 
 
44 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [44 
 
 yielding good profits. All through the 18405, the journals of the 
 South recorded at frequent intervals the establishment of fac- 
 tories, especially cotton factories, in that section. In 1843, the Bal- 
 timore American stated that in North Carolina a revolution had 
 been effected in the trade of cotton yarns within a few years. 45 
 Niles' Register, in 1845, remarked the number of cotton factories 
 being erected alongside the cotton fields, and prophesied that in a 
 few years the Southern states would supply coarse cotton clothing 
 for millions. 46 In the tariff debates of 1844 an ^ 1846, congressmen 
 from North Carolina and Georgia, particularly, invited attention 
 to the rapid development of cotton and other manufactures in 
 their states. 47 The numerous acts incorporating manufacturing 
 companies passed during these years by the legislatures of states 
 which had not yet enacted general incorporation laws would seem 
 to testify to a development of manufacturing. During the last few 
 years of the decade and the first few years of the next, the ac- 
 counts of new factories, built or in process of building, became 
 more and more frequent; and the development began to attract 
 notice in the North. Said Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, 1850: 
 "We seldom take up a paper published in the Southern and 
 Western States of the Union, that does not contain some new de- 
 velopment of their manufacturing enterprise." 48 
 
 By 1849 the movement to "bring the spindles to the cotton" had 
 become popular in all quarters of the South. According to De- 
 Bow's Review, every month added more and more to the interest 
 shown in manufactures. 49 The next year Hamilton Smith wrote: 
 ". . .for the last two years, one of the most prominent topics of dis- 
 cussion in the newspapers of the South and West has been, not 
 whether cotton mills could or could not be operated at home, but 
 when, where and by whom, they should be put in operation." 50 
 
 '"Quoted in Niks' Register, LXIV, 272. 
 
 "Ibid., LXV1II, 87, April 12. 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 28 Cong., i Sess., Appx., 598, Cobb, of Ga., in the House; 28 
 Cong., i Sess., Appx., 108, McDuffie, of S. C., in the Senate; 28 Cong., i Sess., 
 512, Berrien, of Ga., in the Senate. 
 
 "XXIII, 247. Cf. XVIII, 227. "The progress of manufacturing industry at 
 the South and West has been very rapid in the past two years." Ibid., XXII, 
 646, (1850). 
 
 "VII, 454- 
 
 "DeBoiv's Review, VIII, 550. 
 
45] MOVEMENT FOR THE DIVERSIFICATION OF INDUSTRY 45 
 
 The people of the South became firmly convinced that their 
 section had rare advantages for the manufacture of cotton goods, 
 and could compete successfully with New England. Statements 
 were frequently made and rarely contradicted that mills already 
 in operation were earning profits of from 15 to 20 per cent. The 
 representations of Gregg, Hamilton Smith, and others, relative to 
 the advantages possessed by the South, seemed sound. The most 
 authoritative statements were those of General Charles T. James, 
 of Rhode Island. James claimed to have superintended the erec- 
 tion of more than one-eighth of the cotton spindles in the United 
 States. He had shown his faith in the South and West by taking 
 stock in the steam factory at Charleston, South Carolina, and the 
 one at Cannelton, Indiana. 51 Leaders in the diversification move- 
 ment appealed to him to give information which might help to 
 arouse interest and educate the people in the subject. In response 
 he wrote, in 1849, a pamphlet entitled, Practical Hints on the 
 Comparative Cost and Productiveness of the Culture of Cotton 
 and the Cost and Productiveness of its Manufacture, etc. 52 The 
 pamphlet was widely read and quoted, as were a number of 
 articles which he wrote. He compared the great profits of cotton 
 manufacturers with planters' profits; undertook to demonstrate 
 the superiority of steam-power, which the South must use, over 
 water-power; and dwelt upon the advantages the South possessed 
 in having fresh raw material at hand and the saving in freight 
 charges to be effected by establishing the factories near the fields. 
 He gave the assurance that no great reserve of capital was neces- 
 sary to embark in the business. Factories could be started on 
 credit, and capital would accumulate just as had been the case 
 in New England. No fears need be entertained in regard to labor 
 supply: if the factories should be opened, the labor and skill 
 would be at hand. The South would not experience the difficulties 
 in effecting this revolution in its industry which New England had 
 encountered thirty years before; for she could start with the best 
 machinery, and could avoid the mistakes made in the North. 
 
 James's statements were violently attacked in the New England 
 press. 53 A warm debate was conducted by James and Amos A. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, IX, 671 ff.; Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXII, 311,4.55. 
 "Published also in DeBow's Review, VII, 173-6, 370-2; VIII, 307-11, 462-6, 
 556-60. The substance is in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXI, 492-502. 
 Review, IX, 558, quoting the New York Herald. 
 
46 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [46 
 
 Lawrence, a prominent Massachusetts cotton manufacturer, 
 through the columns of Hunt's Merchants' Magazine. Lawrence 
 said the South could not manufacture because she lacked capital, 
 and factories could not be successful if built with borrowed money. 
 He contended that James had underestimated the profits of cot- 
 ton planters and overestimated those of cotton manufacturers. He 
 controverted James's statements in regard to the superiority of 
 steam-power over water-power. William Gregg and Hamilton 
 Smith joined in the controversy in support of James. 54 The South- 
 ern press thought Lawrence's articles were dictated by self-inter- 
 est, and that James had completely prostrated his reviewer. The 
 New England manufacturers were represented as being hostile 
 to the new enterprises in the South. James himself wrote: "For 
 years the Northern press has been loud and frequent in recom- 
 mendations to the South, to enter the field of enterprise, and man- 
 ufacture her own staple During the time, however, the man- 
 ufacturers have uttered no note of encouragement." 55 
 
 But the wide spread interest manifested in manufacturing dur- 
 ing these years and the welcome given every evidence of industrial 
 enterprise were not due solely to the prevalent belief that there 
 was an overproduction of cotton, and that spinning the yarn and 
 weaving the cloth would yield a higher profit upon capital in- 
 vested than did the production of the raw material. Manufac- 
 tures were approved as promising an avenue of escape from an ill 
 balanced economic system and its attendant evils, social and po- 
 litical. 
 
 In the first place, home manufactures would free the South 
 from dependence upon the North for numerous articles which 
 might be produced at home; just as diversified agriculture would 
 free it from dependence upon the West for horses, mules, pork, 
 and bacon; or as direct trade would free it from commercial de- 
 pendence upon the East. Dependence upon other sections of the 
 Union was felt to be "degrading vassalage," a subject for morti- 
 fication and humiliation, and because of it the North was being 
 enriched and the South impoverished. 
 
 "Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXI, 628-33; XXII, 26-35, 184-94, 290-311, 
 107-8; XXIII, 342-3; Df Bow's Review, VIII, 550-55; IX, 674-75. 
 "Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXII, 309. 
 
47] MOVEMENT FOR THE DIVERSIFICATION OF INDUSTRY 47 
 
 Northern men were constantly boasting of the superiority of 
 their section of the Union; every foreign traveler drew a pic- 
 ture of contrast. The wealth and population of the North, the size, 
 prosperity, and attractiveness of its cities and towns, the mileage, 
 cost, and efficiency of the railroads and canals, the manufactures 
 and mines, ships and shipping, the farms, the price of land and the 
 methods of agriculture, the homes, shops, and places of amuse- 
 ment, the schools and colleges, number of students and percent- 
 age of illiteracy, newspapers and their circulation, the develop- 
 ment of literature and art all were contrasted with those of the 
 South, and almost invariably to the advantage of the North. It 
 was pointed out that Southerners depended upon Northern ship- 
 ping, bought Northern manufactured goods, flocked to Northern 
 watering places, sent their sons to Northern colleges, and read 
 Northern literature. The conclusion was that the North had 
 reached a higher degree of civilization, prosperity, and comfort. 
 The disparity was generally credited to superior industry and en- 
 terprise in the North and to the blighting effects of slavery in the 
 South. 
 
 Southern people admitted the contrast it was impossible not 
 to do so. They generally, by no means without exception, ad- 
 mitted that the North was more prosperous. When John Forsyth, 
 in his lecture on "The North and the South," asked the question, 
 "Why is it that the North has so far outstripped the South in com- 
 merce, the growth of its cities, internal development, and the arts 
 of living?" 56 he but made an admission that Southerners com- 
 monly made. J. H. Hammond wrote: "It has so often been as- 
 serted, that in population and its ratio of increase, in wealth, 
 aggregate and average and the facility of its accumulation, in in- 
 dustry, intelligence and enterprise the North is vastly in advance 
 of the South, and by consequence that it is the strong and pro- 
 tecting, while the South is the weak and dependent section all 
 these things have been so long and so generally asserted in the 
 South as well as the North, that they have gained almost universal 
 credence." 57 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XVII, 365. 
 
 "Southern Quarterly Review, XV, 275. Cf. J. H. Hammond to Wm. Gil- 
 more Simms, Mar. 9, 20, 23, Apr. 6, 1849. /. H. Hammond Papers. 
 
48 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [48 
 
 Now the superiority of the North in these respects was not to 
 be viewed with equanimity in any case by the loyal and progres- 
 sive Southerner; and his discontent was augmented because of 
 his belief that the North was prospering at the expense of the 
 South. The feeling of a large element in the South in regard to 
 the matter is well illustrated by the following typical quotation 
 from an Alabama newspaper: 
 
 At present, the North fattens and grows rich upon the South. 
 We depend upon it for our entire supplies. We purchase all our 
 luxuries and necessaries from the North .... With us, every 
 branch and pursuit in life, every trade, profession, and occupation, 
 is dependent upon the North; for instance, the Northerners abuse 
 and denounce slavery and slaveholders, yet our slaves are clothed 
 with Northern manufactured goods, have Northern hats and 
 shoes, work with Northern hoes, ploughs, and other implements, 
 are chastised with a Northern-made instrument, are working for 
 Northern more than Southern profit. The slaveholder dresses in 
 Northern goods, rides in a Northern saddle, .... sports his North- 
 ern carriage, patronizes Northern newspapers, drinks Northern 
 liquors, reads Northern books, spends his money at Northern 
 watering-places, .... The aggressive acts upon his rights and 
 his property arouse his resentment and on Northern-made 
 paper, with a Northern pen, with Northern ink, he resolves and 
 re-resolves in regard to his rights ! In Northern vessels his products 
 are carried to market, his cotton is ginned with Northern gins, 
 his sugar is crushed and preserved by Northern machinery; his 
 rivers are navigated by Northern steamboats, his mails are carried 
 in Northern stages, his negroes are fed with Northern bacon, beef, 
 flour, and corn; his land is cleared with a Northern axe, and a 
 Yankee clock sits upon his mantel-piece; his floor is swept by a 
 Northern broom, and is covered with a Northern carpet; and his 
 wife dresses herself in a Northern looking-glass; ... his son is 
 educated at a Northern college, his daughter receives the finishing 
 polish at a Northern seminary; his doctor graduates at a Northern 
 medical college, his schools are supplied with Northern teachers, 
 and he is furnished with Northern inventions and notions. 58 
 
 Some of those who preached diversification of industry not only 
 affirmed, as did the anti-tariff men for that matter, that the North 
 was growing prosperous, wealthy, and powerful at the South's ex- 
 pense, but demonstrated why it would continue to do so as long 
 as the latter persevered in her unwise application of labor. They 
 
 ""Quoted in F. A. P. Barnard, An Oration Delivered before the Citizens of 
 Tuscaloosa, Alabama, July 4th, 1851, p. 12. 
 
49J MOVEMENT FOR THE DIVERSIFICATION OF INDUSTRY 49 
 
 laid down the general propositions that an agricultural people is 
 always exploited by an industrial people, and that wealth tends 
 to flow toward industrial centers. In the opinion of M. Tarver, it 
 was because she parted with her staples at prime cost and pur- 
 chased almost all of her necessary supplies from abroad at cost 
 plus profits, that the South was "growing poorer while the rest of 
 the world is growing rich, for it is easy for the world to enrich 
 itself from such a customer on such terms." 59 Governor J. H. 
 Hammond, who in his address before the South Carolina Insti- 
 tute set himself the task of showing philosophically why a people 
 of one occupation can never attain prosperity and influence, 
 thought one industry was not enough to absorb all the genius and 
 draw out all the energies of a people. 60 According to the Rich- 
 mond Enquirer, "commercial and manufacturing nations levy a 
 heavier tax on their dependents than any despot ever exacted 
 from subject provinces. Labor employed in commerce or manu- 
 factures, in the general, pays three or four times as much as farm- 
 ing labor, and in the exchange of one for the other, the farmer 
 gives the manufacturer three or four hours' labor for one." 61 Sim- 
 ilar was the reasoning of F. A. P. Barnard, of Alabama State 
 University: The kinds of labor in which the element of skill most 
 predominates are the most productive. Therefore, the wealth of a 
 people depends as much upon the direction given to labor as upon 
 the amount of labor employed. An agricultural people might be 
 rich, though only in the case Nature is lavish in her bounties; but 
 "riches thus bestowed, while the means of greater riches remain 
 unemployed, will never give contentment." 62 
 
 But no matter how the North reaped profit from Southern in- 
 dustry, there could be no doubt of the advantages of retaining 
 the profit at home. Everything that manufactures had done for 
 the North and for England they would do for the South. Her 
 stagnant cities would grow, and new ones spring into existence. 
 
 K DeBow's Review, III, 203. 
 
 "Ibid., VIII, 503 if. Cf. Hammond to William Gilmore Simms, Dec. 20, 
 1849. /. H. Hammond Papers. 
 
 "Quoted in DeBow's Review, XX, 392. See also Fitzhugh, Sociology for the 
 South, ch. XIV, "Exclusive Agriculture," and ch. XVIII, "Head-work and Hand- 
 work." 
 
 "Oration Delivered before the Citizens of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, July 4th, 
 1861, p. 16 f. 
 
5O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 18401861 [$0 
 
 Surplus capital no longer would be under the necessity of seeking 
 investment elsewhere. Railroads would be built, and steamships 
 launched upon the rivers; dykes would be built, and marshes 
 drained; capital would be forthcoming to develop the mineral re- 
 sources which the people of the South were beginning to realize 
 she possessed. For the planter and the farmer a home market 
 would be provided, not subject to the fluctuations of the foreign 
 market. Diversified agriculture would be stimulated; the planter 
 would no longer have to resort to distant states for his mules, 
 pork, corn, and hay. 63 
 
 Nor did the proponents of diversification neglect to depict the 
 social benefits to come with new industries. With the develop- 
 ment of manufactures, towns and villages would spring up among 
 the scattered population. More and better schools could be estab- 
 lished; for the chief cause of backwardness in educational progress 
 in the South was the sparsity of population. Churches could be 
 brought within the reach of a greater number. Colleges could be 
 supported at home, and Southern parents would no longer be 
 under the necessity of sending their sons North for a good college 
 training. With the increased wealth and population which manu- 
 factures would bring, the South could adequately support her 
 own press and literature. Said Hammond, after having given a 
 glowing description of the revivifying effects of manufactures upon 
 his state: "I am not conjuring up ideal visions to excite the 
 imagination. All these things have actually been done. They have 
 been, in our own times, and under our own eyes, carried out and 
 made legible, living, self-multiplying and giant-growing facts in 
 Old England and New England; and they have been mainly ac- 
 complished by the incalculable profits which their genius and 
 enterprise have realized on the product of our labor."** 
 
 But the prophets of a new order met prejudices against manu- 
 factures which they could not wholly dispel. Politicians had too 
 often described the cities and factory towns of the North as 
 hotbeds of poverty, ignorance, vice, crime, and unreligion, the 
 seats of abolition and the numerous isms with which the land was 
 
 "The best examples of the home market argument are in Barnard, op. cit., 
 and an article, ''Should the Loom Come to the Cotton, or the Cotton Go to the 
 Loom?" Western Journal and Civilian, I, 319-332. 
 
 "DeBotv's Review, VIII, 516. See also Fitzhugh, Sociology /or the South, 
 chs. XII-XV. 
 
51 ] MOVEMENT FOR THE DIVERSIFICATION OF INDUSTRY 5! 
 
 afflicted. Manufactures had been too frequently described as in- 
 compatible with liberty, freedom, culture, and virtue, and agri- 
 culture glorified as the only industry capable of producing a 
 liberty-loving and chivalrous race. 65 Often the proponents of di- 
 versification considered it necessary to give the assurance that no 
 large towns, but only villages, would be created, and that there 
 was no danger of manufactures ever predominating over agricul- 
 ture in the planting states. 66 Too, it must be noted, there was a 
 feeling all too prevalent in the South that manual labor, and par- 
 ticularly mechanical labor, was degrading and beneath the dignity 
 of white men. Young men of intelligence and ability, who might 
 have become skilled mechanics, managers, or superintendents of 
 factories, felt that they would lose caste by entering a cotton fac- 
 tory. Such employment was less becoming gentlemen than agri- 
 culture, the professions, or even the mercantile business. The dig- 
 nity of labor had to be proclaimed. Few more scathing denuncia- 
 tions of Southern social standards, as well as of the inertia, 
 lethargy, and lack of foresight of Southern men, can be found 
 than some of those uttered by Southern men who were trying to 
 point the path of progress and urge their people along it. 67 
 
 One argument in behalf of manufactures by no means infre- 
 quently used was that they would give employment to the "poor 
 whites." The poor whites were the non-slaveholding whites of the 
 black belts, the hill country, and the pine barrens. Some of them, 
 upon worn out and abandoned plantations or their small hill 
 farms, engaged in agriculture in feeble competition with the 
 planters. Others obtained a precarious subsistence by doing oc- 
 casional jobs for the planters, by hunting and fishing, by begging 
 or stealing from the slaveholders, or by trading with the slaves 
 and inducing them to plunder for their benefit. They were not 
 employed by the planters to work in the cotton fields, and would 
 have been unwilling to work with the slaves had opportunity been 
 afforded them. As a class they produced less than they consumed, 
 
 **DeBow's Review, VIII, 508; XI, 127; XII, 49; XVII, 178; So. Quar. Rev., 
 VIII, 142. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, VIII, 522; XI, 130-132. 
 
 "So. Lit. Mess., XX, 513-28 (Sept., 1854); So. Quar. Rev., VIII, 460 ff.; 
 DeBow's Review, VIII, 134, 506; XVII, 363; XIX, 614; XXIV, 383; Barnard, 
 op." c it., 23; Aaron V. Brown, Speeches, Congressional and Polifical, and other 
 Writings, 668. 
 
52 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-l86l [52 
 
 and, therefore, were a burden upon society. Their ignorance was 
 as general as their poverty; vice and crime were common among 
 them. Their number is difficult to estimate. In 1849, Governor 
 Hammond estimated at 50,000 the number of those in South Car- 
 olina whose industry was not "adequate to procure them, honest- 
 ly, such support as every white person in this country is, and 
 feels himself entitled to." 68 William Gregg put the number at 
 125,000, more than one-third of the white population of the 
 state. 69 The number in other Southern states was probably some- 
 what less in proportion to population. Charles T. James said 
 there were thousands of poor whites. 70 James Martin, of northern 
 Alabama, spoke of a "large poor population, almost totally with- 
 out employment." 71 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine referred to 
 them as a "mass of unemployed white labor." 72 
 
 Many of the advocates of manufactures believed the employ- 
 ment of this class of unfortunates desirable from every viewpoint. 
 They were said to be more than glad to avail themselves of the 
 opportunity to work, even at most moderate wages, at labor 
 deemed respectable for white persons; and, when so employed, to 
 quickly assume the industrious habits of Northern operatives. By 
 employment in factories, they would be brought together in vil- 
 lages, where the influence of church and school could reach them. 
 In this way and only in this way could they be elevated to a state 
 of comparative comfort and independence and social responsibil- 
 ity. From the viewpoint of the prosperity and power of the com- 
 munity at large, the employment of the poor whites would be of 
 incalculable benefit: it would transform thousands of them into 
 productive citizens and enormously increase the wealth of the 
 region. The number of this class in some states was said to be 
 sufficient to work up into goods all the cotton grown therein. This 
 product would be a clear gain; for the employment of the poor 
 whites in factories would withdraw little or no labor from the 
 production of the raw material. How, it was asked, could the 
 South keep pace with the North in the race for power and wealth, 
 
 "Df Bow's Review, VIII, 518. 
 "Ibid., XI, 133. 
 '"Ibid., VIII, 558. 
 "Ibid., XXIV, 383. 
 "XXII, 649. 
 
53 ] MOVEMENT FOR THE DIVERSIFICATION OF INDUSTRY 53 
 
 when so large a part of the total possible labor force was com- 
 paratively idle? 73 
 
 Many thoughtful Southerners regretted that so much of the 
 capital, enterprise, and intelligence in the South was employed in 
 directing slave labor to the almost complete neglect of a large 
 part of the white population. 74 Thomas P. Devereaux, a large 
 slaveholder of North Carolina, thought it the great evil of slav- 
 ery, that it rendered a mass of white producing ability more than 
 unproductive; and there is evidence indicating that many shared 
 his opinion. 75 But whether slavery was responsible for the exis- 
 tence of the poor white class or not, its opponents in the North 
 and elsewhere charged it with that responsibility, and it would 
 seem that the defenders of the institution should have welcomed 
 every opportunity for remedying the evil and proving the charge 
 unfounded. Too many slaveholders, however, opposed manufac- 
 tures on the very ground that they would aid in developing a 
 class consciousness among white labor, which would be hostile to 
 slavery. 
 
 In fact, it was already evident that such a class consciousness 
 was developing, particularly in the cities and towns. It manifested 
 itself in a movement to drive the slaves from the cities and from 
 mechanical employments, and restrict them to agriculture. In 
 1849, C. G. Memminger wrote Hammond that the opinion was 
 gaining ground in Charleston and even in the low country, that 
 slaves should be excluded from mechanical pursuits, and their 
 places filled by whites; and that there would soon be a formidable 
 party on the subject. 76 Several years earlier, a bill had been drafted 
 and presented to the North Carolina Legislature to limit the em- 
 ployment of slaves in mechanical callings, but had been met and 
 defeated by the objection that it interfered with the rights of the 
 slave owners; an act of the Georgia Legislature, December 27, 
 1845, forbade negro mechanics to make contracts. 77 In the cities 
 there was constant friction between the white stevedores, porters, 
 
 "See notes 68-72. 
 "De Bow's Review, XI, 135. 
 
 "Devereaux to Hammond, April 17, 1850, /. H. Hammond Papers. Cf. So. 
 Quar. Rev., VIII, 449 if.; XXVI, 446. 
 
 "Memminger to Hammond, April 28, 1849, /. H. Hammond Papers. 
 "Devereaux to Hammond, April 17, 1850, ibid. 
 
54 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [54 
 
 draymen, and mechanics and the negroes. 78 Everywhere there 
 was opposition to slaves learning trades. 79 
 
 The slaveholders feared this self-assertion of white labor; for, 
 as Memminger put it, were the negro mechanics and operatives 
 driven from the cities, whites would take their places, everyone 
 would have a vote, and all would be abolitionists. Those urging 
 manufactures, he thought, were aiding and abetting the free labor 
 party, which was the only one from which danger to slavery was 
 to be apprehended. 80 General A. H. Brisbane, who was leading 
 in the agitation in behalf of manufactures in South Carolina, and 
 who was instrumental in founding a mechanics' institute in 
 Charleston, complained of the opposition he met at every turn 
 from the slaveholders of Charleston and the seaboard. 81 
 
 On the other hand, some slaveholders thought more danger was 
 to be apprehended from the poor whites under existing conditions 
 than if they should be brought together in cotton factories with 
 constant employment and adequate remuneration. In the latter 
 case, they would see that their occupation depended upon the 
 preservation of a system necessary for the production of cotton. 
 In the opinion of Thomas P. Devereaux, if a notion should arise 
 among the poor whites that slavery barred their way to the full en- 
 joyment of the fruits of their labor, deprived them of a market for 
 their produce, and hindered the advancement of their children, 
 the slaveholders would have an enemy in their midst far more 
 to be feared than abolition preachers. 82 Brisbane believed it bet- 
 ter for white labor to develop in the South, where it could see its 
 dependence upon black labor, than in the North, where it could 
 not, and would, therefore, be the fanatical enemy of slavery. 
 
 Over against the discussion of the desirability of providing em- 
 ployment for the poor whites must be set the discussion of the 
 
 ~'*DeBow's Review, XXVI, 600, extract from the Report of the Committee 
 on Negro Population of the South Carolina Legislature; ibid., XXX, 67-77. 
 
 "F. L. Olmsted, Cotton Kingdom, II, 98; Lyell, A Second Visit to the 
 United States, II, 36, 81-83. And see below, pp. 218-220. 
 
 ""Memminger to Hammond, April 28, 1849, /. H. Hammond Papers. 
 
 "Brisbane to Hammond, Oct. 8, 1849, ibid.; cf. Gregg to Hammond, Dec. 
 I, 1848. 
 
 "Devereaux to Hammond, April 17, 1850, ibid. Cf. W. B. Hodgson, of 
 Georgia, to Hammond, Nov. 20, 1850, ibid.; So. Quar. Rev., XXVI, 447; DeBow's 
 Review, III, 188; VIII, 25. See also Fitzhugh, Sociology for the South, 147. 
 
55] MOVEMENT FOR THE DIVERSIFICATION OF INDUSTRY 55 
 
 practicability of employing slaves in factories. During the period 
 of overproduction of cotton there was a belief that slave labor 
 engaged in producing the staple was redundant, and that it was 
 desirable to divert some of it to other industries. The division of 
 slave labor between the factory and the field would increase the 
 profits of agriculture and enhance the value of slaves. 83 Slave 
 labor was tried in several cotton factories, notably the DeKalb 
 and the Saluda factory, both of South Carolina, and the alleged 
 success of the experiments was cited as demonstrating that, should 
 agriculture become oversupplied with labor, manufacturing would 
 open channels to draw away the surplus. 84 From some of the 
 comments made, it is hard to escape the conclusion* that many 
 Southerners were interested in manufactures only so long as it ap- 
 peared possible to conduct them with slave labor; when exper- 
 ience finally demonstrated the superiority of white labor, their 
 interest declined. Other men opposed from the start the employ- 
 ment of slaves in factories. It would weaken slavery; for, as one 
 said, "Whenever a slave is made a mechanic, he is more than 
 half freed .... " 86 Moreover, were slaves employed, whites could 
 not be; for whites would not work side by side or in competition 
 with slaves. 
 
 The movement to bring the spindles to the cotton was almost 
 synchronous with the period of acrimonious sectional controversy 
 over the extension of slavery which began with the annexation of 
 Texas and continued until the general acceptance of the Com- 
 promise of 1850 gave a temporary respite. Southern men were 
 becoming dismayed at the growing strength and vigor of the 
 attacks upon slavery. The growing disparity of the sections in 
 numbers and power was toe striking and too ominous not to excite 
 most serious concern. The old political alliance of South and West 
 could no longer be depended upon, and especially not in the case 
 of the slavery issue, to thwart the antagonistic policies of the 
 North. Leaders, from the great Calhoun down, cast about for 
 means of maintaining Southern rights and preserving Southern 
 equality in the Union. A large minority of the people in the South, 
 
 "'Richmond Whig, Sept. 19, 1851; DeBow's Review, XII, 182-5. 
 "Richmond Enquirer, Aug. 30, 1850; Charleston Mercury, May 24, 1849; 
 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXIII, 575; DeBow's Review, IX, 432; XI, 319. 
 "Ibid., VIII, 518. 
 
56 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [56 
 
 in one state a majority, were convinced by 1850 that the Southern 
 states should withdraw from the Union. Widespread discussion of 
 secession caused consideration to be given to the preparedness of 
 the South for separate nationality. The intemperateness of the 
 sectional quarrel and, especially, the necessity for augmenting the 
 political power of the South, whether to maintain her rights in the 
 Union or her independence out of it, gave a powerful impetus to 
 all movements for promoting the economic development of the 
 South, including the encouragement of manufacturing. 
 
 The arguments in favor of encouraging home manufactures 
 which were suggested by political necessities or purposes took 
 several forms. One frequently employed was well illustrated by 
 an editorial in the Richmond Dispatch. After one of the instances 
 of interference with the execution of the Fugitive Slave law by the 
 people of Boston, the Dispatch estimated the value of the Boston- 
 made shoes used in Virginia, and suggested that Virginia people 
 should manufacture the shoes used in the state. "That it is time 
 for Virginia to think of doing some such thing the high-handed 
 measures lately adopted in Boston sufficiently prove. As long as 
 we are dependent upon these people, they will insult us at pleas- 
 ure. Let us cut loose from them thus far at least." 86 The reason- 
 ing was weak: If Boston people insulted the Virginians while yet 
 the latter were good customers, would they not more readily do 
 so should the Virginians cease to patronize Boston shoe factories? 
 
 More logical was the reasoning of J. D. B. DeBow and others 
 who, while recognizing that Southern enterprise might not con- 
 vince the enemies of slavery, said it would prepare the South for 
 the crisis which they professed to believe was inevitable. "We 
 have long ago thought," wrote DeBow, "that the duty of the peo- 
 ple consisted more in the vigorous prosecution of their industry, 
 resources and enterprise, than in bandying constitutional argu- 
 ments with their opponents, or in rhetorical flourishes about the 
 sanctity of the federal compact. This is the course of action, 
 which, though it may not convince, will at least prepare us for this 
 crisis which, it needs no seer's eye to see, will, in the event, be 
 precipitated upon us by the reckless fanaticism or ignorant zeal 
 of the 'cordon of free States' surrounding us on every hand. 'Light 
 up the torches of industry,' was the advice of old Dr. Franklin to his 
 countrymen, on discovering that all hope from the British cab- 
 
 "Quoted in De Bow's Review, XI, 82. 
 
57] MOVEMENT FOR THE DIVERSIFICATION OF INDUSTRY 57 
 
 inet had fled forever. Light up the torches, say we, on every hill- 
 top, by the side of every stream, from the shores of the Delaware 
 to the furthest extremes of the Rio Grande from the Ohio to the 
 capes of Florida." 87 
 
 Another and more frequently used argument was that diversi- 
 fied industries would be favorable to a more rapid growth of 
 population in the South, and population was necessary to political 
 power. The North had been growing more rapidly in population 
 and political influence, it was said, because immigration from 
 abroad had gone almost exclusively to that section. This was not 
 because slavery had repelled immigration, but because the South 
 had offered no inducements. Southern agriculture was ill adapted 
 to European labor. And what other industry had the South? The 
 construction of railroads had attracted a few Irish and German 
 laborers; but the demand was insufficient to bring a great number. 
 Let industry be diversified, however, and the South would get a 
 share of the influx from abroad. Northern people might come 
 South. Emigration from the Southern states would be checked. 
 The population of the North would then increase less rapidly, 
 that of the South more rapidly; the relative political strength of 
 the South would thus be preserved. 88 
 
 Not all, however, considered immigration desirable. Many 
 feared that immigrants would be hostile to slavery. The diversi- 
 ficationists attempted to overcome these fears. The immigrants 
 could be assimilated and converted into defenders of Southern 
 institutions, they said. In proof of this view they pointed to many 
 men who had come from the North, and were among the staunch- 
 est defenders of the South. They further contended that a large 
 foreign element in the North was a greater menace to slavery than 
 such an element in the South would be; for in the latter it would 
 become convinced of the necessity of the institution. 89 Just as 
 does the fear among the slaveholders of the development of a class 
 
 "DeBow's Review, IX, 120. Cf. ibid., IV, 211; XI, 680; William Gregg to 
 Seabrook, May 10, 1850, Whitemarsh B. Seabrook Papers; Richmond Whig, 
 Feb. 12, 1851. 
 
 "Barnard, Oration Delivered, before the Citizens of Tuscaloosa, Alamaba, 
 July 4-th, 1851, 29; DeBow's Review, VIII, 558-60; XI, 319; Hunt's Merchants' 
 Magazine, XXI, 498. 
 
 "Barnard, loc. cit.; A. H. Brisbane to J. H. Hammond, Oct. 8, 1849, /. H. 
 Hammond Papers. 
 
58 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84<>l86l [58 
 
 consciousness among the native white labor, this fear of immigra- 
 tion illustrates the difficulties in the way of creating a public senti- 
 ment in the South favorable to progress along other lines than 
 agriculture. 
 
 During the secession movement of 1849-1852, which has been 
 alluded to, many Unionists supported the efforts to develop South- 
 ern manufactures, promote direct trade, construct internal im- 
 provements, and otherwise build up the South in an economic 
 way, as a substitute for disunion. Their position was based upon 
 two chains of reasoning: (i) Economic regeneration of the South 
 would tend to preserve the political equilibrium of the sections 
 and thus enable the Southern states to maintain their rights 
 without forsaking the Union. (2) The basic causes for the war 
 being waged against the Union were economic discontent and the 
 belief that the Union had been unequal in its material benefits. 
 The Unionists, in so far as they admitted Southern "decline," at- 
 tributed it to causes not connected with the operation of the gov- 
 ernment or the Union. Successful programs of economic improve- 
 ment would allay discontent and prove their contentions in re- 
 gard to the advantages of the Union. This aspect of the political 
 basis for the agitation in behalf of manufactures will be discussed 
 in somewhat greater detail elsewhere. 
 
 Although the discussion of the desirability of diversifying 
 Southern industry by no means ceased about 1852, as we shall 
 see, the active agitation in behalf of "bringing the spindles to 
 the cotton" may be said to have come to an end about that 
 date. The explanation of this lies partly in the fact that the 
 comparative prosperity of cotton culture during the fifties weak- 
 ened the force of the economic arguments for diversification, 90 
 but chiefly in the fact that the agitation no longer was encouraged 
 by reports of large profits and the erection of new factories. 
 
 Accounts of new enterprises continued to appear throughout 
 1851, and then ceased almost abruptly. In their stead there began 
 to appear reports of reduced profits, failures, and, later, explana- 
 tions for the sudden collapse of a movement so auspiciously 
 begun. It was not until the later years of the decade that the press 
 again spoke optimistically of the progress of cotton manufactures 
 in the South. William Gregg, who knew more about this sub- 
 
 "See ch. VIII. 
 
59] MOVEMENT FOR THE DIVERSIFICATION OF INDUSTRY 59 
 
 ject than any other man, writing on the very eve of the war, stated 
 that all the progress made in cotton manufacturing in the South 
 during fifteen years was made in "about five years from 1845 
 to 1850." The meager statistics available tend to sustain this 
 judgment. According to the estimates of contemporary reviewers 
 of the cotton trade, the Southern states consumed a quantity of 
 raw cotton in the year 1849-1850 which was not materially exceed- 
 ed until i859-i86o. 91 During the years 1850 and 1851 the cotton 
 manufacturing industry was suffering a depression. It is probable 
 that, could factories newly built or building in 1850 have operated 
 at full capacity, the total consumption for the year would have 
 equalled that of the years immediately preceding the Civil War. 
 The United States censuses for 1840, 1850, and 1860 may be con- 
 sidered sufficiently reliable to show general tendencies. The value 
 of the product of cotton factories in states south of Maryland was 
 $1,912,215 in 1840, $5,665,362 in 1850, and $8,145,067 in 1860. 
 Thus, while the value of the product nearly trebled between 1840 
 and 1850, it increased only about 43 per cent during the following 
 decade. The value of the output of cotton manufactures in the 
 United States as a whole was $46,350,453 in 1840, $65,501,687 in 
 1850, and $115,681,774 in 1860, an increase of 41 per cent during 
 the first decade and 76.6 per cent during the second. 92 
 
 The progress made in cotton manufacturing in the South during 
 the 18405 must be attributed chiefly to the unprofitableness of 
 cotton culture during the same period and to the conviction of men 
 with capital that manufacturing would yield a higher rate of inter- 
 est upon money invested. In some cases, it is true, subscription to 
 the stock of cotton manufacturing companies seems to have been 
 made by public spirited citizens prompted more by a desire to 
 benefit their communities or states or to advance the cause of 
 the South than by the desire for profit. To some degree, too, the 
 agitation was instrumental in securing the liberalization of laws 
 affecting joint stock companies, and may have contributed indi- 
 rectly to the development of manufactures. The cessation of 
 progress about 1851 cannot be attributed to any abatement of 
 
 "See Appendix, Table IV, for estimates of the cotton consumed in the North, 
 South, and West, 1839-1861. 
 
 "Compendium of the Sixth Census, 361; Compendium of the Seventh Cen- 
 sus, 1 80; Eighth Census, Manufactures, Introduction, p. xii. 
 
60 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [60 
 
 interest on the part of the public. Some of the causes for de- 
 pression and failure in the South affected New England factories 
 as well. Others were peculiar to the South, and serve to illustrate 
 the difficulties which had to be overcome there, perhaps among 
 any agricultural people, before new industries could become firmly 
 established. 
 
 One cause of the depression in the cotton manufacturing indus- 
 try was the sharp rise in the price of raw cotton from 7 cents in 
 June to ii cents in October, 1849, double the price of October, 
 1848. With the exception of the year 1851-1852, the price of cot- 
 ton remained comparatively high until the Civil War. With the 
 rise in price, the quantity of cotton taken for Northern mills fell 
 from 503,429 bales in 1848-1849 to 465,702 in 1849-1850 and 386,- 
 429 the following year, while the estimates of consumption of the 
 South and West for the same three years were 130,000, 137,000, 
 and 99,000 bales, respectively. 93 To add to the hardships occa- 
 sioned by high priced raw material, there had been a general 
 fall in the prices of cotton goods, caused partly by the recent rapid 
 extensions of cotton manufactures in the United States and partly, 
 it was said, by the increased quantities of English goods put upon 
 the American market after the Walker tariff of 1846 had become 
 effective. 94 
 
 Strangely, the factories of the cotton states seem to have weath- 
 ered the first year or two of hard times better than factories 
 farther north, and Southern men submitted the fact as evidence 
 of the superior advantages of those states for cotton manufactur- 
 ing. 95 In the autumn of 1850, Joseph H. Lumpkin, of Georgia, 
 said that he knew of no bankruptcy in any cotton company in the 
 South; while seventy-one mills were reported idle within thirty 
 
 " 3 See Appendix, Table IV. 
 
 "Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXIII, 595 ff., Dec. 1850; XXV, 465. 
 
 m DeBow's Review, X, 93, 143. Virginia and Maryland factories did not 
 escape the hard times. A convention of manufacturing interests meeting in Rich- 
 mond, late in 1850, reported that -of the 54,000 spindles in that state, 7,000 were 
 running at three-fourths time, 8,000 at one-third time, 22,000 at full time but 
 three-fourths wages, while the remainder were either idle or practically so; the 
 whole averaged about one-half time. In Maryland the conditions were worse. 
 Of 28 factories, 8 were idle, and only 2 were running full time. Hunt's Merchants' 
 Magazine, XXIV, 262. The iron industry as well as the cotton manufacturing 
 industry was complaining of depression. The reason assigned was English and 
 Scotch competition. 
 
6l] MOVEMENT FOR THE DIVERSIFICATION OF INDUSTRY 6l 
 
 miles of Providence, Rhode Island, and numerous others in the 
 North were either idle or upon short time, some Southern com- 
 panies were declaring a dividend of 10 per cent. 96 The Savannah 
 News reported that Southern factories were prosperous, while 
 some Northern mills were closing; and added, "These facts prove 
 what we have often asserted, that we have a decided advantage 
 over the North in the business of manufacturing yarns and 
 coarse cotton goods." 97 Thomas Prentice Kettell, of New York, 
 wrote: "It is the transition of the seat of manufactures from the 
 North and East to the South and West, under which northern 
 manufacturing capital is laboring." 98 But factories in the cotton 
 belt did fail during the years 1850, 1851, and 1852, establish- 
 ments changed hands at much less than the original cost, and the 
 profits of all were greatly reduced. Moreover, Southern factories 
 revived much more slowly than those of New England. Many of 
 them dragged out a sickly existence until a year or two before the 
 war, when they again became prosperous. The example of these 
 factories discouraged further investments of capital. 99 
 
 M DeBow's Review, XII, 46. (From an address delivered before the South 
 Carolina Institute at its Second Annual Fair, Nov. 19, 1850.) As late as 1855, 
 William Gregg wrote: "With the exception of the Saluda company and the 
 Charleston factory, there have been no positive failures and very few embarrassed 
 concerns [in South Carolina], and they labored under most of the defects that 
 I have named as elements of embarrassment. There was no failure among the 
 Georgia factories during the terrible pressure of 1850 and '51; they are now, with 
 one or two exceptions, doing well. Those in the vicinity of Augusta, ten miles 
 off, are paying 20 to 30 per cent. The DeKalb factory, near Camden, in our 
 state, is making 15 per cent.; Vaucluse, just above us, is making money. . . ." 
 The net earnings of the Graniteville Company were reported at 8 per cent in 
 1850, ii l / 2 per cent in 1853, and 18 per cent in 1854. Report of William Gregg, 
 President of the Graniteville Manufacturing Co., 1855, quoted in DeBow's Re- 
 view, XVIII, 788. 
 
 "Quoted in ibid., XI, 322 (Sept., 1851). 
 
 "Ibid., XI, 641. It is not probable that Southern mills suffered less than 
 New England mills making the same class of goods. 
 
 This was notably true of the failures at Augusta, Ga. There canals had 
 been dug, and, it was supposed, enough water power secured to drive the spindles 
 of a second Lowell. Factories sprang up on a large scale. A long chain of changes 
 and reverses followed. Ibid., XXVIII, 483. William Gregg wrote, in 1860: 
 "The failure of the Augusta Mills has done more to put back the progress of 
 manufacturing at the South than any other failure that has taken place." Ibid., 
 XXIX, 229. 
 
62 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [62 
 
 Cotton factories in the South experienced difficulties other than 
 the high price of raw material and the low prices of goods. 10 The 
 factories were often cheaply constructed, and the best machinery 
 was not always provided. Several of them employed steam power, 
 which proved too costly and put them under a big handicap from 
 the start. Local pride in many cases had much to do with raising 
 capital and, consequently, in selecting sites. As a result the mills 
 were often injudiciously located with respect to health, steady 
 motive power, and marketing of goods. The labor problem was 
 a difficult one. Negro labor required too much capital, if bought, 
 and proved unsatisfactory in any case. 101 The whites, though 
 they worked for lower wages than the mill operatives of the 
 North, from ignorance and long habits of indolence, were difficult 
 to train and control. 102 Because of the unskilled labor, Southern 
 factories required more efficient superintendents than Northern 
 factories, but did not pay sufficiently high salaries to command 
 them. (The superintendents were in most cases from the North.) 
 There was the difficulty, also, of forcing the products of infant in- 
 dustries upon a market already supplied with Northern and 
 English goods; 103 and there is evidence that New England manu- 
 facturers resorted to quite modern methods in meeting threatened 
 competition from the South. The story was told of a Georgia 
 factory that put upon the market an article known as "Georgia 
 Stripes," which proved very popular. New England mills imitated 
 it with a cheaper article, and drove it from the market. The fact- 
 
 100 For discussions of the causes for failure of Southern factories see: (i) Re- 
 port of William Gregg, President of the Graniteville Manufacturing Co., 1855 
 (pamphlet), also in DeBow's, XVIII, 777-91. (2) Extract from a letter of James 
 Montgomery, an English manufacturer. Ibid., XXVI, 95 ff. (3) Letter from James 
 Martin, a successful cotton manufacturer of Florence, Alabama. Ibid., XXIV, 
 382-6. (4) Hunt's Merchant's Magazine, XLII, 376 f. (5) William Gregg. 
 "Southern Patronage to Southern Imports and Domestic Industry," in DeBow's, 
 XXIX, 77-83, 225-32, 494-500, 623-31, 771-8; XXX, 102-4, 216-23. 
 
 101 Russell, Robert, North America, 295. 
 
 10J See Ingle, Edward, Southern Sidelights, 74 ff., for a discussion of wages 
 paid in the South. The best success was had where provision was made for hous- 
 ing the employees, enforcing temperance, and providing schools and religious 
 instruction, as at Graniteville, S. C., and Prattsville, Ala. DeBow's Review, 
 XVIII, 777-90. 
 
 10 *Colwell, Stephen, The Five Cotton States and New York (pamphlet, 
 i860). 
 
63] MOVEMENT FOR THE DIVERSIFICATION OF INDUSTRY 63 
 
 ory then turned to "Georgia Plains." Samples were sent North; 
 and soon the market was flooded with Yankee Georgia Plains. 104 
 Southern manufacturers selected sound raw material and made 
 goods of high quality; but their Southern customers apparently 
 preferred low prices to quality, which was more difficult to recog- 
 nize. And, despite statements of Southern writers to the contrary, 
 the probabilities are that the Yankee goods were better in propor- 
 tion to price. 105 Again, the idea was too prevalent that an effort 
 should be made to supply the local demand, and that a little of 
 everything should be made; it would have been better to special- 
 ize. The consumer seemed to prefer goods from a distance to 
 those of home manufacture. "Yankee made," "made in the 
 North," or "just from New York," were advertisements which 
 appealed to the purchaser. Manufacturers frequently complained 
 of the want of home patronage; but, except in times of unusual 
 sectional bitterness, appeals to local pride or patriotism were rath- 
 er ineffective. 
 
 One of the chief obstacles to the success of Southern establish- 
 ments was the lack of sufficient capital. The factories were too 
 often begun with insufficient capital, were in debt from the start, 
 and maintained no reserve of cash to enable them to buy raw 
 material when the price was low and hold back the product from 
 a depressed market. Frequent items are met in Southern papers 
 telling of consignments of goods to Northern cities. The papers 
 of the South were inclined to boast of such incidents without stop- 
 ping to inquire the reasons for their occurrence. 106 Because of 
 insufficient capital, the cotton manufacturers of the cotton states, 
 as were the tobacco manufacturers of Virginia, were constantly in 
 need of advances. The advances could most readily be secured by 
 drawing upon agents in New York or other Northern cities, who 
 sold the goods. This system meant that the goods sometimes had 
 
 1M DeBow's Review, XXIX, 627. 
 
 1M Daniel Lord said the Southern people "found the Yankee-made a better 
 article, and deaf to all appeals to their Southern pride and patriotism, would 
 have it." The Effect of Secession upon the Commercial Relations between the 
 North and the South and upon each Section, 17. Edwin Heriot, of Charleston, 
 said the established opinion in the South was that Northern articles were better, 
 although the facts were just the reverse. DeBow's Review, XXIX, 218. 
 
 M Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXXI, 384. Cf. DeBow's Review, XI, 322; 
 F. L. Olmsted, Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, II, 184 (Putnam's, 1904). 
 
64 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [64 
 
 to be sold in a depressed market to meet the drafts. Southern 
 manufacturers could not sell directly to Southern merchants or 
 jobbers, because the latter bought on long credit, which the man- 
 ufacturers were unable to extend. Both mill owners and merch- 
 ants experienced difficulty in procuring loans from home banks 
 whether because of inadequacy of banking facilities, or, as some 
 believed, because of banking policy, we will not pause here to 
 inquire. 107 
 
 "'On system of advances and long credits and the question of banking facili- 
 ties, in the South, see below, pp. 100-107. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE SOUTHERN 
 MOVEMENT, 1844-1852 
 
 Discontent with the economic conditions of the South, absolute 
 and as compared with those of other sections, found expression 
 in the direct trade conventions of 1837-1839. It also was expressed 
 in the agitation in behalf of the diversification of industry. While 
 it cannot be said to have been the sole or even primary cause for 
 the Southern movement which culminated in secession, its influ- 
 ence upon that movement was by no means negligible, especially 
 in its earlier stages. 
 
 The story of South Carolina nullification, to begin no farther 
 back, can receive only a brief summary here. About 1825 and 
 following years, strong opposition developed in the older planting 
 states of the South, especially South Carolina, to the policy of a 
 high and protective tariff and heavy expenditures for internal im- 
 provements. The basis of this opposition lay not only in the fact 
 that the protected industries and the internal improvements at 
 government expense were in other sections, but also in the ap- 
 parently, or really, impoverished condition of the old planting sec- 
 tion compared with other sections of the Union. In no state were 
 conditions more favorable to the growth of discontent than in 
 South Carolina. Industry was not at all diversified. The price of 
 cotton had fallen. Land values were declining. Population was 
 increasing slowly, if at all. Charleston was making comparatively 
 little progress. These conditions were attributed in great measure 
 to the protective tariff and the extravagant expenditures of the 
 Federal government. Failing to secure a reversal of the objection- 
 able policies, opponents of the tariff hit upon nullification as a 
 remedy. Upon nullification as the issue two parties developed. 
 The State Rights party, or Nullifiers, held nullification to be a 
 constitutional mode of resisting palpably unconstitutional laws, 
 which they considered the tariff laws to be, and thought it justified 
 by the oppression suffered under the tariff. They professed to 
 believe that nullification would result in a repeal of the tariff, 
 but were prepared to resort to the remedy even should war and 
 disunion be the consequences. The Union party, on the other 
 hand, opposed nullification as unconstitutional and certain to lead 
 
 65 
 
66 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [66 
 
 to war, which could result only in the crushing of South Carolina. 
 Furthermore, many of the Unionists either denied that South 
 Carolina was not prosperous, or, admitting it, attributed the lack 
 of prosperity to other causes than the tariff. After a violent 
 struggle of four years duration a convention was called, which 
 adopted an ordinance nullifying the tariff laws of 1828 and 1832. 
 While Andrew Jackson prepared to employ force, Congress en- 
 acted the Compromise Tariff of 1833. Thereupon the South 
 Carolina Convention repealed the nullification ordinance. In other 
 Southern states there was much sympathy with South Carolina's 
 opposition to the tariff; many citizens accepted in whole or in part 
 the doctrines of the Nullifiers. This sympathy was especially 
 strong in Georgia and eastern Virginia, and quite strong in North 
 Carolina and Alabama. 1 
 
 After 1833 the division of the people of South Carolina into 
 Nullifiers and Unionists was largely perpetuated, the former being 
 in a growing majority. The Nullifiers first affiliated with the Whig 
 party, which took form about 1834; about 1838-1840 the great ma- 
 jority of them were led back into the Democratic fold by Calhoun, 
 and continued thereafter to call themselves Democrats. After this 
 latter date the Unionists of South Carolina were to be found in the 
 dwindling Whig party and in what may be termed the Jackson 
 wing of the Democratic party. It was the policy of the leaders 
 of the dominant faction to conciliate and assimilate the Unionist 
 faction; this policy was successful in the main. In other Southern 
 states, particularly the cotton states and Virginia, the large ma- 
 jority of those who had sympathized with the South Carolina 
 Nullifiers in 1832 continued in their devotion to the principles of 
 the nullificationist leaders. Perhaps the majority of this class 
 (Georgia and North Carolina may be exceptions) were aligned 
 with the Whig party during the early years of its history. Most 
 of those so aligned, however, shifted to the Democratic party, 
 either with Calhoun during Van Buren's administration, or later, 
 in Tyler's time. Of those who remained with the Whigs, some 
 were ostensibly converted to Whig principles; others retained 
 
 J The above statements are based upon standard special works and mono- 
 graphs covering this period, and upon Correspondence of John C. Calhoun; Cor- 
 respondence of Robert Toombs, A. H. Stephens, and Hotvell Cobb; Correspond- 
 ence of R. M. T. Hunter; and other of the more accessible sources. 
 
67] ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT 67 
 
 both their state rights, free trade, and reform principles and their 
 Whig affiliation until almost the end of the Whig party. In the 
 Democratic party the line of cleavage between the Calhoun wing 
 and the Jackson-Benton-Van Buren wing remained fairly distinct 
 until the Civil War. It was the former element which rallied to the 
 support of John C. Calhoun when he came forward in 1843 as 
 the free trade and reform candidate for the Democratic nomina- 
 tion for the presidency. 2 
 
 The Calhoun wing of the Democratic party held extreme state 
 rights principles. Furthermore, it had been and continued to be 
 the conviction of this following that (i) the government of the 
 United States was too extravagantly administered; (2) the South- 
 ern people paid more than their proportionate share of the rev- 
 enues and received back much less than their proportionate share 
 in the form of disbursements; (3) they were compelled by govern- 
 ment to pay tribute to Northern manufacturers, shipowners, and 
 merchants, by virtue of the tariff, fishing bounties, exclusion of 
 foreign vessels from the coasting trade, and heavy government 
 expenditures in the North; (4) and these continual and uncom- 
 pensated drains upon the resources of the Southern states were 
 enriching the North and impoverishing the South. No Nullifier 
 would admit that the Southern states had the prosperity or were 
 making the material progress to which their resources, population, 
 and the industry of their people entitled them. "Abolish Custom 
 Houses," wrote Calhoun, in 1845, "and let the money collected in 
 the South be spent in the South and we would be among the most 
 flourishing people in the world. The North could not stand the an- 
 nual draft, which they have been making on us 50 years, without 
 being reduced to the extreme of poverty in half the time. All we 
 want to be rich is to let us have what we make." 3 Such views as 
 
 "It would be impossible in a study of this scope to develop the statements 
 made in the above summary analysis of the party alignment in the South. They 
 are based upon a wide variety of sources quoted elsewhere in other connections; 
 special mention might be made of the Correspondence of John C. Calhoun and 
 the /. H. Hammond Papers. It is believed the conclusions here presented ac- 
 cord in the main with the evidence and conclusions of Cole, Wh\g Party in the 
 South; Phillips, Georgia and Staff Rights; and Ambler, Sectionalism in Virginia, 
 and Thomas Ritchie. It is believed, also, that evidence presented elsewhere in 
 this study tends to substantiate the conclusions given here. 
 
 'Calhoun to J. H. Hammond, Aug. 30, 1845, Calhoun Correspondence, 670. 
 
68 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [68 
 
 these were expressed in every tariff debate, in the discussion of 
 almost every rivers and harbors bill, fortifications bill, pensions 
 bill in fact, whenever a proposal was introduced in Congress 
 which involved the raising or appropriation of money. They were 
 presented, as we have seen, in the direct trade conventions of 
 1837-1839. They came out in almost every comparison of the 
 progress of the North and South and in every defense of slavery; 
 for it was necessary to trace "Southern decline" to other causes 
 than slavery. 
 
 It was the constant purpose of Calhoun and other leaders to 
 reform the "fiscal action of the General Government." But it had 
 early become the conviction of some of his followers that the gov- 
 ernment was beyond redemption, and that the proper policy for 
 the Southern states to pursue was separation from the North. The 
 bitter feelings engendered and the fears for slavery aroused by the 
 several quarrels over governmental policies affecting that institu- 
 tion had led many to calculate the value of the Union from an 
 economic viewpoint who otherwise might not have done so. A 
 consideration of the benefits and disadvantages of the Union led 
 a number to form the conclusion that disunion was not a con- 
 summation to be dreaded and avoided but a measure which would 
 promote the prosperity, power, and happiness of the South. 
 > An example of their reasoning may be found in a great speech 
 against the Tariff of 1842, which George McDuifie, of South Caro- 
 lina, made in the Senate, 1844. He warned the advocates of pro- 
 tection that there was a point beyond which oppression would not 
 be endured, "even by the most enslaved community in the world." 
 He pictured the Union divided into three confederations the 
 North and Northeast as one, the West as another, and the South- 
 ern states as a third. He showed that 
 
 The manufacturing States could not adhere to the protective 
 system one year. They would have no revenue, and would be 
 driven to direct taxation; whereas the Southern confederation 
 would become the importing States, receiving in exchange foreign 
 manufactures for their rice, cotton, tobacco, and sugar; that the 
 Southwestern confederation would be exchangers with the South- 
 ern confederation of their products for the products of Europe; for 
 they would never be so foolish as to buy of the New England Con- 
 federation at forty per cent higher in price than need be paid for 
 the same goods in the southern confederation. ... In ten years 
 there would be such a difference that a person absent so long re- 
 turning, would be struck with the change in the condition of these 
 
69] ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT 69 
 
 sections of the country. The West he would see grown up into a 
 great and flourishing empire; the South the seat of commerce and 
 the arts; the great cities of Boston and New York rebuilt in 
 Charleston and New Orleans, and more flourishing than in their 
 original, uncongenial climates. But in New England he would find 
 the prosperity, comforts, wealth, etc., resulting from partial legis- 
 lation all gone: houses falling to ruin, cities deserted, furniture 
 selling by auction, and all the indications of indigence prevailing... 4 
 
 McDuffie was arguing for a repeal of the tariff; but others in 
 his state used similar arguments in favor of disunion. During the 
 short-lived Bluffton movement, to which reference has already 
 been made, disunion sentiments were openly expressed. Judge 
 Langdon Cheves in a long letter to the Charleston Mercury made 
 a thinly veiled argument for disunion; 5 as such it was taken both 
 South and North. 8 A few months later another correspondent of 
 the Mercury in an article headed,"Reflections on Re-perusing Judge 
 Cheve's Letter," put the case for secession without any indirec- 
 tion whatsoever. "The institutions and municipal policy, and geo- 
 graphical position, and popular feelings and pursuits of the north 
 and south can never harmonize as one people. Speak it out for 
 it is spoken sub rosa in every group of domestic and political 
 coterie that the sections divided by interest can never assimilate 
 in sentiment and national amity." 7 Both Cheves and his reviewer 
 described how separation would promote the prosperity of agri- 
 culture and commerce in the South. 
 
 The saner leaders in South Carolina, at the time of the Bluffton 
 movement, were insistent that any measure taken, whether seces- 
 sion or nullification, must be taken by a united South, and they 
 labored under no delusions in regard to the attitude of the South 
 as a. whole. In the spring of 1844 the cry, "Texas or Disunion," 
 had awakened response in several Southern states; 8 but as soon 
 
 'Cong. Globe, 28 Cong, i Sess., 206 (Jan. 29). 
 
 'Niles' Register, LXVII, 49 ff. 
 
 'A Reply to the Letter of the Honorable Langdon Cheves, by "A South- 
 erner" (pamphlet); Adams, J. Q., Memoirs, XII, 91. 
 
 T April 4, 1845; Niles' Register, LXVIII, 88 ff. 
 
 *Ibid., LXVI, 313, meetings in South Carolina; ibid., LXVI, 123, 
 quoting the New Orleans Tropic; ibid., 229, 312, accounts of meetings in Barn- 
 well District, South Carolina, and Russell County, Alabama; ibid., 3 1, quoting the 
 Richmond Enquirer, and other Southern papers; ibid., LXVI, 405, disunion 
 meetings in Lawrence county, Alabama, and in several districts in South Caro- 
 lina; Benton, Thirty Years' View, II, 613-619. 
 
70 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-186 1 [70 
 
 as it had achieved its purpose of securing the Democratic nomina- 
 tion for the presidency for a Southern man who was sound on the 
 Texas issue, the Democratic leaders proved most anxious to clear 
 themselves of any taint of disunion which the Whigs tried to fix 
 upon them. 9 The Charleston Mercury admitted that other states 
 would not join South Carolina in resistance. 10 General James 
 Hamilton wrote in a public letter: "I cannot but express my be- 
 lief that South Carolina is not now ready for separate action, nor 
 the southern states for a southern convention." He expressed the 
 same view privately. 11 Langdon Cheves suggested that, instead 
 of South Carolina undertaking separate resistance, an active 
 propaganda be conducted throughout the South to develop among 
 the people a feeling of unity and a sense of their oppression. He 
 would have had a course followed similar to that pursued in the 
 Thirteen Colonies prior to the American Revolution: "Let asso- 
 ciations be formed in every southern, and, if possible, in every 
 southwestern state, and let them confer together and interchange 
 views and information; let leading men through committees and 
 private correspondence collect, compare, and concentrate the views 
 of men in their respective states, and when ripe for it, and not 
 before, let representatives from those states meet in convention, 
 and if circumstances promise success, let them then deliberate on 
 the mode of resistance and the measure of redress." 12 It became 
 the settled policy of certain South Carolina leaders to bring the 
 Southern states together in convention, to break down party dis- 
 tinctions throughout the South, as they had largely been broken 
 down in their own state, and to "fire the Southern heart." 
 
 There was little in the course of events during the next several 
 years to modify the views of men of the South Carolina school or 
 to deplete the ranks of the disunionists. The Walker tariff, the 
 Independent Treasury, and the veto of rivers and harbors bills 
 
 'Niles' Register, LXVI, 313, 347, 369, 391, 406, 411, quoting the Richmond 
 Enquirer as denying connection with the "Texas or Disunion" cry and proposed 
 Southern convention at Nashville; ibid., LXVI, 313, 346, and the National In- 
 telligencer, July 23, on the meeting in Nashville to protest against the proposed 
 "Texas or Disunion" convention; National Intelligencer, July 27, Aug. 10, n. 
 
 10 Aug. 9, 1844, "Our Position and our Pledges," in Niles' Register, LXVI, 
 406 ff. 
 
 "Ibid., LXVI, 420; Hamilton to Hammond, Oct. 4, 1844, /. H. Hammond 
 Papers. 
 
 "Niles' Register, LXVII, 49. 
 
71 ] ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT "Jl 
 
 pleased but did not satisfy the free trade and reform element. 
 Then with the introduction of the Wilmot Proviso, 1846, there 
 began an acrimonious struggle over slavery which continued al- 
 most without interruption until about 1852, when the general ac- 
 ceptance of the Compromise of 1850, and the defeat of efforts to 
 resist it, ushered in a short period of relative calm. The disposi- 
 tion evinced by the majority in the North to exclude slavery from 
 the territory acquired from Mexico and other manifestations of 
 hostility to the institution, together with the growing political pre- 
 ponderance and unity of the free states, caused the majority in 
 the South to fear for the security of slavery and other substantial 
 Southern interests. Southern leaders were put to' it to know how 
 to meet the issue. Under these circumstances disunion was fully 
 canvassed as a remedy, immediate or ultimate. 
 
 The long debates in Congress, the accompanying discussion in 
 the press and from the platform, the Southern conventions at 
 Nashville and their preliminaries, and, finally, the contests waged 
 in several states between those who favored acquiescence in the 
 compromise measures and those who counselled resistance, af- 
 forded ample opportunity for a thorough discussion of the ad- 
 vantages and disadvantages of the Union and the expediency and 
 propriety of secession. The discussion revealed how extensively 
 the ideas were held that the Union was a detriment to the prosper- 
 ity and economic progress of the South, and, the corollary, the 
 South would be more prosperous and develop more rapidly were 
 the Union dissolved. The discussion also, no doubt, contributed to 
 the spread of these ideas. It also revealed, and no doubt increased, 
 the number of those who, while they did not look for disunion to 
 bring positive economic advantages, expected it to bring no serious 
 disadvantages in short, those who could look to disunion with 
 complacency, for whom it "had no terrors." 
 
 Very early in the struggle over slavery in the territory to be 
 acquired from Mexico declarations were given in the South of a 
 determination to resist the adoption and enforcement of the Wil- 
 mot Proviso "at all hazards and to the last extremity." 13 As the 
 
 "Virginia resolutions, Mar. 8, 1847, in Ames, State Documents on Federal 
 Relations, 245-7, were the first official declaration. Other state legislatures, as 
 well as party conventions, and numerous meetings of citizens adopted similar 
 resolutions. See Hamer, Secession Movement in S. C., 1847-1852, pp. 5, 6, n, 
 16 f., 29, 30 f. 
 
72 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [j2 
 
 struggle progressed these declarations were renewed, and extend- 
 ed, as the issues were presented, to include other threatened acts 
 of Northern aggression. To prove that these were not merely idle 
 threats, Southern men talked long and angrily of Southern rights 
 and Southern honor and pictured the ruin that would be brought 
 to the South by abolition which they professed to believe would 
 be the ultimate consequence of restriction of slave territory and 
 loss of the sectional equilibrium. Many also endeavored to dem- 
 onstrate that the South could safely stake the Union upon the 
 issue of the struggle, because the South would suffer very little, if 
 not actually gain, from a dissolution, while the North stood to 
 lose so much in the event that she would yield rather than permit 
 the Union to be destroyed "calculating the value of the Union," 
 this was termed. 
 
 After the election of 1848 and after the Taylor administration 
 had seemed to show anti-slavery leanings, the task of calculating 
 the value of the Union was undertaken in earnest. In the press, in 
 numerous pamphlets, in Congress, during the debates on the 
 compromise measures, threats of a dissolution in case the South 
 should be denied justice were reenforced by more or less elabor- 
 ate comparisons of the economic advantages or disadvantages of 
 the Union to the various sections. Many of those who thus cal- 
 culated the value of the Union were conditional disunionists. They 
 professed to be ready to stake the Union upon the satisfaction of 
 their demands. In all probability their demands would not have 
 been so great or so firmly made, had they attached greater value 
 to the Union; nevertheless, they intended to preserve the Union 
 if it could be done without too great sacrifice. But another class 
 was in evidence during the crisis, the disunionists per se, who 
 favored disunion irrespective of the character of the settlement of 
 the pending questions of conflict. They would have seized the op- 
 portunity to demand guarantees of the North which they would 
 have had no expectation of securing. In their opinion the interests 
 of the two sections had become so diverse that they could no 
 longer live amicably under one government. The Union had be- 
 come a disadvantage to the South: she would be more peaceful, 
 happy, and prosperous out of it. 
 
 As might be expected, the first manifestations of this ultra sen- 
 timent were in South Carolina. As early as November 2, 1848, H. 
 W. Connor, of Charleston, wrote Calhoun that he believed "there 
 
73] ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT 73 
 
 has been and probably still is a design to revive the old Bluffton 
 move with the same motive and end." 14 ' The following February, 
 J. H. Hammond expressed to Calhoun his belief that the crisis was 
 at hand. 15 In the summer of 1849 the South Carolina Telegraph 
 began openly to agitate for a dissolution of the Union; and by 
 early in 1850 nearly every newspaper in the state was advo- 
 cating disunion. 16 The Charleston Mercury expected it. 17 Mean- 
 while Governor Seabrook was in correspondence with the govern- 
 ors of other Southern states relative to what action they might be 
 expected to take if the Wilmot Proviso or other objectionable 
 measure should be adopted by Congress. 18 Georgia newspaper 
 editors, in the summer of 1850, boldly inserted communications 
 in their columns, without any marks of disapprobation, openly 
 advocating disunion. Prominent leaders like Joseph H. Lumpkin, 
 William L. Mitchell, W. F. Colquitt, A. G. McDonald, and Joseph 
 E. Brown were known as disunionists, per se. ig John B. Lamar 
 wrote Howell Cobb that if it were not for Cobb's influence Geor- 
 gia would be more rampant for disunion than South Carolina ever 
 was. 20 There were disunionists per se also in Alabama, Missis- 
 sippi, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee. 
 
 It was this disunion element chiefly which was responsible for 
 the meeting of the Nashville Convention of June 1850. The idea 
 of getting the South together in a Southern convention was an old 
 one in South Carolina at least. 21 After the conflict over the Wil- 
 
 "Calhoun Correspondence. Cf. Hamer, op. cit., 26. 
 
 "Letter of Feb. 19, 1849, Calhoun Correspondence. 
 
 "National Intelligencer, Feb. 15, 1850. 
 
 "Ibid., loc. cit. 
 
 "Gov. W. D. Mosely, of Fla., to Whitemarsh B. Seabrook, May 18, 1849, 
 Seabrook MSS. "I do not now see any other executive to whom to address your- 
 self besides those you have already approached." Franklin H. Elmore to Sea- 
 brook, May 30, ibid. 
 
 "John H. Lumpkin to Howell Cobb, July 21, Toombs, Stephens, Cobb Cor- 
 respondence. 
 
 '"Letter of Feb. 7, 1850, ibid. 
 
 "Unionists had proposed a Southern convention in 1832 as a substitute for 
 nullification. Boucher, Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 197-203. It 
 was discussed in 1835-1838, when the questions of abolition literature in the 
 mails, abolition petitions in Congress, and kindred questions were causing angry 
 controversy. Calhoun to Hayne, Nov. 17, 1838, Calhoun Correspondence; Ambler, 
 Thomas Ritchie, A Study in Virginia Politics, 173; Benton, Thirty Years' View, 
 
74 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [74 
 
 mot Proviso Lad been fairly joined, Calhoun sounded the views of 
 leading men of his following throughout the South upon the 
 subject. 22 A call could have been secured at any time from South 
 Carolina; but in view of the well known disunion tendencies of 
 that state, it was deemed advisable that it should originate else- 
 where. Finally the call was issued by a delegate convention in 
 Jackson, Mississippi, October, 1849. If the report of Daniel Wal- 
 lace, secret agent of Governor Seabrook, of South Carolina, may 
 be credited, men who were former residents of that state and dis- 
 unionists, were very influential in the proceedings. 23 
 
 In South Carolina opposition to the Nashville Convention was 
 almost negligible. The character of the delegates elected, their 
 correspondence, and the comments of the press leave little doubt 
 that it was intended to use the Nashville Convention to promote 
 disunion. 24 In most of the other slaveholding states the call of the 
 convention at first met with hearty response. But opposition soon 
 developed. Thomas H. Benton denounced it as a disunion plot. 25 
 The Whigs generally condemned it; they distrusted the disorgan- 
 izing proclivities of some of those active in promoting it. The 
 compromising spirit shown in Congress in the early months of 
 1850 strengthened the opposition to the Southern Convention by 
 making it appear unnecessary as well as dangerous. 26 Six slave 
 states, Louisiana, North Carolina, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, 
 
 II, 700. It was again mooted in 1844, particularly during the "Texas or Disun- 
 ion" agitation. James Hamilton to J. H. Hammond, Oct. 4, 1844, /. H. Ham- 
 mond Papers; Nile/ Register, LXVI, 229, 312, 369 (accounts of meetings in 
 S. C and Ala.); Benton, Thirty Years' View, II, 613-619. 
 
 "Calhoun to a member of the Alabama Legislature, 1847, Benton, Thirty 
 Years' View, II, 698-700; Joseph W. Lesesne to Calhoun, Sept. 12, 1847, Calhoun 
 Correspondence; Wilson Lumpkin to Calhoun, Nov. 18, 1847; H. W. Connor to 
 Calhoun, Nov. 2, 1848; John Cunningham to Calhoun, Nov. 12; Calhoun to 
 J. H. Means, Apr. 13, 1849. 
 
 "D. W. Wallace to Gov. Seabrook, June 8, Oct. 20, Nov. 7, 1849, Seabrook 
 A/SS. 
 
 "A. H. Brisbane to Hammond, Jan. 28, 1850, /. H. Hammond Papers; Na- 
 tional Intelligencer, Apr. 20, May 18, June 5, 1850. Cf. Hamer, op. cit., 46-48. 
 Wm. Gilmore Simms wrote Hammond: "I regard the Southern convention as in 
 fact a Southern confederacy. To become the one it seems to me very certain is 
 to become the other." Quoted in Trent, William Gilmore Simms, 179. 
 
 "National Intelligencer, Mar. 20, 1850, account of a meeting in St Louis, 
 Mar. 7. 
 
 M Cf. Cole, Whig Party in the South, 157-62, 168-72. 
 
75] ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT 75 
 
 and Delaware, failed to send delegates. In Georgia a very small 
 percentage of the voters participated in the election of delegates. 27 
 Western Virginia and several populous counties in the east took 
 no part in the election of delegates, 28 and only six delegates from 
 the state attended the convention. Only South Carolina, Tennes- 
 see, Alabama, and Mississippi were represented by full delega- 
 tions, and in the two last the delegates were appointed by the 
 legislatures. 
 
 When the Nashville Convention met the disunionists soon saw 
 that any action looking to immediate resistance was impossible, 
 and, therefore, worked for a second meeting. 29 Several disunion 
 per se speeches were made, the most notable being that of Beverly 
 Tucker, of Virginia. 30 The resolutions and the address to the 
 people of the slaveholding states which were adopted declared, in 
 effect, that the compromise measures then pending in Congress 
 were unacceptable and called for the extension of the Missouri 
 Compromise line to the Pacific as a sine qua non. 3i The adjourned 
 session of the convention met in Nashville, November n, 1850, 
 with seven states represented, by delegations reduced in size. 32 
 Most of the Union men of the first session refused to attend the 
 second, and the disunionists easily dominated it. 33 The resolu- 
 tions denounced the compromise measures which Congress had 
 adopted, and recommended a congress or convention of the slave- 
 holding states "intrusted with full power and authority to deliber- 
 ate and act with a view and intention of arresting further aggres- 
 sion, and, if possible, of restoring the constitutional rights of the 
 South, and, if not, to provide for their future safety and inde- 
 
 "National Intelligencer, Apr. 11, 1850. 
 
 '"Ambler, Sectionalism in Virginia, 249; letters of Wm. 0. Goode to R. M. T. 
 Hunter, Mar. 29, Apr. 20, May II, 1850, Correspondence of R. M. T. Hunter. 
 
 "Hammond to Wm. G. Simms, June 16, 1850, /. H. Hammond Papers. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXXI, 59-69; reviewed in So. Quar. Rev., XVIII, 218- 
 23. See also Hammond to Simms, June 16, 1850, /. H. Hammond Papers. 
 
 "The resolutions and the address are in Ames, State Documents on Federal 
 Relations, 263-9. Proceedings in National Intelligencer, June 4-16, 1850. 
 
 "Proceedings in ibid., Nov. 16. 
 
 "Perhaps the most noteworthy incident of the meeting was the three hours 
 speech of Langdon Cheves, of South Carolina, advocating secession. This speech 
 was published as a pamphlet and widely used in the state contests over the 
 acceptance of the compromise measures. 
 
76 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [76 
 
 pendence." This action was intended to influence the contests 
 then being waged in four states over the Compromise of 1850. 
 
 After the passage of the compromise measures spirited contests 
 ensued in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi be- 
 tween those who would acquiesce and those who would resist. In 
 South Carolina the submissionists or Unionists were in a small 
 minority. The real contest lay between the cooperationists and 
 the separate-actionists. The former believed that South Carolina 
 should secede, but only in case other cotton states should take 
 similar action at the same time. The separate-actionists wanted 
 a convention called to take the state out of the Union, in company 
 with others, if possible, if not, alone. They professed to believe 
 that if South Carolina should secede and the Federal government 
 should undertake coercion, the other Southern states would come 
 to her support; if, as was possible, the Federal government should 
 not adopt coercive measures, South Carolina would be prosperous 
 and happy as an independent nation. The issue was not fairly 
 joined until after the failure of the secession movements in Geor- 
 gia, Mississippi, and Alabama was certain; then the contest be- 
 came very spirited. At an election held October 13 and 14, 1851, 
 to choose delegates to a Southern congress, which the Legislature 
 had called, the cooperationists cast 25,045 votes to their oppon- 
 ents' 17,710 and carried all of the congressional districts but 
 one. 34 This result was interpreted as instructing the delegates to 
 the State Convention, who had been elected in February. The Con- 
 vention accordingly adopted a preamble and a resolution which 
 declared the right of secession and resolved that secession was 
 justified by the course of the Federal government but that South 
 Carolina "forbears the exercise of this manifest right of self-gov- 
 ernment from considerations of expediency only." 35 
 
 In Georgia, Governor Towns, acting upon instructions from the 
 Legislature, called a convention to meet December 10 to consider 
 the compromise measures. During the campaign for the election 
 of delegates, the Union party, which favored acquiescence in the 
 compromise, was opposed by a Southern Rights party, which 
 counselled resistance. The great majority of the Whigs and a re- 
 spectable minority of the Democrats supported the Union candi- 
 
 "National Intelligencer, Oct. 18, 20, 21, 1851; Hamer, op. cit., 123. 
 15 Journal of the State Convention of South Carolina . . . 1852, p. 18. 
 
77 ] ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT 77 
 
 dates; while the majority of the Democrats entered the Southern 
 Rights party. Under the leadership of Howell Cobb, A. H. Steph- 
 ens, and Robert Toombs the Union party won with a large major- 
 ity of the popular vote and an overwhelming majority in the 
 convention. After this victory the Union party perfected an organ- 
 ization and entered the state campaign of 1851 with Howell Cobb, 
 Democrat, as its candidate for governor. The Southern Rights 
 party nominated as its candidate ex-Governor A. G. McDonald, 
 who had presided over the second meeting of the Nashville Con- 
 vention. Again the Unionists won a substantial victory. Similar 
 events occurred in Mississippi. Upon the passage of the com- 
 promise measures, Governor John A. Quitman called an extra 
 session of the Legislature which, in turn, called a state convention 
 to meet November 10, 1851. A Union party was formed to con- 
 test the election of delegates to the convention and the regular 
 state elections of November, 1851. It was composed of the great 
 majority of the Whigs and a minority of the Democrats. H. S. 
 Foote, Union Democrat, was the nominee for governor. The 
 Union party was opposed by a Southern Rights party, officially 
 designated the Democratic State Rights party, led by Quitman 
 and Jefferson Davis and composed chiefly of Democrats. The 
 Unionists won a sweeping victory in the September elections for 
 delegates to the convention, and elected Foote governor over 
 Jefferson Davis by a small majority in November. The Conven- 
 tion adopted resolutions accepting the compromise measures and 
 declaring secession not to be a constitutional right. 36 In Alabama, 
 Governor Collier refused to call a special session of the Legisla- 
 ture, which might have called a state convention. Sentiment was 
 clearly in favor of acquiescence in the compromise. However, 
 Southern Rights associations were formed, as in other states, and 
 the right of secession was made an issue in the campaign for the 
 election of members of Congress in 1851. 
 
 The contest in South Carolina evoked the publication of numer- 
 ous long pamphlets, several long and laborious articles in the 
 Southern Quarterly Review, and the proceedings of meetings of 
 Southern Rights associations, as well as voluminous discussion in 
 the press and innumerable stump speeches. Both separate-act- 
 ionists and cooperationists again and again represented secession 
 
 "Journal of the Convention of the State of Mississippi . . . 1851, p. 47. 
 
78 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840- 1 86 1 [78 
 
 not only as a remedy for Northern aggression against slavery 
 (although that was the chief consideration) but also as a measure 
 desirable irrespective of the slavery question. The opponents of 
 separate action demonstrated conclusively that separate secession 
 would adversely aifect the prosperity of South Carolina and, 
 especially, the commercial interests of Charleston, even should it 
 be permitted to be peaceful; but it was a rare voice that spoke 
 of the advantages of the Union. 37 The cooperationists were charged 
 with going beyond the separate-actionists in depicting the evils of 
 the Union. 38 J. D. B. DeBow, then of New Orleans, a strong 
 Southern Rights man, objected to most of the papers and docu- 
 ments issued by the South Carolina press because "they go far 
 beyond the necessities of the case, and frame an argument for 
 disunion at all hazards, even were the slavery question closed up 
 and amicably settled." 39 
 
 Early in the contests in Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama the 
 leaders of the Southern Rights parties saw that the people 
 would not go for secession, and sought to shift the issue from 
 the expediency to the constitutional right of secession; 40 there- 
 after arguments for disunion per se, such as were used so freely 
 in South Carolina, were used rather charily. But the people 
 had opportunity to become acquainted with all the disunionist 
 doctrines. 
 
 Outside the four states named the compromise measures were 
 
 "The best arguments against separate secession are in: Speech of Mr. Mem- 
 minger at a -public meeting of the friends of cooperation . . . Charleston, Sept. 23, 
 1851, . .. ; "Letter from W. W. Boyce to J. P. Richardson, President of a con- 
 vention of the Southern Rights Association of South Carolina held at Charleston, 
 May, 1851," republished in National Intelligencer, Nov. 13, 1860; The Letters 
 of Aricola, by Hon. Wm. Elliott; Letter of Gen. James Hamilton "To the People 
 of South Carolina," Nov. n, 1850, National Intelligencer, Dec. 2, 1850. 
 
 ^National Intelligencer, Oct. 14, 1851, quoting the Greenville, S. C., South- 
 ern Patriot. 
 
 DeBou>'s Review, X, 231. 
 
 40 This was not a mere abstract question: There was still a probability that 
 South Carolina would secede alone, and the other Southern states would then 
 be compelled to determine their course with reference to the coercion of a seceded 
 state. Furthermore, a general recognition of the right of secession would prepare 
 the way for future contests over its expediency. 
 
79] ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT 79 
 
 acquiesced in without noteworthy contests. 41 Disunionists, espec- 
 ially disunionists per se, were in a small minority. There were 
 such, however, and they presented the disunion arguments. There 
 was considerable discussion of the proper policy to be pursued in 
 case the cotton states should secede, and considerable speculation 
 in regard to the probable effects of separation from the North 
 upon the economic systems of the respective states. Furthermore, 
 disunionists in states most likely to secede indulged in much 
 speculation as to what other states would be included within the 
 boundaries of the proposed Southern confederacy, and advanced 
 arguments to prove that it would be to the interest of Virginia, 
 Maryland, or other particular state to go with the South in the 
 event of a dissolution. Men in the states which were the subjects 
 of such speculation had to take cognizance. 
 
 In analyzing the arguments of an economic nature which were 
 used in behalf of secession or in behalf of taking advanced ground 
 in the sectional struggle, it is not necessary to specify whether 
 they were used by conditional disunionists or unconditional dis- 
 unionists. The arguments used by the one class differed little 
 from those used by the other; furthermore, it is not always easy 
 to classify any gi^n individual on this basis. 
 
 The most elaborate calculation of the value of the Union made 
 during the crisis may be found in a long and well-written pamph- 
 let, published early in 1850, entitled, "The Union, Past and Fu- 
 ture, How It Works and How to Save It," 42 by Muscoe R. H. 
 
 "In North Carolina the minority was rather strong. In the Legislature of 
 1850-1851, resolutions affirming the constitutional right of secession were defeated 
 with difficulty. In the congressional campaign of 1851 the right of secession was 
 an issue; the opposition gained two seats in Congress as a result. Cole, Whig 
 Party in the South, 192; Win. K. Boyd, "North Carolina on the Eve of Seces- 
 sion," in Amer. Hist. Assoc., Rept., 1910, p. 171. Cave Johnson, of Tennessee, 
 heard secession per se arguments in his state. Letter to James Buchanan, Jan. 
 20, 1850, in St. G. L. Sioussat, "Tennessee, the Compromise of 1850, and the 
 Nashville Convention," Miss. Vol. Hist. Rev., II, 313-47. 
 
 "Published anonymously in Charleston, 1850; republished, several years 
 later, in DeBow's Review, XVIII and XIX, passim. The pamphlet was re- 
 viewed by E. Haskett Derby, Boston lawyer, in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, 
 
 XXIII, 371-83, and in a pamphlet Reality versus Fiction, Boston, 1850. Gar- 
 nett answered Derby in an article in Hunt's, XXIV, 403-431, "The Union, Past 
 and Future: 'A Brief Review' Reviewed." Derby closed the argument, Hunt's, 
 
 XXIV, 659-681. For other reviews of Garnett's pamphlet see So. Quar. Rev., 
 XIX, 189-226; DeBow's Review, X, 132-146, article, "The Future of the South," 
 by Thomas Prentice Kettell. 
 
8O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [80 
 
 Garnett, of Virginia, a relative of R. M. T. Hunter and Henry A. 
 Wise, and an able and influential politician of the state rights 
 school. Garnett reviewed the slavery struggle, and found that the 
 South had reached a point where she must insist upon "sufficient 
 guarantees for the observance of her rights and her future po- 
 litical equality, or she must dissolve a Union which no longer pos- 
 sesses its original character." He proposed to put before the 
 North what she would lose if the South should be forced to take 
 the latter alternative. He calculated the value which the laws dis- 
 criminating against foreign shipping had been to the North an 
 enormous sum according to his method of calculation. The oper- 
 ation of the tariff, he analyzed in the usual anti-protectionist man- 
 ner, and calculated that between 1791 and 1845 " tne slavehold- 
 ing States paid $316,492,083 more than their just share, and the 
 free States as much less . . . "; and this when, according to his 
 statement, the whole amount of duties collected in the same per- 
 iod was only $927,050,097. In the only other branch of public 
 revenue of any consequence, the proceeds of the sales of public 
 lands, the disproportion of Northern and Southern contributions 
 had been still greater. From the subject of taxation Garnett 
 passed to disbursements. The free states had received much 
 larger donations of the public lands. Of expenditures for collec- 
 tion of customs, for "bounties on pickled fish, and the allowances 
 to fishing vessels," for coast fortifications, for light houses, for 
 the coast survey, for internal improvements, for Revolutionary 
 pensions, and even for the post office system, the South had re- 
 ceived much less and the North much more than her proportion- 
 ate share. The public debt, held mostly in the North, had been 
 the source of yet more enormous benefits to that section. In sum- 
 mary, he said: "The heads of the federal expenditures which we 
 have examined give a fair notion of the rest; and it may be safely 
 assumed, that while the South has paid seven-ninths of the taxes, 
 the North has had seven-ninths of their disbursements." 
 
 According to Garnett this inequality in the operation of the 
 Federal government as respects the sections would account for 
 the growth of cities and the prosperity of the North. The effect 
 upon the North of a dissolution of the Union would be ruinous. 
 She would have to rely on direct taxation to support her govern- 
 ment. The South on the other hand would pay less taxes and 
 disburse them among her own people. She would conduct her 
 own commerce and that of the great Northwest. "Norfolk and 
 
8l] ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT 8l 
 
 Charleston and Savannah, so long pointed at by the North as a 
 proof of the pretended evils of slavery, will be crowded with 
 shipping, and their warehouses crammed with merchandise." The 
 future of Southern agriculture would be equally brilliant. By 
 virtue of her command of the great staple of cotton, her great 
 natural advantages, and her strategic location "midway in the new 
 hemisphere, holding the outlets of Northern commerce, and the 
 approaches to South America and the Pacific, through the Gulf," 
 the Southern confederacy would occupy a powerful position in the 
 world. The pamphlet was concluded with a glorification of slavery 
 and agriculture and a depiction of the demoralizing influences of 
 factories; for Garnett would not encourage manufactures in his 
 free trade republic. 
 
 More frequently .quoted, perhaps, than Garnett's pamphlet was 
 an article in the Democratic Review, January, 1850, written by the 
 editor, Thomas Prentice Kettell, and entitled, "Stability of the 
 Union." 43 It was a plea to the people of the North not to attack 
 an institution upon which their prosperity so largely depended; it 
 was similar in strain to the pleas frequently advanced by organs 
 of the manufacturing and commercial interests of the North. 44 
 Kettell said nothing about unequal operation of the Federal gov- 
 ernment, but emphasized the profits realized by the North from 
 manufacturing for the South, carrying her commerce, and acting 
 as her banker. The annual pecuniary value to the North of a 
 union with the South, he estimated in a table 45 containing the fol- 
 lowing items: 
 
 "Also in DeBow's Review, VIII, 348-363; DeBow, Industrial Resources, III, 
 357-366. 
 
 ^See, for example, DeBow's Review, IX, 93-100, quoting the New York 
 Courier and Enquirer; Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XX, 292 ff., letter of 
 Colonel Alexander Hamilton, of New York. 
 
 "Democratic Review, XXVI, 13. Quoted in Congress by Thomas L. Cling- 
 man, Cong. Globe, 31 Cong. I Sess., 203 ff.; by Downs, of Louisiana, ibid., Appx., 
 172; by Averett, of Virginia, ibid., Appx., 396; Thomas L. Harris, of Illinois, 
 ibid., Appx., 411. Mr. Harris said: "But, Mr. Chairman, several gentlemen, 
 both here and in the other end of the Capitol [Senate], have relied upon an 
 article in a late number of the Democratic Review to show that the North is 
 reaping upward of $88,000,000 from its connection with the South, while it is 
 careful not to show that the South derives any benefit from the North." See 
 also Aaron V. Brown, Speeches, Congressional and Political, and Other Writings, 
 302 (Governor of Tennessee); Charleston Mercury, Feb. 15, 1850, quoted in 
 National Intelligencer, Feb. 20. 
 
82 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [82 
 
 Freights of Northern shipping on Southern produce. . .$40,186,178 
 Profits derived on imports at the North for Southern 
 
 account 9,000,000 
 
 Profits on exchange operations 1,000,000 
 
 Profits on Northern manufactures sold at the South. . 22,250,000 
 
 Profits on Western produce descending the Mississippi 10,000,000 
 
 Profits on Northern capital employed at the south . . . 6,000,000 
 
 Total earnings of the North per annum $88,436,178 
 
 There was nothing in KettelPs article to indicate that the South- 
 ern people received any pecuniary advantages from their union 
 with the North. Southern men quoted his table not only to show 
 why the North should grant justice to the South, but also what 
 the South would save annually by a dissolution of the Union. 
 
 Of the speeches in Congress in which the value of the Union 
 was calculated, perhaps the most notable was that of Thomas L. 
 Clingman, Whig, of North Carolina. 46 He dwelt upon the inequal- 
 ity of taxation and disbursements, and told what ample revenues 
 a Southern confederacy could command with a tariff of thirty 
 or even twenty per cent. "Subjecting the goods of the North to a 
 duty, with those from other foreign countries, would at once give 
 a powerful stimulus to our own manufactures." He described the 
 advantages the Southern states possessed for cotton manufactur- 
 ing, and added, "We should thus have that diversity of pursuits 
 which is most conducive to the prosperity and happiness of a peo- 
 ple." John C. Calhoun in his last great speech, March 4, 1850, did 
 not calculate the value of the Union; he did, however, reiterate his 
 conviction that unequal taxation and disbursements had caused 
 that loss of equilibrium between the sections which, he said, was 
 the "great and primary cause" of the belief of the Southern people, 
 "that they cannot remain, as things now are, consistently with 
 honor and safety, in the Union." Unequal distribution of the taxes 
 and disbursements had transferred hundreds of millions from the 
 South to the North. This had increased the population of the 
 
 **Cong. Globe, 31 Cong., i Sess., 200-207, speech in the House, Jan. 22, 
 1850; Thomas L. Clingman, Speeches and Writings, 245 ff. Clingman expressed 
 similar ideas in a speech in the House, February 15, 1851, Speeches and Writ- 
 ings, 275 ff. This speech was regarded in the South as the platform of the 
 ultras. See National Intelligencer, Feb. I, 1850. 
 
83 ] ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT 83 
 
 latter by attracting immigration from all quarters and sections. 
 Had the South retained her wealth and her equality in the terri- 
 tories, she would have divided, at least, the immigration. 47 
 
 Space will not permit an account of the contents of the numer- 
 ous pamphlets and speeches occasioned by the contests in South 
 Carolina and elsewhere over the acceptance of the compromise 
 measures. One example will suffice to illustrate their tone and 
 temper. John Townsend, a prominent cooperationist of South 
 Carolina, in a vigorous pamphlet entitled, The Southern States, 
 Their Present Peril and Their Certain Remedy, named aboli- 
 tionism as the peril and secession as the remedy; but it was a 
 remedy for more than the dangers threatening slavery. In the 
 usual strain he told of the unequal operation of the Federal govern- 
 ment and its effects. He described the vast resources of the 
 South, and said: 
 
 How different will be the aspect of things in the whole South, 
 when this tide of wealth is dammed up within our own borders, 
 and made to roll back ajpaong our own people; and when our im- 
 mense capital is employed by our own merchants in establishing 
 a direct trade between our own Southern ports and our custom- 
 ers all over the world . . . The arts will revive, manufactures will 
 spring up around us; our agriculture will rear its drooping head, 
 our commerce will expand, mechanic labor, meeting with ample 
 rewards will pour in upon us, and emigration [sic], no longer dis- 
 couraged by the uninviting aspect of our country will flock to our 
 shores. 48 
 
 In the United States Senate, R. B. Rhett, who had been elected 
 to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Calhoun, was led by an 
 attack made upon him by Henry S. Foote, of Mississippi, 49 to 
 make a long speech explaining why he was a secessionist he was 
 the leader of the separate-actionists in his state. He reviewed the 
 
 "Works, IV, 542-73. 
 
 **P. 17. Other secessionist pamphlets or articles were: Wm. H. Trescott, 
 The Position and Course of the South; E. B. Bryan, The Rightful Remedy. Ad- 
 dressed to the Slaveholders of the South; [A. G. Magrath], A Letter on South- 
 ern Wrongs and Southern Remedies: Addressed to the Hon. W . J. Grayson in 
 reply to his Letter to the Governor of South Carolina on the Dissolution of 
 the Union. 
 
 "Foote charged Rhett with having said that he expected, through the 
 agency of the Nashville Convention, by making demands to which he knew 
 Congress would not accede, to break up the Union. Cong. Globe, 32 Cong., I 
 Sess., 96. 
 
84 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM,l84O-l86l [84 
 
 history of the struggles over slavery, and charged thaf^the North- 
 ern people were animated by a desire for its final extinction. But 
 the action of Congress with respect to slavery in the territories, he 
 said, was only a sequence in a course of policy inimical to the 
 South which had been pursued many years. "If I mistake not, 
 from the very foundation of this Government to this day, the 
 operation of it in its financial and pecuniary relations, has had 
 but one uniform tendency; and that has been, to aggrandize the 
 North at the expense of the South." He traced the 'history of 
 the tariff from the beginning, and reviewed the whole subject of 
 taxation and disbursements in a manner very similar to that of 
 Garnett's pamphlet. "Is it wonderful," he asked ''that under such 
 a course of policy, the poorest section of the' Union should be the 
 richest, and the South should, with all her vast resources, linger 
 in her prosperity?" He traced the decline of Southern commerce, 
 and estimated the value to the North of the monopoly of the 
 coasting trade. "The South," he said, "is nothing else now, but 
 the very best colony of the North any people ever possessed." 50 
 Rhett's colleagues understood his speech to be an argument for 
 secession per se. Senator Cass so took it, and condemned it. 51 
 Senator Mason, of Virginia, declared that his state had no sym- 
 pathy with those who "preferred disunion." 52 Senator Downs, of 
 Louisiana, asked why discuss further the compromise measures 
 when Rhett had himself admitted that he did not find in them 
 sufficient reason to justify the disunion movement which he had 
 set on foot in South Carolina. 53 In the House, E. K. Smart, of 
 Maine, replied in detail, with a yet more imposing array of sta- 
 tistics than Rhett had used, to the latter's speech and to one of 
 somewhat similar tone which had been made in the House by A. 
 G. Brown, of Mississippi. 54 He did so, he explained, because "I 
 have often thought that a fair and candid investigation of the 
 benefits and advantages of this Government, enjoyed by the 
 South, would disarm the spirit of disunion; that our southern 
 friends, by an examination of the facts, would be induced to de- 
 mand less of the North." 
 
 *Cong. Globe, 32 Cong., i Sess., Appx., 42-8. 
 "Ibid., 32 Cong., I Sess., 146. 
 "Ibid., 32 Cong., i Sess., Appx., 49. 
 "Ibid., 32 Cong., i Sess., Appx., 98. 
 "Ibid., 32 Cong., I Sess., Appx., 464-71. 
 
85] ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT 85 
 
 Unionists did not fail to seek other causes than the quarrel over 
 slavery and the fears for the security of that institution for the 
 existence of disunion sentiment in the South. F. A. P. Barnard, in 
 an address to the citizens of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, said he be- 
 lieved there were causes much deeper than the slavery agitation 
 for the war which had been waged to the knife against the Union. 
 The agitators had seized upon the soreness produced in the 
 Southern mind by the infringement of undeniable rights as the 
 most available means of accomplishing their ulterior designs. He 
 retold the story of South Carolina nullification; the people of that 
 state were still bitter from the old feud, he said. A conviction pre- 
 vailed that the Union had been unequal in its benefits: "Such a 
 conviction has been, is probably at this moment, partaken by 
 very many who feel no disposition to rush into disunion as a 
 remedy. Indeed the impression seems extensively to exist, that, 
 by the operation of the Federal Constitution, through Federal 
 Legislation, the South has oeen made in some sort, tributary to 
 the North." He told of Southern dependence upon the North for 
 manufactures, of the sensitiveness of the Southern people about 
 the matter, and their analysis of the causes of their dependence. 
 "From this condition of things our people have become impatient 
 to be free; and this it is ... more truly than any other existing 
 evil, which has caused the word disunion to be of late so often 
 and so lightly spoken among us, and the thought of what it signi- 
 fies to be contemplated with so little horror." 85 The Richmond 
 Whig thought much of the dissatisfaction in South Carolina had 
 originated in having attributed to the Federal government conse- 
 quences which were rather attributable to the competition of 
 fresher and more fertile states of the South, engaged in the cul- 
 ture of the same staple as herself. 56 
 
 The Unionists in the cotton states in their contests with the 
 Southern Rights parties found their best tactics to be to defend 
 the compromise measures, appeal to the patriotism of the 
 
 ^Oration Delivered before the Citizens of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, July 4, 
 1851, 12. 
 
 ""March 5, 1851. A similar statement is in an editorial of March 22. 
 
86 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [86 
 
 masses, 57 impeach the motives of Southern Rights leaders, and 
 picture secession as a measure that would bathe the nation in 
 blood. They showed that secession meant division of the South; 
 for the border states could not be expected to secede. 58 In par- 
 ticular localities they pointed out how separation would injure es- 
 tablished commercial and agricultural interests. In general they 
 did not find it necessary tc refute at length the doctrine that the 
 prosperity of the South suffered from an unequal operation of the 
 Federal government. No doubt many shared this view to some ex- 
 tent. Yet there was a fundamental divergence in the views of the 
 two groups as to the Union's economic effects upon the sections. 
 Unionists were inclined to depict the unexampled peace and 
 progress in wealth and strength of the great republic and to con- 
 sider the South a partaker therein. 59 The Mobile Daily Advertiser 
 said Alabama was never more prosperous. "Why cannot secession 
 orators be serious?" 60 Said H. S. Foote of Mississippi: "It is 
 sufficient for us to know that the Union is of inappreciable value 
 to every portion of this widespread Republic; . . . That the gen- 
 eral action of the government has been more or less unequal and 
 oppressive to our local interests of the South, cannot be denied." 61 
 Particularly in Georgia, the most prosperous of the cotton states, 
 was the plea effective that the state owed its prosperity to the 
 Union. The Richmond Whig ascribed the Union victory in 
 Georgia to prosperity the refusal of the people to be convinced 
 that the Union had inflicted any injury upon them. 62 General 
 James Hamilton, who traveled through the cotton states in the 
 
 "Henry W. Hilliard said: "The value of the Union which binds these States 
 together is incalculable; its priceless value defies all the ordinary methods of 
 computation; it is consecrated by battles, and triumphs, and glories, which be- 
 long to the past; .... it secures to us innumerable blessings; it looks forward to 
 a future still more prosperous and more glorious than the past." Cong. Globe, 
 31 Cong., i Sess., Appx., 34. 
 
 "Speech of Senator Jere Clemens, in Huntsville, Alabama, Nov. 4, 1850, in 
 National Intelligencer, Nov. 10; letter from Joel R. Poinsett to the people of 
 S. C., Charleston Mercury, Dec. 5. 
 
 * 9 Grayson, W. J., Letter to the Governor of South Carolina on the Dissolu- 
 tion of the Union, p. 8. This is one of the best of the Union pamphlets. 
 
 '"Quoted in the National Intelligencer, Dec. 6, 1850. 
 
 "Cong., Globe, 32 Cong., i Sess., Appx., 59, reply to Rhett. 
 
 "Mar. 5, 1851. 
 
87] ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT 87 
 
 compromise year, made a similar diagnosis; in Georgia and Ala- 
 bama the high price of cotton had neutralized the disunion senti- 
 ment, while Louisiana had "an average sugar crop and would 
 acquiesce." 63 
 
 Unionists, in so far as they admitted "Southern decline," were 
 disposed to emphasize explanations for it other than the fiscal 
 action of the Federal government. The majority of them were 
 Whigs, who had, in general, supported those protective and fiscal 
 measures to which disunionists ascribed the woes of the South. 
 The Unionists dwelt upon such causes for lagging prosperity as 
 overproduction of cotton, lack of diversity in agriculture, and the 
 failure to encourage home manufactures. They showed how the 
 older states had suffered from the emigration of their citizens to 
 the richer and fresher lands of the Southwest. Up to this time at 
 least, the Whigs had given mo/e earnest support than the Demo- 
 crats to those movements for the diversification of industry which 
 have been described in previous chapters, and at this juncture 
 they advocated it as a better method than secession for securing 
 the rights and prosperity of the South. 64 
 
 The position of New Orleans as an exporting and importing 
 center for the Mississippi valley plainly operated against the 
 growth of disunion sentiment in Louisiana; men of that state in- 
 sisted that the valley could not be divided. 65 Few from Kentucky 
 and Missouri calculated the value of the Union. Humphrey 
 Marshall, of Kentucky, offered an explanation for the strong at- 
 tachment of those states for the Union. There was a region, he 
 said, where cotton and sugar did not grow, and where manufac- 
 tures and navigation were not the only employments. "The inter- 
 ests of that people are identical, no matter whether they live in a 
 free State or a slave State, and they cannot be induced to sacrifice 
 their welfare or their friendship for the triumph of any extreme 
 doctrine about slavery."" 36 Governor Crittenden expressed the 
 same idea: "To Kentucky and the other Western States in the 
 
 68 "To the People of South Carolina," in National Intelligencer, Dec. 2, 1850. 
 84 See Barnard, F. A. P., Oration Delivered before the Citizens of Tuscaloosa, 
 Alabama, July 4, 1851. Cf. Cole, Whig Party in the South, 206-211. 
 
 "Speech of Downs in the Senate, Cong. Globe, 31, Cong., i Sess., Appx., 171. 
 w lbid., 31 Cong., i Sess., 409. 
 
88 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [88 
 
 Valley of the Mississippi, the Union is indispensable to their 
 commercial interests." 07 
 
 In North Carolina the disunion per se arguments were well re- 
 futed. The absence of identity of interests between the two Car- 
 olinas was occasionally emphasized. Said Congressman Stanley, 
 Whig: " .... we are invited to contemplate the glories of a 
 Southern Confederacy, in which Virginia and South Carolina are 
 to have great cities, to be supported by the colony or plantation of 
 North Carolina!" 68 Perhaps in no state other than the older cot- 
 ton states was a greater disposition shown to listen to the uncon- 
 ditional disunion arguments than in eastern Virginia. But there 
 were strong deterrant influences: trade both with the North and 
 South; prospects of valuable commercial relations with the West 
 when the great internal improvement system already projected 
 should make Virginia -he "thoroughfare and rendezvous of our 
 great and united sisterhood of states;" 69 and, more important, the 
 devotion to the Union >f the western part of the state, whose 
 economic interests were imilar to those of other parts of the Ohio 
 valley rather than to th" se of the South. 70 
 
 It will have been ob.- erved that disunion sentiment and a dis- 
 position to put a low estimate upon the value of the Union were 
 not uniformly distributed throughout the slaveholding states. It 
 is true that the states in which the strongest secession movements 
 developed were those in which the ratios of black to white popula- 
 tion were highest. (However, it is difficult to demonstrate that 
 within such states secession sentiment was especially strong in the 
 black belts.) But the states in which the disunion movements 
 were strongest were also the states most dependent commercially 
 and industrially or, to use Calhoun's phrase, they were the 
 "exporting states." They were the states, too, in which the doc- 
 trine that the Federal government operated to make one section 
 tributary to the other in an economic way had early found wide- 
 spread acceptance. 
 
 "Coleman, The Life of John J. Crittenden, I, 350-52. Cf. Speech of Henry 
 Clay in the Senate, Cong. Globe, 31 Cong., i Sess., Appx., 127. 
 
 m lbid., 31 Cong., I Sess., Appx., 409. 
 
 "Letter from William C. Rives, U. S. Minister to France, in National In- 
 telligencer, May I, 1850. 
 
 TO Cf. Ambler, Sectionalism in Virginia, 248 f. 
 
89] ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT 89 
 
 The evidence in regard to party affiliations is, perhaps, more 
 conclusive as to motives. In the South as a whole the overwhelm- 
 ing majority of the Whig party, as we have seen, was Unionist and 
 accepted the compromise measures without much dissatisfaction. 
 It would seem that the disunionists of 1850, and those who con- 
 templated disunion with complacency, were chiefly of the Calhoun 
 wing of the Democratic party; many of them had been Nullifica- 
 tionists. The Union Democrats of 1850, on the other hand, were 
 chiefly of Jackson, Benton, and Van Buren antecedents. 
 
 In South Carolina the alignment is not diffiicult to see. The 
 Unionists were, in the main, the remnants of the Whig party. Of 
 the leaders of the Union group, J. J. Pettigru, B. F. Perry, Judge 
 John Benton O'Neall, Richard Yeadon, and W. J. Grayson were 
 Whigs, Joel R. Poinsett was a Jackson .Democrat; all had been 
 Union men in 1832. Waddy Thompson, 'j^Vhig, was the one con- 
 spicuous example of a former Nullifier turnjed Unionist. Of the sep- 
 arate-actionists, all the prominent leacjfs who had figured in 
 Nullification days had been Nullifiers; i^ .this category fell R. B. 
 Rhett, B. F. Duncan, F. W. Pickens, I. ^Holmes, W. F. Colcock, 
 A. Burt, and Maxcy Gregg. With one #ception these men had 
 been leaders also of the Bluffton movement of 1844. Of the co- 
 operationists of 1851, the majority of the prominent leaders had 
 been Nullifiers; of this class were A. P. Butler, J. H. Hammond, 
 James Hamilton, William S. Preston, F. L. Wardlaw, and W. W. 
 Boyce. Other prominent cooperationists had been Unionists in 
 1832; in this class were ex-Governor J. P. Richardson, Daniel E. 
 Huger, Richard I. Manning, C. G. Memminger, and James Ches- 
 nut. Langdon Cheves had been a cooperationist in 1832. All of 
 the secessionists named were Democrats except William S. 
 Preston, cooperationist, who was a state rights Whig. 
 
 In July, 1850, John H. Lumpkin, of Georgia, wrote Howell 
 Cobb: "All who are for resistance and for disunion will be found 
 in the ranks of the democratic party; and if their history should 
 be known, they will be found out to be old Nullifiers in i832." T1 
 Other Union Democrats of Georgia complained of those "secession 
 views which have long been entertained by a school of Southern 
 politicians which have always injured and weakened, never bene- 
 
 "July 21. Toombs, Stephens, Cobb Correspondence. 
 
9O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [90 
 
 fited or strengthened the Democratic party." 72 The Union Demo- 
 crats were almost exclusively from the northern counties, which 
 had never accepted the teachings of the Carolina school. Such 
 prominent leaders of the Southern Rights party as C. J. Mc- 
 Donald, George M. Troup, Joseph H. Lumpkin, W. F. Colquitt, 
 H. L. Benning, William H. Stiles, J. N. Bethune, and John A. 
 Jones had long been leaders of the state rights wing of the Demo- 
 cratic party. However, in Georgia perhaps to a greater extent than 
 any other Southern state, the Whig party had retained its state 
 rights element; this element, with exceptions such as J. M. Ber- 
 rien, cooperated with their fellows in the Union movement of 1850. 
 The latter fact probably explains why the Union Convention of 
 1850 did not deny the constitutional right of secession as did the 
 Unionists in Alabama and Mississippi. 73 
 
 In Alabama the nullifying state rights faction went into the 
 Democratic party with Calhoun about 1840; after that time the 
 state rights element of the Whig party was comparatively small. 
 But the cleavage between the Calhoun wing of the Democrats, led 
 by such men as Dixon H. Lewis, J. M. Calhoun, W. L. Yancey, 
 the Elmores, and David Hubbard, and the Jackson wing whose 
 leaders were Wm. R. King, Benjamin Fitzpatrick, Jere Clemens, 
 W. R. W. Cobb, etc., remained clear for years. 74 In 1845 
 Dixon H. Lewis wrote of the "Calhoun wing of the Party." It 
 was this wing of the party which formed the Southern Rights 
 party in 1851, and sought to prepare the state for secession. The 
 other wing not only allied with the Whigs to form the Union party 
 but denied the constitutional right of secession. 75 
 
 In Mississippi the situation was very similar to that in Ala- 
 bama. J. A. Wilcox, a Union Democrat elected in 1851, identified 
 the Southern Rights men of his state, whom he denounced as 
 
 "John E. Ward and Henry R. Jackson to Howell Cobb, Feb. 28, 1852, in 
 Toombs, Stephens, Cobb Correspondence, 
 
 "Cf. Hodgson, The Cradle of the Confederacy, 283. 
 
 n lbid., ch. XI; Garrett, Reminiscences of Public Men in Alabama, 297. 
 The author, in telling why David Hubbard, of Lawrence, a Calhoun man, never 
 attained the senatorship, says: "The same reasons which influenced the Jackson 
 Democracy in withholding their support in former days from the men who came 
 
 over with Mr. Calhoun, operated against him in these aspirations; " Garrett 
 
 constantly recognizes the division in the Democratic party. 
 
 "Hodgson, op. cit., 294-296. 
 
91 ] ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE SOUTHERN MOVEMENT QI 
 
 disunionists, as "old-line Democrats." This term he defined as 
 designating those whom Jackson had driven from the party in 
 1832-1833. After that year, he said, they had acted with the Whigs 
 until 1840, when they followed Calhoun back into the Democratic 
 ranks. 76 This description is accurate with the exception that it 
 takes no account of a small element in the Whig party which had 
 not followed Calhoun in 1840, but which nevertheless cooperated 
 with the Southern Rights party in 1851. The leader of this party 
 was John A. Quitman, a native of South Carolina, a Nullifier, and 
 a supporter of Calhoun against Van Buren in 1844. 
 
 In no state can the division in the Democratic ranks be more 
 clearly seen than in Virginia. There the Calhoun men constituted 
 a well defined group. For a number of years they acted almost 
 as a third party holding the balance of power between the Whigs 
 and the Democrats. In 1843-1844 they tried to secure the Demo- 
 cratic nomination for the presidency for Calhoun. In 1847 they 
 were able, by taking advantage of factional fights in the general 
 assembly, to elect R. M. T. Hunter and J. M. Mason to the Sen- 
 ate. Thereafter they gradually tightened their grip upon the 
 Democratic party. 78 But in 1850, and later, leaders still spoke 
 of the "Calhoun wing" or the "States Rights party" almost as if 
 it were a distinct organization. 79 Their strength lay chiefly in east- 
 
 n Cong. Globe, 32 Cong., i Sess., Appx., 282-285. 
 
 "Claiborne, Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman, I, 211-15 a cir- 
 cular written by Quitman for his political friends, 1845. The factional differences 
 in Mississippi may be traced quite readily in the correspondence of Quitman. 
 In 1835, he wrote: "....the people of this state are one-third for Van Buren, 
 one-third Nullifiers, and one-third Whigs." P. 139. In December, 1838, he 
 wrote: "I shall cooperate freely arid boldly with all genuine Republicans, be 
 they Democrats or Nullifiers, in asserting the principles to which I have alluded." 
 P. 167. In 1845: "In politics I hold much the same position as Calhoun and 
 
 Troup In 1844 I preferred, as I had before and do now, Mr. Calhoun to 
 
 any other man for the presidency, but I acquiesced in the nomination of Van 
 Buren, and, until the appearance of his anti-Texas letter, gave him my zealous 
 support." P. 214. 
 
 7 *These statements are based upon numerous letters in the Correspondence 
 of John C. Calhoun, Correspondence of R. M. T. Hunter, and /. H. Hammond 
 Papers, as well as newspaper material, etc., and agree, I believe, with Ambler, 
 Thomas Ritchie and Sectionalism in Virginia. 
 
 ^Correspondence of R. M. T. Hunter, especially letters: James A. Seddon to 
 Hunter, June 16, 1848; L. W. Tazewell to Hunter, Aug. 18, 1850; Seddon to 
 Hunter, Feb. 7, 1852. 
 
92 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [92 
 
 ern Virginia. Their leaders were very able; among them were R. 
 M. T. Hunter, J. M. Mason, James A. Seddon, Henry A. Wise, 
 Lewis E. Harvie, Beverly Tucker, William O. Goode, Wm. F. 
 Gordon, Willoughby Newton, Richard K. Cralle, M. R. H. Gar- 
 nett, and Edmund Ruffin. It was this wing that supported the 
 Nashville Convention and furnished most of the delegates; 80 in 
 this wing virtually all of the Virginia disunionists and those of 
 disunionist -leanings were to be found in 1850. 
 
 Now, to be sure, the State Rights party claimed to be cham- 
 pions and defenders of slavery par excellence, as well as of other 
 Southern interests. But this claim was not admitted by their op- 
 ponents, and had no basis in actual property interest in slaves. 
 The Whig party contained at least its proportionate share of the 
 slaveholders. Whig leaders claimed, with justification it seems, 
 that most of the large slaveholders belonged to their party. Whigs 
 had, of course, reasons for supporting the compromise measures 
 originating in the party considerations; for the administration 
 under whose auspices the measures were enacted was Whig. But 
 after all qualifications are made, no explanation of the alignment 
 of the parties and factions in the South upon the question of 
 Union or disunion is complete which does not take in account the 
 previous history and the origin of the parties. 
 
 "Tucker, Goode, Gordon, and Newton were delegates to the first session of 
 the Nashville Convention, and Gordon was the only representative of Virginia 
 in the second. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 PLANS FOR ESTABLISHING DIRECT TRADE 
 WITH EUROPE, 1847-1860. 
 
 Although for a number of years after the direct trade conven- 
 tions of the 18305 no attempts were made to revive Southern 
 foreign commerce comparable to the efforts of those conventions, 
 at no time did the people of the South become reconciled to com- 
 mercial dependence upon the North. The suspension of the dis- 
 cussion of direct trade was due to the general stagnation of busi- 
 ness and the distrust of all enterprise which characterized a period 
 of several years following the commercial crisis of 1837. 
 
 In 1845 and 1846 there was discussion in Congress and the 
 country at large of the policy of adopting the warehousing sys- 
 tem. The system permitted goods imported from abroad to be 
 placed in bonded warehouses with payments of duties when the 
 goods were withdrawn, unless withdrawn for re-export, in which 
 case no duties were to be collected. The warehousing system met 
 with general favor in the South, and overenthusiastic individuals 
 hailed it as the panacea which would restore Southern foreign 
 commerce. 1 The cash duties system, they said, prevented South- 
 ern merchants, who generally had limited capital and credit, from 
 importing for re-exportation, and gave the advantage to Northern 
 importers of larger means. The warehousing system would enable 
 New Orleans to become the half-way house between Europe and 
 Mexico, and Charleston to conduct the commerce between 
 Europe and the West Indies. According to the memorial to 
 Congress from the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, the want 
 of a warehousing system had driven the Mexican trade to Ha- 
 vana. 2 J. D. B. DeBow thought that, if there was ever to be any 
 foreign commerce in the South, such a system must have a great 
 influence in bringing it about. 3 Congress enacted a warehousing 
 law, effective August 6, 1846.* Being a step in the direction of 
 
 Southern Literary Messenger, XI, 508, 567, 577, 584, articles by Lieut. M. 
 F. Maury. 
 
 'DeBotv's Review, II, 408. 
 
 'Ibid., II, 193. 
 
 'Acts and Resolutions, 29 Cong., I Sess., p. 83. 
 
 93 
 
94 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [94 
 
 free trade, it undoubtedly benefited commerce; 5 but more than a 
 warehousing law was necessary to effect a revolution in the course 
 of Southern trade. 
 
 With the reawakened spirit of progress in the South during the 
 latter half of the fifth decade, came a general renewal of dis- 
 cussion of direct trade with Europe. This period witnessed a re- 
 vival of prosperity in all parts of the Union. Numerous railroad 
 projects took form, and construction upon a large scale was un- 
 dertaken. With the extension of our national boundaries to the 
 Pacific and the discovery of gold in California, grandiose schemes 
 were conceived for establishing communication with the Pacific 
 coast by rail or water. In the South one manifestation of the new 
 spirit was a revival of the direct trade movement. In 1847 DeBow 
 said the subject of direct trade was once again receiving atten- 
 tion; 6 and numerous long articles in his newly founded DeBow's 
 Review attest to the revival of interest. He republished the pro- 
 ceedings of the Augusta and Charleston conventions and the re- 
 ports of McDuffie, Hayne, Elmore, and Longstreet. "We would 
 recall those scenes and times," he said. 7 But whereas in those 
 times the direct trade movement was pretty much confined to 
 the Atlantic seaboard, now it spread to the Gulf ports and the 
 entire South. Until 1861 nothing was recognized with more stead- 
 fastness and unanimity as a proper element in the policy not only 
 of seaports but of the South as a section than the encouragement 
 of direct trade. It was a subject of constant discussion in the 
 press. Conventions were held to consider plans for promoting it. 
 It held a prominent place in all the sessions of the Southern Com- 
 mercial Convention, which met regularly from 1852 to 1859, and 
 was given consideration in the less regular Cotton Planters' Con- 
 vention. Plans for achieving it demanded consideration from 
 chambers of commerce, city councils, and state legislatures, as 
 well as from individuals. 
 
 In the fifties, as in the thirties, commercial dependence was be- 
 lieved to be responsible for the transfer of much Southern wealth 
 
 'Lieutenant Maury wrote a few years later: "These importers [direct] and 
 the warehousing system are recovering back for the South a portion of the direct 
 trade." DeBow, Industrial Resources, III, 14. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, III, 557. 
 
 ''Ibid., Ill, 558. 
 
95] PLANS FOR ESTABLISHING DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE 95 
 
 to the North in the form of profits; as in the thirties, it was said 
 that the Northern merchants and ship owners reaped large profits 
 from importing for the Southern states and conducting their 
 foreign and coastwise commerce. The estimated total of the sums 
 abstracted from the yearly product of Southern industry in the 
 form of importers' profits, interest upon advances, freight charges, 
 insurance, commissions, port and wharf charges, and the expenses 
 of Southern merchants who went North to purchase their stocks, 
 had grown with the nation's commerce and shipping, and, by the 
 processes of Southern arithmetic, had become enormous indeed. 
 Said William Gregg: "It is a hopeless task to undertake to even 
 approximate the vast sums of wealth which have been trans- 
 ferred from the South to the North by allowing the Northern 
 cities to import and export for us." 8 Joseph Segar, of Virginia, 
 cited the report of the Secretary of the Treasury showing the im- 
 ports and exports of the United States for 1856 to have been 
 $314,000,000 and $326,000,000 respectively. "Now the commer- 
 cial profit of this vast amount of business inures almost exclusive- 
 ly to the north. The South has scarcely a say in the matter. She 
 not only surrenders nearly all the profit on the import trade, but 
 our productions the basis of our exports are mostly shipped 
 to Northern cities, and thence reshipped in Northern bottoms to 
 the foreign market, so that she actually loses the factorage on her 
 own productions. Such a state of things is an annual loss to her 
 of numerous millions, and her bitter reproach." 9 Another Virgin- 
 ian calculated, in 1853, tnat Virginia lost $9,539,037.76 annually 
 by "allowing" New York to carry her trade. 10 
 
 To such statements as these, and there were hundreds of them, 
 it was not sufficient to reply, as Northern men frequently did, that 
 what the North got was only a fair commercial remuneration. 11 
 True, people in the South considered the remuneration too great 
 because the indirect course of trade, by reason of the greater mile- 
 age, the extra transhipments necessary, and the mediation of a 
 greater number of middlemen, each of whom must exact a profit, 
 made foreign goods more costly to the ultimate purchasers than 
 
 'DeBow's Review, XXIX, 82. 
 
 'Ibid., XXII, 515. 
 
 "Ibid., XIV, 501. 
 
 "Olmsted, The Cotton Kingdom, II, 301. 
 
g6 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [96 
 
 would the direct course. Many believed they were being ex- 
 ploited by Northern merchants and financiers, made the prey of 
 manipulators, and made to pay extortionate prices. But the rather 
 characteristic reply quoted above portrays inability or unwilling- 
 ness to grasp the chief reasons for dissatisfaction in the South with 
 the manner in which Southern commerce was conducted. 
 
 As in an earlier period discussed, so in this it was believed that 
 Northern seaports owed their phenomenal growth and prosperity 
 very largely to their control of Southern foreign commerce. It 
 was a logical conclusion that, could this commerce be conducted 
 by Southern seaports, they would enjoy like prosperity. And in 
 the 18505 the people of every Southern seaport of any preten- 
 sions whatever had the natural and laudable ambition to make 
 it a great commercial center. William S. Forrest in his Sketches 
 of Norfolk rather naively related that upon September 26, 1850, 
 the Honorable Henry A. Wise, of Accomac, "spoke with startling 
 eloquence, and most convincing power of argument, of the reason 
 that Norfolk is not already a great city, and of the means by 
 which she may become a great Southern emporium." 12 There was 
 much of this type of eloquence. 
 
 The public had no reason to be uninformed in regard to the 
 relative advantages and disadvantages of every Southern port. 
 The jealousy of rivals displayed in some of the cities is rather 
 amusing, considering the inconsequence of the majority of them; 
 although it had rather important influence upon the location of 
 railroads in the South, and possibly some small influence detri- 
 mental to the success pf projects for direct trade with Europe. 
 
 The citizens of Norfolk hoped much from her splendid harbor 
 and strategic location at the entrance of the Chesapeake. Rich- 
 mond, upon the James river, was a larger town, more centrally 
 located with reference to Virginia, possessed of the advantage of 
 being the capital of the state, and her people were determined to 
 make her the commercial capital of Virginia, if not of a much 
 larger territory. The people of North Carolina regretted the 
 
 "P. 260. The same thought recurs frequently, for example: ''There are 
 many thinking, practical, and intelligent men, who believe that Norfolk, at some 
 not very distant period in the history of the world, will be a great city. Every 
 person, who thinks upon the subject at all, knows well enough that the place is 
 not what it ought long since to have been. P. 281. Forrest quoted Jefferson and 
 Madison upon the future of Norfolk. P. 296, 297. 
 
97] PLANS FOR ESTABLISHING DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE 97 
 
 necessity of resorting to Charleston and Norfolk because of the 
 want of a good port in their own state, and there was discussion 
 of the possibility of making Wilmington a great Southern empor- 
 ium. Charleston and Savannah were the only ports of any conse- 
 quence upon a long stretch of coast line, and were rivals for the 
 trade of several states. In the fifties Charleston was in many re- 
 spects the most progressive city in the South. 13 With the excep- 
 tion of New Orleans, she had more citizens of wealth and better 
 banking facilities than any other city south of Baltimore. Many 
 of her merchants were natives or residents of long standing, and 
 were imbued with a high degree of public spirit. Her chamber of 
 commerce was aggressive and resourceful. On the other hand, 
 Savannah, while she had all the drawbacks of Southern cities in 
 general, possessed certain advantages of location from which 
 much was hoped. She was more advantageously located for se- 
 curing railroad connection with the West. 
 
 Until the vast possibilities of the railroad for changing the es- 
 tablished course of trade were realized, the citizens of New 
 Orleans never doubted that their city was destined to become the 
 metropolis of America, situated as she was at the mouth of a 
 river which drains half a continent, and strategically located with 
 reference to the West Indies, Mexico, South America, and the 
 Pacific. 1 * Not until after about 1850 did the people of New Or- 
 leans awaken to a realization that the greatness of the city could 
 not be insured merely by permitting time and nature to take their 
 courses, but that they must resort to the methods less favored 
 cities employed. Then the city government was reformed; radiat- 
 ing railroads were projected, and their construction was pushed 
 vigorously. One, the New Orleans, Jackson, and Great Northern 
 aimed at the Ohio; the other, the Opelousas and Western, pointed 
 toward the west and was intended to be the first span of a road to 
 the Pacific. Great interest was taken in projects to establish com- 
 munication with the Pacific by way of the Isthmus of Tehuan- 
 tepec. The rivals of New Orleans were not neighboring cities on 
 
 13 Cf. Cordoza, J. N., Reminiscences of Charleston, 1 866; Trenholm, W. L., 
 The Centennial Address before the Charleston Chamber of Commerce, llth 
 Feb., 1884. 
 
 "Cf. Cable, Geo. W., History and Present Condition of New Orleans, Tenth 
 Census, XIX, Pt. II, 213-95. 
 
98 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [98 
 
 the Gulf, although citizens of Mobile regarded her as one, but 
 cities of the Atlantic seaboard which were being connected with 
 the Mississippi valley by railroads and inland waterways. 
 
 Mobile was the only other Gulf port of any consequence; her 
 ambitions far exceeded her legitimate expectations. John Forsyth 
 told of the aspirations and the sad deficiencies of Mobile in the 
 same breath: "Mobile is but a chrysalis of commerce .... She 
 stands trembling at the portals of a grand destiny which she has 
 not the courage to enter, and paralyzed by the coward fear that 
 the splendid columns and gilded domes, the sapphire pavements 
 and rubied windows of the temple of commercial grandeur, are 
 not for her enjoyment and realization." 15 This, of a town of about 
 25,000 inhabitants. 
 
 It was, then, from chambers of commerce, boards of trade, 
 merchants, editors, and public spirited citizens and officials of 
 Southern seaports that projects for establishing direct trade re- 
 ceived much, if not most, of their support. But the achievement 
 of commercial independence was represented not merely as a 
 measure which would promote the prosperity of individual sea- 
 ports, but also as one which would greatly benefit the South as a 
 whole; the interest in it was not confined to the seaports but was 
 general throughout the South. 
 
 The more general reasons why the loyal and progressive South- 
 erners were very desirous of promoting the material development 
 of the section have been given in connection with the account of 
 the movement to bring the spindles to the cotton. 16 It was galling 
 to their pride that their section should be languishing and depen- 
 dent. They wanted a denser population, cities, towns, railroads, 
 development of natural resources, and the social benefits which 
 they believed would follow material development. They wished 
 to prove by the actual accomplishment that, contrary to the con- 
 tentions of its Northern and British antagonists, cities, commerce, 
 manufactures, and the "arts of living" could flourish in a slave 
 society. And, more important, they felt that the security of slav- 
 ery could no longer be safely entrusted to constitutional guaran- 
 tees and adroit political combinations, but that these must be sup- 
 ported by the power of wealth, numbers, and economic independ- 
 
 "Lecture on "The North and the South," DfBow's Review, XVII, 377. 
 "See ch. II. 
 
99] PLANS FOR ESTABLISHING DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE 99 
 
 ence. If, as was possible, the Union should be dissolved, these 
 things would be essential to national existence. 
 
 Now direct trade and the retention at home of the "tribute" the 
 South paid New York were expected to supply the capital which 
 would build cities, give a stimulus to manufactures, mining, and 
 agriculture, make possible stronger financial institutions, help 
 finance railroads and other internal improvements, and, by conse- 
 quence, invite immigration and, thus, redress the political pre- 
 ponderance of the non-slaveholding states. According to the re- 
 port of the Committee of Ways and Means of the Alabama Legis- 
 lature, "As the proper adjustment of our foreign and domestic 
 trade, on the principle of economy laid down, involves the value of 
 city, town, and county property, agricultural and manufacturing 
 prosperity, the profits on bank, railroad, and canal stocks, as well 
 as population and political power, it becomes one of the highest 
 considerations to all classes." 17 
 
 Furthermore, there were several evils in the Southern economic 
 and social system for which it was believed the establishment of 
 direct trade with Europe would be a specific remedy. One of 
 these was the absence of a permanent mercantile class whose in- 
 terests were identified with those of the South at large both 
 financially and politically. The merchants of most Southern 
 towns, interior as well as seaport, were largely Northern men or 
 foreigners who looked upon their abode in the South as tempor- 
 ary. James Stirling said two-thirds or three-fourths of the com- 
 mercial business was carried on by Northern men or foreigners. 18 
 Most of the cotton buyers and commission merchants were non- 
 residents; the South was literally overrun by agents and collectors 
 of Northern mercantile houses. "The merchants of the South, like 
 the nobility of Ireland," wrote Lieutenant Maury, "are, for the 
 most part, non-residents. At the season when the Southern staples 
 are coming to market, these flock there from all quarters. When 
 the crop is disposed of, they return whence they came, with their 
 gains in their pockets, and, thus, a continued drain is kept upon 
 that country." 19 
 
 No city suffered more in this respect than New Orleans. The 
 wealthy Creoles owned the real estate and lived upon its rental. 
 
 "DfBotv's Review, XIV, 441. 
 
 "Letters from the Slave States, 320. 
 "So. Lit. Mess., XI, 588. 
 
IOO ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840-1 86 1 [lOO 
 
 They were extremely conservative, desired to keep down taxes, 
 and opposed new enterprises. The men who directed commerce 
 were strangers, who had no permanent stake in the city but pre- 
 ferred temporary gains to the future growth of the port. Their 
 earnings were expended or invested chiefly in the North. 20 The 
 busy season of New Orleans extended from October or November 
 to the following spring. During this period thousands of laborers, 
 attracted by high wages, flocked to the city from the Northern 
 states to return thence when the busy season closed. An English 
 observer estimated that of the population from November to May 
 fully a fourth part was migratory. 21 
 
 Practically the whole business of Mobile, Alabama commerce, 
 banking, the few manufactures was in the hands of Northern 
 men. Savannah, Georgia, had a large Northern and foreign ele- 
 ment; Augusta was known as a Yankee town the Yankee ele- 
 ment was not transient in this case. Charleston suffered less from 
 transients and temporary residents than any other Southern city 
 or town. Virginia towns, in general, had a more permanent and 
 more Southern population than those of the cotton states. 
 
 The want, in so many Southern towns of a permanent mercan- 
 tile class thoroughly identified with the interests of the section de- 
 prived the South of a class which, in every community, has much 
 to do with the undertaking of new enterprises. It was largely re- 
 sponsible, too, for the small part cities played in determining state 
 legislative policies. Then, thorough Southerners desired to be rid 
 of the swarms of Northern agents, temporary residents, and mi- 
 gratory population, because they were felt to be unfriendly to 
 slavery. Their presence, it was felt, would divide and distract 
 Southern counsels. Their influence upon native non-si aveholding 
 whites was feared. 
 
 Another feature of the economic system of the South which was 
 greatly deplored, and which it was believed direct trade with 
 Europe would go far toward remedying, was financial dependence 
 upon the East, particularly New York City. This was coming to 
 be considered a great evil at the time of the early direct trade 
 
 x DeBow's Review, XI, 77 ff., quoting a speech of James Robb in a Louis- 
 iana railroad convention, 1851. 
 
 a james Robertson, A Few Months in America, 66. Cf. Robert Russell, 
 North America, 253. During the last decade before the war, however, conditions 
 in New Orleans were considerably improved in this respect. 
 
IOI] PLANS FOR ESTABLISHING DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE IOI 
 
 conventions; it was a matter of greater concern in the 18505. The 
 immense commerce of New York was believed responsible for the 
 centralization there of so much of the financial power and oper- 
 ations of the country. If direct trade could be established, the 
 importers' profits saved, and commercial centers built up, the 
 banking institutions of the South would be strengthened, and thus 
 enabled to meet the financial requirements of the section. 22 
 
 The Southern people were largely dependent upon New York 
 City for the financing of the marketing of their crops. Every fall 
 when Southern staples began to move, planters and shippers made 
 great demands for cash and credit. Southern banks made such 
 loans as their facilities would permit, and in the case of New Or- 
 leans and Charleston they were by no means small; but the chief 
 burden fell upon New York. 
 
 To make this clear it is necessary to review briefly the manner 
 in which Southern crops, particularly cotton, were marketed. Vir- 
 ginia products (chiefly tobacco and grain) consumed outside the 
 state were sold mostly in New York, even when destined to be 
 exported to Europe. Of direct exports a large portion was bought 
 and shipped by New York men. 23 Part of the cotton was sold 
 in the ports to speculators and others, many of whom were New 
 Yorkers. The remainder, and perhaps the larger part, was sold 
 in the North or in England through factors and commission mer- 
 chants representing New York or Liverpool houses. The planters 
 or merchants received advances upon, or payment for, their cot- 
 ton chiefly in the form of sixty-day sterling bills or four-months 
 New York drafts. These bills and drafts were discounted by 
 Southern banks and forwarded to New York, where they went to 
 pay the debts of Southern merchants and others or to secure cash 
 with which to purchase the other bills which came flooding in as 
 the staples went forward. Sterling bills were bought in New York, 
 of course, because there came the larger proportion of the imports 
 and there normally was the demand for bills. Exchange was fre- 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XIV, 441; remarks of Mr. Wheeler in the Virginia House 
 of Delegates, Richmond Enquirer, Dec. 10, 1852; D. M. Barringer, of N. C., in 
 the Old Point direct trade convention, ibid., Aug. 3; H. C. Cabell, of Virginia, 
 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XLII, 323. 
 
 23i 'Letter of a Southern man to Governor Wise of Virginia," Richmond En- 
 quirer, Jan. 9, 1856; editorial, ibid., Dec. 17, 1852. 
 
IO2 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [lO2 
 
 quently in favor of the South (especially was this true in the case 
 of New Orleans), and at such times great sums of specie flowed 
 South to find their way back to the North during the dull seasons 
 of the year. 24 
 
 It is evident that the moving of the cotton crop and, in a large 
 measure, the price the planter received, depended upon the ability 
 and willingness of New York to buy New York drafts and sterling 
 bills. This was strikingly proven at the time of the financial crisis 
 of 1857. The effect of the crash can best be studied at New Or- 
 leans, the greatest cotton exporting port in America. The crop of 
 1857 was short, and the price was expected to be high. Factors, 
 finding money easy, "put out their acceptances" with a liberal 
 hand, expecting the crop coming in to meet all engagements. Cot- 
 ton went on the market at 16^/2 cents, with sterling selling at 
 ioo,}4 to 109^. On September 25 word came from New York 
 that exchange was almost unsaleable. Money became tighter and 
 tighter; sterling fell to 92^2-97; and presently banks refused to 
 take it at any price. Cotton buyers withdrew from the market. A 
 large portion of the cotton crop sold for several cents less than 
 the promised price. 25 
 
 The crash brought the evils of financial dependence home to 
 the South as they had never been brought before. Southern journ- 
 als and writers pointed out that the South had not been respon- 
 sible for the panic. There had been no speculation in the South, 
 they said. True, she had embarked largely upon railroad build- 
 ing, but because of the scarcity of capital the building had been 
 sanely and economically done. The South was in a position to 
 enter upon a flood-tide of prosperity, "And yet and yet almost 
 in the twinkling of an eye, with the suddenness of an earthquake, 
 and unexpectedly as a stroke of lightning from a cloudless sky, 
 cotton was struck down, and became almost unsalable in the 
 
 "Kettell, Southern Wealth and Northern Profits, ch. VII; Hunt's Merchants' 
 Magazine, XXIX, 60; XLII, 318; report of a committee of the Cotton Planters' 
 Convention, Macon, 1858, in DeBow's Review, XXV, 713 f.; Stone, A. H., "The 
 Cotton Factorage System of the Southern States," Amer. Hist. Rev., XX, 557-65. 
 
 "New Orleans Daily Picayune, June I, 1858; Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, 
 XLII, 315, from "Banking at the South with Reference to New York City," by 
 H. C. Cabell, of Virginia. 
 
 ^Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XLII, 315. 
 
IO3] PLANS FOR ESTABLISHING DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE IO3 
 
 Southern market." 26 The South lost millions of dollars ($35,000,- 
 ooo, said Senator J. H. Hammond in his "Mud Sill" speech) 27 
 upon the crop of the year 1857-1858. 
 
 The New Orleans Picayune pointed out the anomaly of the 
 greatest exporting port in America being "stranded because of a 
 money panic in Wall Street" cotton selling at 10 cents a pound 
 while it was 1 8 or 19 in London. 28 The moral was drawn that, 
 had the South direct trade, there would have been a demand at 
 home for sterling bills, and cotton could have gone forward with- 
 out waiting for the recovery of New York. The Picayune dared 
 hope that the disturbance caused by the panic might result in di- 
 rect trade for the South: "The power on which we have been de- 
 pendent so long has at length given way, and almost without 
 knowing it, we have come or are about to come, actually to realize 
 in practice what has hitherto been considered by many an idle 
 dream direct trade with Europe. And should this step .... 
 result in our permanent emancipation from a system whose ad- 
 vantages are far outnumbered by their disadvantages a system 
 which wrings from us annually, without any return except the loss 
 of influence and of power, millions of hard earned dollars we 
 should think the financial crisis, with all its manifold evils, cheap 
 to us." 29 
 
 The immense loss occasioned the South by the crash of Septem- 
 ber, 1857, was but a striking example of the evils of the centraliza- 
 tion of commerce and finance in New York. The cotton states, as 
 did the West for that matter, experienced to a less degree the evils 
 of centralization every fall when the crops were moved. During 
 the idle months funds found their way to New York, there to be 
 used in business or speculation. When the crops of the South and 
 West began to move, there was a tightness in the money market, 
 which operated to depress prices. 30 And this did not signify, as 
 some planters asserted, that New York financial interests were 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., I Sess., 961. 
 ""Quoted in DeBow's Review, XXIII, 656 f. 
 
 ^This is a very moderate statement. For a less temperate one see Ibid., 
 XXIII, 657-9, quoting the Vicksburg True Southron. 
 
 "Kettell, Southern Wealth and Northern Profits, 93, 94. 
 
104 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [l04 
 
 interested in forcing down the price of cotton. 31 It was far pre- 
 ferable to be dependent upon the money power of New York than 
 upon the money power of London; for normally New York was 
 interested in keeping the prices up. Since the Southern staple 
 constituted the chief export of the country, and there was a quite 
 steady demand for it in the world's markets, it became the basis 
 for securing credit in Europe. The cotton crop was at once an in- 
 dex to Northern manufacturers and merchants of the South's abil- 
 ity to buy in the home markets and of the nation's ability to pur- 
 chase abroad. The solicitude with which the business interests of 
 New York, especially in time of depression, looked forward to the 
 moving of cotton and speculated as to the crop and the price it 
 would bring, abundantly testifies to the role cotton played in keep- 
 ing the wheels of credit in motion. At the time of the crisis of 
 1857, New York financial circles considered it essential to revival 
 that cotton continue to move, whatever the price, and hoped the 
 planters would be willing to let it go forward at the low prices 
 shippers could afford to offer. 32 
 
 The cotton planters were not the only ones who suffered from 
 the financial dependence of the South upon the North. All who 
 sought to embark in business, to start manufactures, to develop 
 the mineral resources of the country, found themselves handi- 
 capped by their inability to secure proper financial support at 
 home. Most of the railroad bonds, for example, had to be sold 
 either in New York or other Northern cities or abroad. No won- 
 
 M Mr. Wheeler of Portsmouth said in the Virginia House of Delegates, Dec. 
 2, 1852: ". . . the price, the worth, the market value of all we and the people we 
 represent own of every kind of property, is dependent upon the speculative 
 pleasure of the Merchants, the Bankers, and Brokers of New York. And why? 
 Because Wall Street can depress the money market when it pleases." Richmond 
 Enquirer, Dec. 7, 1852. See also A. Dudley Mann, DeBow's Review, XXIV, 373. 
 
 ^Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXXVII, 583. Some of the cotton had not 
 been advanced upon, and the planters were able to hold it; but much of the 
 cotton did go forward. The importance of its movement to Northern business 
 was not overlooked in the South. "What saved you?" asked Senator Hammond. 
 "Fortunately for you it was the commencement of the cotton season, and we 
 have poured in upon you one million six hundred thousand bales of cotton just 
 at the crisis to save you from sinking. That cotton, but for the bursting of your 
 speculative bubbles in the North . . . would have brought us $100,000,000. 
 We have sold it for $65,000,000, and saved you." Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., I 
 Sess., 961. 
 
105] PLANS FOR ESTABLISHING DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE IO5 
 
 der the people of the Southern states, at a time when there was 
 almost a mania for railroad building, when they were becoming 
 aware of the existence of considerable mineral resources and the 
 possession of great advantages for certain lines of manufactures, 
 should chafe at, and try to be free from, the necessity of waiting 
 for the favor of distant money markets before entering upon a 
 career of expansion. Said a correspondent of the Charleston 
 Courier, 1854: "At present our principal sources for obtaining 
 funds are through the capitalists of the North and Europe. So 
 long as we are thus dependent, so long may we expect to be used 
 for their benefit, and be made subservient to their interests. When 
 they cannot find better investment they will advance to us freely, 
 and leave us when they can find others more profitable." 33 
 
 A good illustration of the way in which attempts to inaugurate 
 new enterprises in the South were handicapped by the financial 
 deficiencies of the section is found in the efforts which were made 
 to establish direct trade with Europe; for commercial vassalage 
 was effect as well as cause of financial vassalage. Just as they 
 had done in the thirties, retail merchants in the South bought of 
 Northern jobbers on long credit often twelve months. To com- 
 pete with the Northern jobbers, Southern importers and jobbers 
 would also have to extend the long credits. But while the North- 
 ern jobbers could procure funds upon their long time paper, the 
 Southern importers found it difficult or impossible to discount long 
 time paper in Southern banks. 
 
 The reference to long credits raises the question whether after 
 all, had it not been for this pernicious system, the credit facilities 
 of the South might not have been sufficient to permit the launch- 
 ing of many more new enterprises than were actually launched. 
 The New Orleans Commercial Bulletin enumerated the greater 
 facilities of the merchants of Northern cities for the extension of 
 long credits as one of the reasons why New Orleans had lost much 
 trade in the South and West: "The twelve months credit system 
 did the business, and attracted an immense amount of Western and 
 Southwestern trade to those cities, which would have otherwise 
 sought this port." 34 In the opinion of the Mobile Tribune the 
 South was bound to the North by long credits: destroy that sys- 
 
 "April 7, 1854. 
 
 "Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXXIII, 263. 
 
IO6 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [lo6 
 
 tern and there might be some chance for direct trade. 35 In fact, 
 just as in the period of the early direct trade conventions, the long 
 credits system was frequently denounced and deplored, and the 
 people were frequently urged to free themselves from it. Yet, it 
 must be said, the people of the Southern states took long credits 
 too much as a matter of course, and did not adequately realize 
 their viciousness. There was almost no other factor that operated 
 so effectively to retard the accumulation of capital in the South. 
 The Southern people paid for these long advances and paid 
 dearly. They paid in interest. They paid in increased prices of 
 articles consumed; for, because of the precarious nature of much 
 of the Southern trade, risks were great, and Northern merchants 
 insured themselves well against such risks. They paid, often, in 
 the sacrifice in the prices of their staples incurred because of forced 
 sales necessary to procure money to meet their obligations at ma- 
 turity. J. L. Crocheran, of Alabama, said the South put herself 
 at the mercy of speculators by forcing one-third of her cotton 
 into the market in two months in order to pay advances received 
 during twelve. 36 
 
 The financial dependence of the Southern states was not credit- 
 ed only to the absence of foreign commerce, cities, accumulated 
 capital, and varied industries; there was considerable dissatis- 
 faction with the banking system. It was thought by some that 
 the banking laws were too conservative in several of the states. 
 The policies of the banks were criticized on the score that they 
 contributed to the centralization at New York. 37 Representatives of 
 the mercantile interests complained that banks were partial to the 
 agricultural interests. It would take us too far from the subject 
 of this chapter to enter into a discussion of the bank laws and 
 banking operations in the several states. It would seem that in 
 
 ^Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXXIII, 264. The dissatisfaction with the 
 long credits system was not entirely confined to the South. Some New York 
 men felt that the Southern trade was hardly worth the risks involved. Ibid., 
 XXXIV, 522, article, "Some Suggestions on Southern Trade." 
 
 "DeBotv's Review, XXV, 40. 
 
 ' 7 Cabell, H. C., "Banking in the South with Reference to New York City," 
 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XLII, 311-323; letters of "A Southern Man" to 
 Gov. Wise of Virginia, Richmond Enquirer, Jan. 9, u, Feb. II, 1856; Gregg, 
 William, DeBow's Review, XXIX, 495; Kettell, Southern Wealth and Northern 
 Profits, ch. VII; Fitzhugh, Sociology for the South, chs. IX, X. 
 
 . 
 
IO7] PLANS FOR ESTABLISHING DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE 107 
 
 three states, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Georgia, banking 
 facilities were as adequate as the volume of business done would 
 justify; there, too, the bankers pursued enlightened policies. 38 
 There was undoubtedly great improvement in banking conditions 
 during the fifties. 
 
 There were difficulties to be overcome before direct importa- 
 tions could be established other than deficiency of capital and 
 credit, the long credit system, or the absence of a thoroughly 
 Southern mercantile class. One lay in the comparatively small 
 amounts of foreign goods consumed in the South. There is no 
 way of calculating accurately the value of the foreign imports 
 consumed in territory naturally tributary to Southern seaports; 
 but the probabilities are that it did not so greatly exceed the 
 direct importations as Southerners generally supposed. Some 
 Southern writers made the palpably untenable assumption that 
 the Southern population consumed foreign goods equal in value to 
 their exports to foreign countries, that is about two-thirds or 
 three-fourths of the nation's exports, or imports. 39 More reason- 
 able was the assumption that the per capita consumption of im- 
 ported goods in the South was equal to that of the North; 40 but 
 even that would seem to have been too liberal. A much higher 
 percentage of the Northern population was urban; and the per 
 capita consumption of articles of commerce by an urban popula- 
 tion is greater than the per capita consumption by a rural popula- 
 tion. Southern writers made much of the number of rich families 
 in the South who bought articles of luxury imported from abroad; 
 but there is no doubt that the number of families who lived in 
 luxury was exaggerated. That the slaves consumed comparative- 
 ly small quantities of foreign goods requires no demonstration. 
 Their clothing and rough shoes were manufactured either in the 
 North or at home. Their chief articles of food (corn and bacon) 
 were produced at home or in the West. The large poor white 
 element in the population consumed few articles of commerce, 
 
 M Cordoza, J. N., Reminiscences of Charleston, 44 ff.; Trenholm, W. L., The 
 Centennial Address before the Charleston Chamber of Commerce, 31 ff.; Gregg, 
 William, Speech ... on a Bill to Amend an Act entitled 'An Act to authorize 
 aid to the Blue Ridge Railroad Company' .... Dec. 8, 1856, p. 29. 
 
 "For example, M. R. H. Garnett, The Union, Past and Present, How It 
 Works and How to Save It. Cf. DeBow's Review, XVIII, 294 ff. 
 
 "Richmond Enquirer, April 23, 1852, letter signed "Self Dependence." 
 
IO8 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [lo8 
 
 either domestic or foreign. The same is true of the rather large 
 mountaineer element, because, if for no other reason, they lived 
 beyond the routes of trade. Olmsted had these classes in mind 
 when he wrote: "I have never seen reason to believe that with 
 absolute free trade the cotton States would take a tenth part of 
 the value of our present importations." 41 One of the fairest of the 
 many English travelers wrote: "But the truth is, there are few 
 imports required, for every Southern town tells the same tale."* 2 
 That portion of the proceeds of Southern exports to foreign 
 countries which was not expended for foreign imports was ex- 
 pended for the products of the North and West. The sales from 
 the South into other sections of the Union were sufficient to pay 
 for only a fraction of the commodities purchased there for South- 
 ern consumption. The value of the cotton exported was greater by 
 far than the value of all other Southern exports combined; yet in 
 a normal year less than one-fourth of the cotton went to the 
 North. 43 The exports to the North and West of sugar and mo- 
 lasses, tobacco, rice, grain and flour, timber, turpentine, and naval 
 stores were considerably larger in proportion to the exports of the 
 same commodities to foreign markets; but hardly large enough in 
 the aggregate to pay for the imports from those sections. 44 J. H. 
 Hammond estimated that in 1857 the South sold products abroad 
 to the value of $185,000,000, and to the North and West to the 
 value of $35,ooo,ooo. 45 The latter sum is undoubtedly too small; 
 but a liberal estimate could not place the value of the exports to 
 
 "Cotton Kingdom, I, 27. 
 
 ^Robert Russell, North America, 290. 
 
 **Donnell, History of Cotton, passim. In the year 1854, for example, 737,000 
 bales of cotton were shipped North as against 2,528,000 exported to Europe. 
 
 "According to the estimate of the New Orleans Price Current, in the year 
 1858-1859 four-fifths of the sugar and three-fourths of the molasses exported coast- 
 wise from New Orleans went to Baltimore and points north. DeBow's Review, 
 XXVII, 477. Sugar and molasses were also sent up the Mississippi in large 
 quantities. The exports of these commodities to foreign countries were not large. 
 Of the tobacco exported from New Orleans about three-fourths went to foreign 
 countries. Ibid., X, 448. No other Southern products were exported from 
 New Orleans in large quantities. 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., i Sess., 961. The value of the cotton alone shipped 
 North in 1857-1858 was about $32,000,000. Hammond, Cotton Industry, table op- 
 posite p. 358. Because of the panic of 1857, the consumption of cotton was 
 less than normal. 
 
IO9] PLANS FOR ESTABLISHING DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE 109 
 
 the North and West at much more than 50 per cent of the value of 
 the exports to foreign countries. On the other hand, there was 
 almost universal testimony that Southern purchases of Northern 
 and Western commodities greatly exceeded in value the direct and 
 indirect imports from abroad. Most of the big items of Southern 
 consumption were furnished almost entirely by the North or 
 West. Practically all of the boots and shoes came from Massa- 
 chusetts; coarse cottons came from New England; the agricultur- 
 al implements not manufactured at home came from the North 
 and West, as did harness and saddles, carriages and coaches, 
 wagons, locomotives, and railroad cars, engines, furniture, and 
 numerous other articles. Great quantities of bacon, pork, lard, 
 and corn were shipped from the Northwest down the Mississippi 
 to be consumed in the cotton states. The cotton states also 
 bought large numbers of mules, horses, and cattle in Kentucky 
 and Missouri, states which in the fifties received practically none 
 of their imports, Northern or foreign, by way of Southern 
 ports. 40 In 1839 a committee of the Charleston Direct Trade 
 Convention had found that one-third of the goods consumed in 
 the South were of Northern production; 47 fifteen or twenty years 
 later no one estimated the value of the foreign goods at more than 
 one-half that of the goods of Northern and Western production. 
 Daniel Lord, a Northern writer, said the South imported from the 
 North ten dollars in domestic productions for every one imported 
 directly or indirectly from Europe. 48 
 
 The ability of the Southern people to purchase their proportion- 
 ate share of the nation's imports was further diminished, of course, 
 by the payment of those freights, profits, interests, commissions, 
 charges, and expenses which went to Northern men, and which 
 the advocates of a direct course of trade were so anxious to save. 
 Thus the very commercial dependence under which the South 
 
 ^St. Louis was the distributing center for Missouri and parts of Kentucky 
 and Tennessee. Cincinnati and Louisville were distributing centers for Kentucky 
 and parts of Tennessee. In the fifties these cities received practically all of their 
 foreign and Northern goods from the East by interior routes. Western Virginia 
 traded with Cincinnati and Baltimore. Baltimore was rarely classified as a 
 Southern city by men from farther south. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, IV, 495. 
 
 "Lord, Daniel, The Effect of Secession upon the North and the South 
 (pamphlet, 1860), p. 15. 
 
IIO ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [lIO 
 
 chafed was one of the causes for the want of demand which made 
 the establishment of a more rational system difficult. There was 
 logic in the contention of the advocates of direct trade that, could 
 it once be inaugurated, the saving effected would increase the 
 South's ability to buy, and the increased demand would in turn 
 help to firmly esablish the system. 
 
 The meagre demand for imported goods rendered it necessary 
 for Southern importers to keep assorted stocks and for long per- 
 iods. In the North, on the contrary, the demand was large 
 enough to permit importers to specialize, and sure enough to en- 
 able them to replenish their stocks at frequent intervals. The 
 commerce of a port like New York was so great that it offered a 
 certain market for any cargo and certain freights for any part of 
 the world. 49 Frequently cargoes were solcl at auction in New York 
 and Philadelphia, sometimes at ruinous prices, against which the 
 importers of smaller cities could not compete. But whatever the 
 demand for imported goods in the South, the demand for North- 
 ern goods was much greater. A large number of vessels was en- 
 gaged in the coastwise trade. The same vessels which carried 
 Northern goods to the South also carried the indirect imports of 
 foreign goods. Often Southern merchants went to Baltimore, Phil- 
 adelphia, or New York to lay in their stocks of Northern goods, 
 and while there could buy merchandise of foreign origin as well. 50 
 "Almost every country merchant who visits Charleston has a 
 through ticket for New York in his pocket," wrote William 
 Gregg." 
 
 The question may occur, Why did not Southern seaports thrive 
 as distributing centers for the coastwise commerce? The explan- 
 ation lies in part in the fact just alluded to: Many interior merch- 
 ants purchased of Northern rather than Southern jobbers. Gregg 
 attributed this to a preference of the people for goods from New 
 York and to the hostility of banks to the mercantile interests 
 shown by their refusal to extend the support necessary to enable 
 the Southern jobbers to extend the long credits which customers 
 demanded. Charleston jobbers could sell cheaper than New York 
 jobbers, he said, and there was no adequate reason why Charles- 
 
 *Cf. Richmond Whig, Mar. n, 1851, editorial. 
 "DeBow's Review, XXIX, 500, 556. 
 "Ibid., XXIX, 776. 
 
Ill] PLANS FOR ESTABLISHING DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE III 
 
 ton should not become a distributing center even without direct 
 trade. 52 Whether the banks did not support the mercantile inter- 
 ests because they would not or because they could not, it is evi- 
 dent that the Southern jobber and the importer suffered alike in 
 this respect. Another writer said the country merchant bought 
 from the Northern jobber because he knew that the Southern 
 jobber bought his stocks in New York, and he did not wish to pay 
 two sets of jobbers' profits. 53 But there was a deeper reason why 
 the seaports did not grow and prosper as distributing centers : the 
 quantity of goods to be distributed was too small. The commerce 
 of the Southern states was practically limited to transporting a 
 few staples from the interior to the coast and exporting them, and 
 to receiving foreign and Northern goods at the seaports and trans- 
 porting them into the interior. There was little internal com- 
 merce. There was no home market for Southern products. When 
 the first railroads were put in operation, there was general dis- 
 appointment at the lightness of the traffic upon them. There 
 was little to carry but cotton, which is not a bulky article. It is 
 noteworthy that before the Civil War there was hardly an inter- 
 ior town in the South worthy of mention as a distributing cen- 
 ter. In general, Southerners attached too much importance to ex- 
 porting and importing as factors in the growth of cities. They 
 overestimated the part foreign commerce was playing in the 
 progress of Northern cities, not excepting New York, and under- 
 estimated the roles of domestic commerce and manufactures, in- 
 cluding shipbuilding. 54 Today, of the eleven cities in the South 
 having over 100,000 inhabitants each, only three are seaports, and 
 the total population of these three is but 35 per cent of the total 
 population of the entire number. 
 
 Mercantile business in the South labored under serious disad- 
 vantages also from the great variations, from year to year, in the 
 
 **DeBow's Review, loc. cit. 
 
 "Ibid., XII, 300. 
 
 B4 There were exceptions; see, for example, a speech of James Robb, of New 
 Orleans, in a railroad convention, 1851. "No city ever grew great by commerce 
 alone. Go back as far as they might, select the most favorably located cities in 
 the world, and they would find their prosperity was transient, evanescent, com- 
 pared with that of towns situated in the interior, where industry and labor were 
 cultivated and flourished " De Bow's Review, XI, 78. See also Hunt's Mer- 
 chants' Magazine, XXXIV, 137, quoting the New Orleans Commercial Bulletin; 
 DeBow's Review, XXIX, 630, William Gregg. 
 
112 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [lI2 
 
 ability of the planters to buy, resulting, in turn, from the wide 
 fluctuations in the cotton crop and cotton prices. 55 In the seaports 
 it was rendered precarious by the frequent visitations of yellow 
 fever. 56 The unhealthiness of the ports was partly responsible for 
 absenteeism and the general stagnation of business during the 
 summer months, when many merchants went North or to the in- 
 terior. Another reason for cessation of business activity in the 
 summer was the fact that the cotton went to market in the fall 
 and winter. This idleness during a large part of the year, to- 
 gether with the lack of variety and stability in the export trade, 
 goes far to explain why the South did not support a larger mer- 
 chant marine. During the cotton season ships from all quarters 
 were impressed into service, and at its close returned to other em- 
 ployment. 57 
 
 The bars in Southern harbors with the notable exception of 
 Norfolk were shallow; and the fast clipper ships, which carried 
 so much of the world's commerce, could not enter. Large vessels 
 were anchored some thirty miles below Mobile, and were loaded 
 and unloaded by means of lighters. 58 A special type of vessel 
 was constructed to carry cotton from New Orleans. 59 New Or- 
 leans citizens were most persistent in appealing to Congress for 
 appropriations for improving the navigation of the Mississippi; 
 but the sums granted were not a tithe of the amount necessary. 
 Elsewhere in the South, the constitutional scruples of congressmen 
 prevented them from demanding the inclusion in rivers and har- 
 
 M New Orleans Daily Picayune, Jan. 14, 1858. 
 
 "Norfolk was scourged by yellow fever in 1853. Two out of three of the 
 whites died. Burton, H. W., The History of Norfolk (1877), p. 23. Enterprise 
 in Norfolk received a blow from which it took several years to recover. Third 
 Annual Report of the Merchants' and Mechanics' Exchange of Norfolk, Virginia, 
 Jan., 1860. The same year the plague raged in other Southern towns. In New 
 Orleans it was long remembered as the year of the great plague. There 8215 
 people died between May 21 and October 31. A vivid description is in De Bow's 
 Review, XV, 595-635. 
 
 "Kennedy, Joseph P., The Border States, Their Power and Duty, etc. 
 (1860), p. 25. 
 
 "Olmsted, Cotton Kingdom, I, 283; Hamilton, Peter J., Mobile under Five 
 Flags, 270. 
 
 89 DeBow, Industrial Resources, III, 16 
 
113] PLANS FOR ESTABLISHING DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE 113 
 
 bors bills of items for the improvement of Southern harbors. 60 The 
 bill of 1852 appropriated $50,000 for the improvement of Charles- 
 ton harbor. The appropriation was accepted, but proved entirely 
 inadequate. 61 President Pierce vetoed the first general rivers and 
 harbors bill presented to him, 1854, and after that no others were 
 passed before the Civil War, largely because of the constitutional 
 objections raised by Southern Democrats. In 1854 a convention at 
 Wilmington, North Carolina, said to be the largest convention 
 which had been assembled in the state, memorialized Congress in 
 favor of an appropriation for improving the bar at Wilmington. 
 The appropriation was secured by the North Carolina delegation 
 in Congress, William S. Ashe, a staunch Democrat, having charge 
 of the bill in the House. 62 In 1857 the City of Charleston under- 
 took to dredge out the channel in the harbor at her own expense, 
 but the enterprise was soon abandoned. 63 A year later Senator 
 Hammond wrote: "Time, I think, will show that vessels of 1000 
 tons are as profitable as larger ones, to carry our trade, and these 
 can enter our ports." 6 * 
 
 The discussion of direct trade included consideration of ways 
 and means to promote it. There were innumerable eloquent ap- 
 peals to the Southern states and to Southern cities to "shake off 
 their lethargy," to "rouse themselves from their slumbers," and to 
 emulate the example of their Northern "sisters." Individuals were 
 advised to devote their time and their capital to an enterprise so 
 well calculated to promote the prosperity of their section. Com- 
 mercial education was declared desirable, and a few professorships 
 of commerce were established. Retail merchants and the people in 
 general were urged to patronize those merchants of Southern sea- 
 ports who imported goods of foreign production directly from 
 
 '"Senator Benjamin, of Louisiana, stated, 1854, that Virginia had not ac- 
 cepted a dollar of the money voted to her for this purpose during the twenty 
 years preceding. Senator Mason, of Virginia, confirmed the statement. Cong., 
 Globe, 33 Cong., i Sess., Appx., 1201. 
 
 "Report of the Commissioners Appointed at the Last Session of the General 
 Assembly to Inquire into the Feasibility of Improving the Channels of the Bar 
 and Other Approaches of Charleston Harbor. Nov. 20, 1852, p. 5. 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 33 Cong., I Sess., 1654, ff. Ashe said the last Legislature had 
 unanimously instructed the North Carolina representatives in Congress to work 
 for the appropriation. 
 
 ''Charleston Mercury, July 12, 1859. 
 
 "Ibid., April 12, 1859. 
 
114 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [lI4 
 
 abroad in preference to those who bought such goods in the North. 
 A rather strong sentiment developed in favor of the imposition by 
 the state legislatures of discriminatory taxes upon goods of foreign 
 production imported into the respective states by way of Northern 
 ports. 65 As in the thirties, much was hoped from the construction 
 of railroads, particularly those which opened new territory or were 
 calculated to attract the trade of the Ohio valley to Southern 
 ports. More specific were the many projects for establishing 
 steamship lines between Southern and European or South Ameri- 
 can ports and the attempts to induce European interests to 
 establish steamship lines to the South. 
 
 Before 1839 only a few steamships had crossed the Atlantic. By 
 1850 the steamship was rapidly supplanting the sailing vessel in 
 carrying mails, passengers, and the lighter sorts of freight. Great 
 Britain had embarked upon a policy of encouraging the develop- 
 ment of a steam marine by granting liberal subsidies, and the 
 United States had followed suit by making liberal contracts with 
 steamship companies for carrying the mails to Europe and else- 
 where. 66 The ports selected as terminii for steamship lines evi- 
 dently had great advantages in foreign commerce over those which 
 had to depend upon sailing vessels alone. There were, for example, 
 the advantages of greater regularity and saving of time; and as 
 the mails and passengers sought the steamlines,- it was natural 
 that the importing business should follow the same routes. 67 Need- 
 less to say New York captured the lion's share of the steamship 
 lines, and thereby increased her hold upon the nation's commerce. 
 These facts explain why so many of the plans formed in the South 
 for achieving commercial independence involved the establish- 
 ment of lines of regular steamers between Southern and foreign 
 ports. 
 
 In no state were more schemes for rehabilitation discussed than 
 in Virginia. For several years prior to 1850 internal improvements 
 had been an absorbing topic in that state. Among the improve- 
 ments projected or under construction none figured more prom- 
 inently than the Virginia and Tennessee railroad, which was to run 
 
 "The subjects of patronage of home importing merchants and discrimina- 
 tory taxation are discussed in ch. VI. 
 
 Cong. Globe, 31 Cong., I Sess., 1860; Bates, American Navigation: the 
 Political History of Its Rise and Ruin, 346. 
 
 "See Richmond Whig, March 11, 1851. 
 
115] PLANS FOR ESTABLISHING DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE 115 
 
 from Lynchburg to the Tennessee line in the direction of Knox- 
 ville, and was designed to be a link in a chain of railroads from 
 the Chesapeake to Memphis and New Orleans. Another project 
 was the connection of the Chesapeake and the Ohio valley either 
 by canal, as some advocated, or by railroad. Besides increasing 
 the transportation facilities of the sections through which they 
 ran, these roads were expected to bring to Virginia ports, Rich- 
 mond, Petersburg, and Norfolk, trade from the Mississippi and 
 Ohio valleys, and together with foreign commerce, which they 
 would help to stimulate, restore to the Old Dominion the com- 
 mercial position she once possessed. The political crisis of 1850 
 served to call attention sharply to the dependent position of the 
 South, and lent a strong impetus to movements for commercial 
 independence. At this juncture the Portsmouth Pilot was led to 
 suggest a direct trade convention to meet at Old Point Comfort, 
 July 4, 1850. 
 
 The Old Point Comfort Convention, while not well attended, 
 enrolled among its delegates some very respectable men of Vir- 
 ginia and neighboring states. 68 The reasons which had brought the 
 delegates together were made very clear by the debates. Thomas 
 L. Preston described the advantages Virginia possessed for secur- 
 ing Western trade. Senator Morehead, of Kentucky, assured his 
 auditors that Kentucky was with the South in interests, feelings, 
 and associations, and preferred railroad communication with Vir- 
 ginia to connection with the North. Congressman Ewing, of 
 Tennessee, gave the warning that the safety of the South depended 
 upon preserving the equilibrium of the sections, which could be 
 done by developing commerce and manufactures in the South. 
 R. K. Meade, of Virginia, emphasized the profits derived by the 
 North from conducting Virginia's commerce, and the saving which 
 would be effected if the South would do her own business. The 
 resolutions adopted by the convention declared it to be the duty 
 of the Federal government to extend as much aid to a Southern 
 mail line to Europe as to Northern lines, recommended state 
 appropriations in aid of a line of steamers, and provided for a 
 committee to memorialize Congress and the Virginia Legislature. 
 
 In the closing days of the first session of the Thirty-first 
 Congress an unsuccessful attempt was made to secure favorable 
 
 "Proceedings are in the Richmond Enquirer, July 9, 12, 1850. 
 
Il6 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840-1 86 1 [ll6 
 
 action upon a bill providing for government aid for lines of steam- 
 ers from California to China and from Philadelphia to Antwerp., 
 A. W. Thompson, a Philadelphia capitalist, was to be the con-' 
 tractor. Senator James M. Mason, of Virginia, moved an amend- 
 ment to the bill stipulating that the Atlantic line should alternate 
 trips between Norfolk and Philadelphia.^ The amendment was 
 accepted by the sponsors of the bill. 69 In the short session of the 
 same Congress (1850-1851) Congressmen Meade and Bocock, of 
 Virginia, tried to secure the passage of a similar bill based upon 
 Thompson's plan and the memorial of the Old Point Comfort Con- 
 vention; but it was defeated, 70 largely because of the opposition of 
 McLane, of Maryland, who was charged with fearing that aid to a 
 Norfolk line might compromise Baltimore's claims to government 
 subsidy for a line of her own, 71 and because of the opposition of 
 one or two Virginia representatives who could not overcome their 
 constitutional scruples against government subsidies. Meanwhile, 
 Thompson, taking advantage of the state of mind in Virginia, had 
 petitioned the General Assembly for aid in establishing the pro- 
 jected line between Norfolk and Antwerp. 72 He stood ready to 
 advance two-fifths of the capital required, provided the state 
 would loan him the use of Virginia six per cent bonds for ten years 
 for the remaining three-fifths. Another proposal submitted to the 
 General Assembly about the same time was that a joint stock com- 
 pany be chartered, three-fifths of whose stock should be sub- 
 scribed by the state, and two-fifths by municipal and private cor- 
 porations and by individuals. 73 A select committee of the House 
 of Delegates reported in favor of Thompson's proposition; but its 
 friends were unable to secure action before the Legislature ad- 
 journed, 1 85 1. 74 
 
 In September, 1851, a well attended Mercantile Convention was 
 held in Richmond for the purpose of creating public interest in 
 direct trade and working out a plan in support of which all inter- 
 
 Cong. Globe, 31 Gong., i Sess., 2051. 
 '"'Ibid., 31 Cong., 2 Sess., -600, 613, 754, 768. 
 
 "Ibid., 31 Cong., .2 Ses's,,- 601, 613; Richmond Whig, Feb. 25, 1851. McMul- 
 lin, of Virginia, spoke flglainU' the bill. Cong. Globe, 31 Cong., 2 Sess., 758. 
 ""Virginia Document s^i^o-i^i, doc. LXVI. 
 "Ibid., 1850-1851, doc'AxX'. 
 ""Ibid., 1850-1851, doc. LXX; Richmond Whig, March 15, 1851. 
 
PLANS FOR ESTABLISHING DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE llj 
 
 ests and factions in the state could unite. 75 It proved impossible 
 to harmonize differences. The convention divided upon the ques- 
 tion whether a line of steamers should be recommended or it 
 should be left to future investigation to determine which was 
 preferable, steamers or sailing vessels. The latter alternative was 
 adopted. A resolution calling for Federal aid provoked a cleavage 
 along party lines, and had to be withdrawn. Resolutions offered 
 by D. H. London, Richmond importer and president of the 
 Central Southern Rights Association of Virginia, in favor of dis- 
 criminatory taxation of indirect imports were tabled by an almost 
 unanimous vote after an acrimonious debate. The net official act 
 of the convention was a blanket resolution in favor of lines of 
 steamers or sailing vessels to Europe and South America. 
 
 In May, 1852, the State Senate passed a bill based on A. W. 
 Thompson's plan; 76 but the House of Delegates allowed it to go 
 over to the next session, when, in spite of the support of Governor 
 Johnson, John Y. Mason, and an all but unanimous press, it was 
 defeated. 77 The defeat was due to inability to agree upon the 
 mode and time of lending state aid, and to the rivalry of the little 
 bay ports. 78 It was the same spirit of jealousy which stood in the 
 way of the adoption of a practicable policy of internal improve- 
 ments. The net result of all the discussion and wire-pulling of 
 three years was practically nil as far as foreign commerce was con- 
 cerned; they did serve in a measure the secondary purpose of 
 securing tidewater support for state aid to railroads to the West. 
 Shortly after the Old Point Comfort Convention New York inter- 
 ests established a line of steamships between New York and the 
 Chesapeake; Virginians thought the action had been influenced 
 by the movements in that state looking to the establishment of 
 direct trade. 73 In 1851 Richmond firms began shipping flour to 
 
 "Proceedings are in the Richmond Whig, Sept. n, 12, and 17, 1851. The 
 report from the Committee of 13, William Burwell, chairman, is in Virginia 
 Documents, 1851-1852, doc. I, p. 41 ff.; also in DeBow's Review, XII, 3041. 
 
 "Richmond Enquirer, Dec. 7, 1852. 
 
 "Governor Joseph Johnson's message of Dec. 5, 1853. Virginia Documents, 
 1853-1854, doc. I. Letter of J. Y. Mason to D. H. London, Sept. 18, 1852. So. Lit. 
 Mes., XVIII, 591 ff. Cf. Richmond Enquirer, Dec. 7, 1852. Mason had once 
 been secretary of the navy. 
 
 "Forrest, Wm. S., Sketches of Norfolk, 296; Richmond Enquirer, Apr. 30, 
 1852. 
 
 '"'Ibid., Dec. 10, 1852. Cf. DeBow's Review, XIV, 501. 
 
Il8 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [ll8 
 
 Rio de Janeiro and importing hides, coffee, and other South Ameri- 
 can products. This trade had attained some importance by i860. 80 
 
 While these plans and projects were being debated in Virginia, 
 projects elsewhere had come to naught. The people of South 
 Carolina late in 1850 were considering secession. The time was 
 considered auspicious for inaugurating communication with 
 Europe by a line of steamers. A number of citizens of Charleston 
 secured from the State Legislature a charter for the South Carolina 
 and European Steamship Company to build two steamers to ply 
 between Charleston and Liverpool. Subscription books were 
 opened and the stock promptly taken. One of the steamers, the 
 South Carolina, was built at Green Port, Long Island and 
 proceeded to Charleston. After loading, it was found she could not 
 pass the bar. The vessel was sold, and the project abandoned. 81 
 The only line of steamships between Charleston and a foreign 
 port before the war was the mail line to Havana, established in 
 1847 and owned by M. C. Mordecai, of Charleston. The mail 
 steamers between New York and Chagres touched regularly at 
 Charleston and Savannah. The Alabama Legislature, 1852, chart- 
 ered the Alabama Direct Trade and Exchange Company with 
 power to own ships, buy and sell produce and manufactures at 
 home and abroad, receive deposits, deal in domestic and foreign 
 exchange, and make advances on produce, manufactures, and 
 merchandise. 82 No tangible results followed. 
 
 Considerable interest was manifested throughout the South, 
 1852-1854, in a proposal to establish a line of steamers between 
 some Southern port and the mouth of the Amazon river and in 
 the question of the free navigation of the Amazon. Peru and 
 Bolivia, upon the headwaters of the Amazon, declared the river 
 open to the commerce of the world, but Brazil refused to allow 
 foreign vessels to navigate it. Lieutenant M. F. Maury, Superin- 
 tendent of the Naval Observatory at Washington, became inter- 
 ested in the subject and memorialized Congress, May, 1852, to 
 establish a line of mail steamers between Norfolk, Charleston, or 
 Savannah and Para. He further suggested that diplomatic efforts 
 
 ""DeBow's Review, XII, 32. 
 
 "A. Brisbane to Hammond, Feb. 25, 1851, /. H. Hammond Papers; DeBow's 
 Review, X, 203, 315; XVIII, 68; National Intelligencer, Oct. 18, 1851; Richmond 
 Enquirer, June 7, 1853. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, X, 445-47; XIII, 318; XIV, 437-49. 
 
119] PLANS FOR ESTABLISHING DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE IIQ 
 
 be made to secure the free navigation of the Amazon. 83 He 
 appealed to Secretary of State Webster to take the matter up, but 
 Webster refused to move. 84 A series of long articles by Maury on 
 "Amazonia" was published in DeBow's Review and the leading 
 newspapers of the South. 85 Maury presented the subject in the 
 Southern Commercial Convention at Baltimore, December, 
 i852. 86 The subject was given consideration at the sessions of the 
 Commercial Convention in Memphis and Charleston, 1853 and 
 1854; both endorsed the project for a line of mail steamers. 87 
 Maury represented that the Amazon valley would be settled and 
 developed and an immense commerce would grow up between the 
 region and the United States. The South was more advantageous- 
 ly located for such a commerce than was the North. Commerce 
 with South America would effect the commercial regeneration of 
 the South. It was this possibility which awakened so much inter- 
 est in the Amazon among Southerners. 88 From time to time all 
 through the decade the opinion was expressed that the South 
 should "look to the south" rather than to Europe in her efforts to 
 develop a foreign commerce. 89 The line of mail steamers was not 
 established; but the Amazon was opened to the navigation of all 
 nations, largely as a result of Maury's efforts. 
 
 One of the most grandiose schemes for establishing direct trade 
 was that conceived by Col. A. Dudley Mann, of Virginia. He had 
 seen being built in England the Great Eastern, by far the largest 
 ship built to that time. In a letter to the people of the slaveholding 
 states, August, 1856, he proposed the establishment of a line of 
 four of these mammoth steamers to ply between the Chesapeake 
 and Milford Haven, England. 90 So bold a plan captivated the 
 
 "Memorial, Western Journal and Civilian, VIII, 174-80. 
 
 "Maury to Blackford, Sept. 24, 1852, M. F. Maury Papers. 
 
 "Also in book form. DeBow's Review, XVI, 231. Articles are in ibid., XIV, 
 J 36-45, 449-6o, 556-67; XV, 36-43. See also ibid., XII, 381 ff.; XVI, 231-51. 
 
 ** We stern Journal and Civilian, IX, 321-28. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XV, 254-74; XVI, 640; XVII, 201, 402-5. 
 
 M Maury expected that the Southern states would soon have a redundant 
 slave population, and hoped the Amazon Valley would prove an outlet. Western 
 Journal and Civilian, IX, 328; DeBow, Industrial Resources, III, 13. 
 
 89 For example, letter of Gov. H. A. Wise, of Virginia, to a citizen of Norfolk, 
 in Barton H. Wise, Henry A. Wise of Virginia, 216 f.; DeBow's Review, XXVI, 
 73-6. 
 
 "Ibid., XXI, 411-25. 
 
I2O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [l2O 
 
 imaginations of the Southern people. The Southern Commercial 
 Convention at Savannah endorsed it. 91 In July, 1857, an en- 
 thusiastic convention in its support was held at Old Point Comfort, 
 Virginia. 92 Ex-President Tyler presided; letters from Secretary of 
 State Cass and other members of the cabinet were read; books 
 were opened for subscriptions of stock. An appeal was made to 
 sectional feeling. With a view to secure a wide diffusion of the 
 stock among the people, subscribers were limited for a period 
 to one $100 share each. Most of the prominent men of Virginia 
 subscribed. President Buchanan headed the list in the District of 
 Columbia. 93 The Virginia Legislature, almost without opposition, 
 granted a charter to "The Atlantic Steam Ferry Company," 
 March, i858. 94 The thirty-six directors of the company must all 
 be residents of the slaveholding states or the District of Columbia, 
 and were to be apportioned on the basis of stock subscribed. But 
 by this time interest had begun to wane. The Commercial Con- 
 vention, meeting at Knoxville, August, 1857, had refused to 
 recommend the "steam ferry." 95 Many pronounced it chimerical. 
 The project was not completely abandoned, however, until the 
 war. 96 
 
 Several other direct trade projects were under way or under 
 consideration in Virginia on the eve of the war. A convention of 
 merchants and officials of fourteen railroads met at Bristol, Vir- 
 ginia, June, 1857, upon call of officers of the Virginia and Tennes- 
 see railroad, then on the point of completion, to consider the 
 subject of direct trade. 97 William Ballard Preston, a former secre- 
 tary of the navy, was sent to Europe to disseminate information 
 in regard to the demand for foreign goods in Virginia and her 
 hinterland and to confer with capitalists, especially the owners of 
 the Great Eastern, upon the establishment of a steamship line. 
 French officials and capitalists were much interested in extending 
 
 m DeSotfs Review, XXII, 96. Mann was present and a member of the 
 general committee. 
 
 "Proceedings, ibid., XXIII, 321-24; XXIV, 352-74; Richmond Enquirer, 
 Aug. I, 3, 5, 1857. 
 
 3 Ibid., Aug. II, 17, 1857. 
 
 "Acts of the General Assembly, 1857-1858, p. 125; DeBow's Review, XXIV, 
 
 352, 375- 
 
 * 5 New York Herald, Aug. II, 17, 1857. 
 
 m lbid., Mar. 19, 1861. 
 
 "Richmond Enquirer, June 8, 1857; DeBow's Review, XXII, 553; XXIII, 86. 
 
121 ] PLANS FOR ESTABLISHING DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE 121 
 
 the foreign trade of the Empire at the time. Preston was able to 
 make a conditional agreement with officials of the Orleans Rail- 
 way Company relative to a line of steamers between Norfolk and 
 the mouth of the Loire. 98 The Virginia Legislature ratified the 
 agreement by an act of March 27, 1858, incorporating the Norfolk 
 and St. Nazaire Navigation Company." One-half the stock was 
 to be subscribed in America, one-half in France; the directorate 
 also should be composed of an equal number of Americans and 
 Frenchmen. American interests were to subvent the company to 
 the extent of $12,500 per round trip this subsidy it was hoped 
 the Federal government would grant for carrying the mails and 
 the French government was to be asked to lend assistance. A 
 long correspondence between the president of the Merchants' and 
 Mechanics' Exchange of Norfolk and M. Lacoutre and other 
 gentlemen of France and the visit of an agent, John D. Myrick, 
 to France, resulted in the trial trip of the steamer Lone Star, 
 which was said to have been successful and to have proved the 
 feasibility of direct trade. 100 By an act of February 2, 1858, the 
 Virginia Legislature chartered the Southern Virginia Navigation 
 Company to establish a line of steamships or sailing packets be- 
 tween the Chesapeake and Europe. 101 Before November, 1860, the 
 company had built one ship, engaged another, and had two or 
 three others under construction. 102 On the very eve of secession 
 the Virginia Legislature incorporated a Richmond and Liverpool 
 Packet Company, and extended welcome to a proposal of M. Pierre 
 and Brothers, of Paris, to establish a line of steamers between 
 Virginia and France. 103 
 
 Elsewhere projects did not reach the stage of development they 
 did in Virginia. In 1857 W. C. Barney, of Washington, attempted 
 to promote a line of steamers between New Orleans and Bordeaux, 
 France. He memorialized Congress for the usual subsidy for carry- 
 ing the mails. The House Committee on the Post Office and Post 
 Roads reported favorably upon it. The Bordeaux Chamber of 
 
 **DeBow's Review, XXVI, 584-5. 
 "Acts of the General Assembly, 1857-1858, p. 127. 
 
 lv> Third Annual Report of the Merchants' and Mechanics' Exchange of Nor- 
 folk, Virginia, June, 1860, p. 13. 
 
 Acts of the General Assembly, 1857-1858, p. 187. 
 
 loa New York Herald, Nov. 26, 1860. 
 
 103 Acts of the General Assembly, 1861, p. 278, 342. 
 
122 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [l22 
 
 Commerce promised cooperation and a loan. A prospectus was 
 got out and subscription books opened; but the project got no 
 farther. 104 In 1860 British parties proposed to establish a line of 
 six iron steamers between New Orleans and Liverpool. The ves- 
 sels were to be built in England and fly the British flag, but one- 
 half the stock was to be subscribed by Americans. The project was 
 endorsed by the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce. 105 
 
 Thus virtually all of these projects, and several not described, 
 for establishing lines of ocean steamers came to naught. Had the 
 Federal government not abandoned, 1859, the policy of subsidiz- 
 ing steamship lines, it is very probable that one or more Southern 
 lines would have been in operation before 1861. Trans-Atlantic 
 lines of steamships had not yet proved profitable without govern- 
 ment aid. The failure to secure steamship lines does not signify 
 that the direct foreign imports did not increase during the decade. 
 A few lines of sailing packets were established, and the number 
 of irregular vessels entered considerably increased, as did the total 
 value of the direct imports. 106 But there was no revolution in the 
 course of Southern commerce. In fact, the employment of steam 
 vessels in the coasting trade tended to fix Southern commerce in 
 its former channels. Several lines of steamships were engaged in 
 the coasting trade between New York and New Orleans and other 
 Southern ports in 1860. Such lines had been established in response 
 to the demands of actual commerce. The tendency of the times 
 was toward closer commercial relationships between the sections, 
 the efforts of the advocates of direct trade to the contrary not- 
 withstanding. 
 
 'DeBow's Review, XXII, 318-20; 410-14, 554; XXIII, 415-18. 
 "Ibid., XXVIII, 462-4. 
 
 *See the tables in the Appendix. I v t 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTION, 
 1852-1859 
 
 During the years 1852-1859 there met annually or oftener, in 
 turn at Baltimore, Memphis, Charleston, New Orleans, Richmond, 
 Savannah, Knoxville, Montgomery, and Vicksburg, sessions of the 
 so-called Southern Commercial Convention. After the first the 
 time and place of meeting and, to some extent, the organization 
 and program of each were determined by its predecessor; so there 
 was a degree of continuity in their endeavors. Several of the gath- 
 erings were very respectable in point of numbers; in most of them, 
 all or nearly all of the Southern States were represented; some able 
 and well-known men were among the delegates in every case; their 
 proceedings were watched in the South and even in the North with 
 considerable interest. As their name indicates, they were sectional 
 in character. The term "commercial" does not accurately indicate 
 their purpose, but cannot be considered a misnomer. A study of 
 this series of meetings is conducive to a better understanding of 
 the state of public opinion in the South during the decade before 
 the war upon questions affecting the material progress and pros- 
 perity of the section. 
 
 The origin of the Southern Commercial Convention is not to 
 be explained by any single event or isolated circumstance. A non- 
 political or semi-political convention was by no means a new thing 
 in the South in 1852. Although none of those assembled prior to 
 that time was quite of the type of the Southern Commercial Con- 
 vention, several may be considered forerunners of it. The direct 
 trade conventions of the late thirties may be so classed, although 
 they were more restricted in their objects, and not section-wide in 
 their representation. 1 Those held in Virginia were gatherings of 
 Virginians with a few scattering delegates from border North 
 Carolina counties. 2 They were interested primarily in local prob- 
 lems, although there was recognition that the cause of Virginia was 
 in a way the cause of the South, and although the connection be- 
 tween them and the direct trade conventions of South Carolina 
 and Georgia was very close. The Charleston and Augusta conven- 
 
 'See ch. I. 
 
 'Savannah Republican, April 7, 1838. 
 
 123 
 
124 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [124 
 
 tions, likewise, were composed almost entirely of South Carolina 
 and Georgia men. Attempts to win the younger states farther 
 west to the cause failed of the accomplishment; they were urged 
 to send delegates to each of the conventions, but did not do so. 
 Among other reasons for this was the fact that the Southwest was 
 not yet concerned about "Southern decline." 
 
 More widely representative than the direct trade conventions, 
 but perhaps with less justification considered a forerunner of the 
 Southern Commercial Convention, was the Southwestern Conven- 
 tion in Memphis, November, i845- 3 In composition and sentiment 
 it was more Western than Southern. Delegates were present from 
 Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa Territory as well as 
 from states of the Southwest and South. The primary purpose of 
 the meeting was to present the demands of the West for the im- 
 provement by the Federal government of the navigation of West- 
 ern rivers demands which were very insistent for several years 
 prior to the building of railroads in the Mississippi valley. An 
 attempt was made to find constitutional justification for the im- 
 provement by the Federal government of the Mississippi and its 
 tributaries which would be acceptable to all parties in the West 
 and South. John C. Calhoun, who understood better than any 
 other Southern leader the growing power of the West and the 
 strength of the demand for improvement of Western rivers and 
 harbors, presided over the convention. He had not yet abandoned 
 hopes of attaining the presidency of the United States; he was 
 still firmly convinced of the desirability of maintaining the polit- 
 ical alliance of the South and West. In his address before the 
 convention and later in his report to the Senate upon the Memorial 
 of the convention, he went to such lengths in meeting the views of 
 the Western men that it was with difficulty he held his strict con- 
 structionist followers in line. 4 The convention dealt with other 
 
 'Proceedings are in Journal of the Proceedings of the Southwestern Conven- 
 tion, began and held at the city of Memphis on the 12th of November, 184-5. Cf. 
 DeBow's Review, I, 7-22; Niles' Register, LXIX, 212-14; Memphis Daily Eagle, 
 Nov. 18, 1845. There were present 529 delegates from 12 states and one territory. 
 
 *Calhoun's address to the convention is in the Journal of the Proceedings 
 of the Southwestern Convention, p. 7 ff. His report to the Senate on the Mem- 
 orial of the convention is in Works, V, 246-93. For Calhoun's motives, see Cal- 
 houn to James Edward Calhoun, July 2, 1846; to Thomas G. Clemson, July n, 
 1846; Duff Green to Calhoun, Sept. 24, 1845, Calhoun Correspondence. For re- 
 
125] THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTION 125 
 
 subjects, it is true. It was employed to stimulate interest in rail- 
 road communication between the Mississippi valley and South 
 Atlantic ports; a system of railroads was outlined which would 
 effectually bind together the South and Southwest. 5 It endorsed 
 in a qualified manner the warehousing system, which some hoped 
 would promote the foreign commerce of Southern ports. It gave 
 some attention to the question of overproduction of cotton, and to 
 the diversification of agriculture and the introduction of manufac- 
 turing as remedies. 7 The sequel of the Memphis convention was 
 not so much the Southern Commercial Convention, however, as it 
 was the large Rivers and Harbors Convention held in Chicago in 
 July, 1847." 
 
 The alliance of the South and West had carried the Walker 
 Tariff bill of 1846; but the Rivers and Harbors bill of that year 
 had been carried by logrolling methods, the friends of Eastern 
 harbors, Lake harbors, and Western rivers pooling their interests. 
 President Polk vetoed the bill. 9 He did not follow the constitu- 
 tional arguments employed by Calhoun in his report to the Senate 
 upon the Memorial of the Memphis convention, but employed 
 reasoning which Calhoun believed would preclude the possibility 
 of uniting the South and West in support of a reasonable program 
 of river improvement. 10 The Chicago convention, which was as 
 strongly dominated by the Whigs as the Memphis convention had 
 been by the Democrats and contained more Eastern men than the 
 Memphis convention had contained Southern, sought to make 
 capital of Folk's veto. There was an attempt to unite the West and 
 East upon broad Whig principles, much broader than Calhoun 
 could accept. It was more than intimated that the way to improve 
 rivers and harbors was to elect a president who would sign a bill 
 
 ception of Calhoun's address and report see Niles' Register, LXIX, 214, quoting 
 the Charleston Mercury; So. Quar. Rev., X, 377 ff., 441-512, 515; DeBow's Re- 
 view, I, 83 f.; Cong. Globe, 33 Cong., I Sess., 246; Calhoun to Mrs. Thomas G. 
 Clemson, June II, 1846, Calhoun Correspondence. 
 
 6 Journal, 29-40. See also Sioussat, St. G. L., "Memphis as a Gateway to the 
 West," Tenn. Hist. Mag., II. 77-114. 
 
 'Journal, 96-99; Memphis Daily Eagle, Dec. 17, 1845. 
 
 ''Journal, 41-55. 
 
 'Proceedings in Niles' Register, LXXII, 309-10, 331-33, 344-46, 365-67. 
 
 "Messages and Papers of the Presidents, IV, 460-66. 
 
 "Calhoun to James Edward Calhoun, Aug. 8, 1846; to J. L. M. Curry, 
 Sept. 14; to Thomas G. Clemson, Sept. 20, Calhoun Correspondence. 
 
126 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [126 
 
 for that purpose. 11 The Memphis convention had been used to 
 stimulate interest in railroad communication between the Missis- 
 sippi valley and the South Atlantic seaboard; the Chicago conven- 
 tion was similarly used to promote various projects for railroads 
 between the East and the West. 12 
 
 In October, 1849, a great Pacific Railroad Convention met in 
 Memphis. 13 Its purpose was to crystallize sentiment in favor of a 
 railroad to the Pacific and give a demonstration of the strength of 
 the supporters of a Southern route, whose eastern terminus would 
 presumably be Memphis. Five days earlier a still bigger conven- 
 tion had been held in St. Louis, for the purpose of crystallizing 
 sentiment in favor of a railroad to the Pacific and canvassing the 
 support which a central route could command. 14 Both of these 
 conventions professed to look upon the construction of the Pacific 
 railroad as a great national undertaking, which should receive 
 in some way the aid of the Federal government, and which would 
 redound to the benefit of the whole nation; but each was largely 
 sectional in composition and sentiment, and each saw the special 
 advantages, political and commercial, to accrue to the section and 
 locality fortunate enough to secure the eastern terminus of the 
 proposed railroad. Inasmuch as the Memphis convention was so 
 largely sectional and dealt with a project which occupied much of 
 the time of the later convention and whose accomplishment would 
 do much to promote the progress and prosperity of the South, it 
 may be considered a forerunner of the Southern Commercial Con- 
 vention. 
 
 "Calhoun to Duff Green, June 10, 1847, Calhoun Correspondence; Niles' 
 Register, LXXII, 266-67, 3*o; LXIII, 24, Daniel Webster's letter to the con- 
 vention; 219, Webster's speech at the opening of the Northern New Hampshire 
 Railway; American Review, VI, 111-22; DeBow's Review, IV, 122-27; 291-96. 
 
 "American Review, VI, III ff.; DeBow's Review, IV, 258. 
 
 "Minutes and Proceedings of the Memphis Convention, assembled October 
 23, 1849; DeBow's Review, VII, 36, 188, 550, 551. Cf. National Plan of an 
 Atlantic and Pacific Railroad and Remarks of Albert Pike, Made Thereon, at 
 Memphis, November, 1849; Cotterill, "Memphis Railroad Convention, 1849," 
 Tenn. Hist. Mag., IV, 83-94. 
 
 ^Proceedings of the National Railroad Convention, which assembled in the 
 City of St. Louis, on the fifteenth day of October, 1849. A third Pacific Rail- 
 road Convention was held in Philadelphia, April 1-3, 1850. Proceedings of the 
 Convention in Favor of a National Railroad to the Pacific Ocean Held in Phil- 
 adelphia, April 1, 2, and 3, 1850. Cf. Mo. Hist. Rev., 203-15. 
 
127] THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTION 127 
 
 A local railroad convention which met in New Orleans in the 
 summer of 1851 appointed a committee to address the people of 
 the Southern and Western states in the interest of a general railroad 
 convention of the South and West to meet in New Orleans in 
 January, i852. 15 The address, while emphasizing the railroad 
 needs of the Mississippi valley and of New Orleans in particular, 
 did not overlook "Southern decline" and the necessity for united 
 action in the South to advance her commercial interests. "They 
 [the Southern states] have an interest in each other's prosperity, 
 founded upon common hopes, and fears, and dangers. . . . The 
 interests of Mobile, New Orleans, Charleston or Savannah in each 
 other's advancement are stronger than their interest in the ad- 
 vancement of Boston and New York. These interests should 
 preclude all jealousies and rivalries and induce a generous co- 
 operation in every instance where the benefit of the whole South 
 is at issue." 16 The convention which met in pursuance of this 
 call, 17 while primarily interested in launching New Orleans and 
 Louisiana upon an internal improvement program, had many of 
 the earmarks of the later Commercial Convention. Delegates were 
 present from eleven states. Frequent references were made to 
 Southern commercial dependence and its remedy. A committee on 
 railroad routes, William Burwell, of Virginia, chairman, reported 
 a list of internal improvements which were regarded as not only 
 indispensable to the development of the agricultural, commercial, 
 and mineral wealth of the Southwestern states, but also as "essen- 
 tial to the equality and unity of the states of this confederacy." 18 
 
 By this time conditions had reached a stage when a Southern 
 Commercial Convention could be assembled. The internal trans- 
 portation systems of the country were developing along lines 
 which pfbmised to bind the Northwest firmly to the East and the 
 Southwest to the old South. The Pacific railroad question had 
 taken on the form of a sectional struggle over the selection of 
 a route. The entire South had been interested in the discussion of 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XI, 74, 217, 340. 
 
 u lbid., XI, 142-78 (quotation from p. 154); Address to the People of the 
 Southern and Western States, and more particularly to those of Louisiana, Texas, 
 Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Missouri, New 
 Orleans, 1851 (pamphlet). 
 
 "Proceedings, in De Bow's Review, XII, 305-332, 543-68. 
 
 "Ibid., XII, 315. 
 
128 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [128 
 
 diversification of industry and the development of cotton manu- 
 factures, and had been awakened thereby to a realization of the 
 disparity of the sections in industrial development. The people 
 of other Southern cities and states than those of the Atlantic 
 seaboard had become aware of Southern commercial decline and 
 its baneful effects, and were talking direct trade. Finally, and 
 more important, the sectional struggle over slavery had reached a 
 most bitter stage; the Southern Convention, the long dream of 
 men of the South Carolina school, had met in Nashville, and the 
 Union had been in danger of dissolution. True, a compromise had 
 been effected after a protracted debate; but it had been accepted 
 in the South with misgivings, and in several states only after 
 violent political struggles. And the effect of the whole episode was 
 not to allay sectionalism but to aggravate it. The old alliance of 
 South and West was breaking up. The number was growing 
 rapidly of those who felt that the South could trust only herself, 
 that the Southern people must unite and learn the art of co- 
 operation, that they must develop their resources and increase 
 their wealth and population, if the South were to maintain her 
 equality in the Union or her independence out of it. 
 
 It is difficult to state whence came the specific suggestion 
 which resulted in the call of the first meeting of the Southern 
 Commercial Convention. James D. B. DeBow, a true son of 
 South Carolina, had been a persistent proponent of the idea of 
 bringing the South together in convention, and had used DeBow's 
 Review to effect with that end in view. When the interest in 
 cotton manufactures was at its height, DeBow suggested a manu- 
 facturers' convention. 19 He tried to arrange the meeting of an in- 
 dustrial convention in New Orleans in the spring of 185 1. 20 He 
 claimed to have been one of the original Southern Convention men 
 and was disappointed that "action" could not be taken at Nash- 
 ville. After the compromise measures had been enacted he felt 
 that the danger to the South was only postponed. He, therefore, 
 favored a Southern convention to agree upon what would consti- 
 tute grounds for resistance, a Southern mercantile convention as a 
 proper means of strengthening the South by promoting shipbuild- 
 ing and direct trade, thus making possible the retention at home of 
 
 "De Bow's Review, IX, 256; X, 107. 
 "Ibid., IX, 256, 460. 
 
129] THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTION I2Q 
 
 millions of wealth contributed annually to the North, and a 
 Southern manufacturers' convention to agree to pay no more 
 tribute to Northern looms. 21 In the New Orleans Railroad Con- 
 vention of January, 1852, he proposed that the convention resolve 
 itself into an association for the promotion of the industrial inter- 
 ests of the Southern and Western states and provide for annual 
 meetings, but his proposal was not acted upon. 22 DeBow was al- 
 ways considered one of the founders of the Southern Commercial 
 Convention. C. G. Baylor, editor of the Cotton Plant, a Baltimore 
 publication, also advocated a convention, and later claimed to 
 have been instrumental in arranging for the meeting in Baltimore 
 in December, 1852. 23 Finally, a number of Southern leaders, chief 
 of whom was Senator William C. Dawson, of Georgia, who 
 thought it time for the South to make a concerted effort to achieve 
 commercial and industrial independence, asked Baltimore business 
 men to inaugurate the movement. 24 Baltimore was chosen be- 
 cause she was the largest city in slaveholding territory, and it was 
 believed her name would lend prestige. 25 A call was issued by 
 the Baltimore Board of Trade for a convention to meet in that 
 city December 18, 1852; the object as stated in the call was to 
 promote foreign and interstate trade. 26 The delegates of the 
 Baltimore convention were carefully selected with the idea of 
 avoiding anything like a mass meeting. 27 A number of congress- 
 men from the South and the Ohio valley came up from Washing- 
 ton. The other delegates were mostly business men. Senator 
 Dawson was made president. Brantz Mayer read in behalf of the 
 Board of Trade a carefully prepared address of welcome. 28 He 
 described the advantages of Baltimore, her merchants, her manu- 
 facturers, her banks, and her facilities for direct trade with 
 
 "DeBow's Review, X, 107. 
 
 "Ibid., XII, 554, S6i. 
 
 "Richmond Enquirer, Dec. 24, 1852; Memphis Daily Appeal, Jan. 23, 1853. 
 
 "Df Bow's Review, XV, 257; New York Herald, April 15, 1854; New Or- 
 leans Commercial Bulletin, Jan. 17, 1855. 
 
 "Memphis Daily Appeal, June 23, 1853. 
 
 "Baltimore Sun, Dec. 17, 1852; DeBow's Review, XIII, 427. 
 
 "Baltimore Sun, Dec. 17, 1852; Richmond Enquirer, Dec. 24, 1852, C. G. 
 Baylor's remarks in the convention. 
 
 "Proceedings, in Baltimore Sun, Dec. 20, 1852; Richmond Enquirer, Dec. 
 24, 1852. The resolutions and Brantz Mayer's address are also in DeBow's Re- 
 view, XIV, 373-79. 
 
IjO ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840-1 86 1 [ijO 
 
 Europe. The Baltimore and Ohio railroad was about completed 
 to the Ohio river, and Baltimore would soon compete with New 
 York and Philadelphia for Western trade. The delegates were 
 assured that Baltimore was a Southern city, devoted to the 
 Southern cause, and disposed to join the South in achieving com- 
 mercial independence of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia; 
 the way to achieve commercial independence was to make Bal- 
 timore the commercial and financial center of the South. The 
 convention endorsed all of Baltimore's aspirations. The only 
 incident which occurred to mar the harmony of the proceedings 
 was a remark of William Burwell, of Virginia, that he considered 
 Norfolk a better port than Baltimore. Some consideration was 
 given to the Pacific railroad, for whose construction it was ex- 
 pected Congress would provide in the session just beginning, and 
 to other important internal improvements in the Southern states. 
 A line of steamships to Liverpool was recommended, and also 
 steam communication with the Amazon valley. The convention 
 sought to justify itself against the charge of sectionalism by the 
 following resolution: 
 
 Resolved, That while we disdain the slightest prejudice or 
 hostility to the welfare and prosperity of any particular section or 
 city, North or South, we would promote, as we think we reason- 
 ably might, consistent with the laws of trade, its great central 
 position, the commercial interests and prosperity of Baltimore, as 
 being well calculated to excite a wholesome and beneficial compe- 
 tition with more northern Atlantic cities, which could not fail 
 to be particularly advantageous to the whole South, Southwest, 
 and West, and, in fact, to the nation at large. 
 
 The convention sat but one day; it adjourned to meet in Mem- 
 phis in June, 1853. The proceedings present a striking contrast 
 with those of later conventions, which sat from four to six days, 
 with their wranglings, fiery declamation, numerous committees, 
 and innumerable resolutions. 
 
 The Baltimore convention did not give universal satisfaction. 
 The Richmond Enquirer thought the address of welcome made too 
 many allusions to Baltimore. 29 Only Lieutenant Maury, it re- 
 marked, remembered that there was such a place as Virginia. 
 The press of New Orleans thought that the movement had been 
 got up by Baltimore to catch trade. New Orleans, they said, was 
 
 "Dec. 21, 1852. Cf. ibid., April 14, 1854. 
 
I3l] THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTION 131 
 
 a better Southern city than Baltimore; and it was wrong for 
 Baltimore to try to injure New Orleans by diverting her com- 
 merce. 30 The feeling was pretty general that the Baltimore Board 
 of Trade had attempted to turn what was intended for a Southern 
 movement to her own account. 31 However, a beginning had been 
 made. 
 
 The Memphis convention was a somewhat larger body. 32 
 Delegates were present from fourteen states, including Missouri, 
 Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana. Thus, like the Baltimore gather- 
 ing, it was not strictly Southern; in fact, each was officially desig- 
 nated the "Southern and Western Commercial Convention." Like 
 the Baltimore convention, also, it was not marked by bitter sec- 
 tionalism. Senator Dawson again presided, and several other 
 prominent leaders of the South were among the delegates, notably 
 General John A. Quitman and H. S. Foote, of Mississippi, and 
 John Bell, of Tennessee. 
 
 The objects of the convention had not yet been clearly denned. 
 Upon taking the chair, Senator Dawson stated them as he under- 
 stood them. His statements may be taken as the expression of a 
 moderate leader who had had a considerable part in the inaug- 
 uration of the convention. The members of the convention were 
 not, he said, actuated by feelings of hostility to any section of the 
 Union; but it had been seen for years that the people of the 
 Southern and Western states were suffering from a want of the 
 proper development of the natural resources of their section. Im- 
 mediate action was necessary. The important interests of agricul- 
 ture, commerce, and manufactures were all proper subjects for dis- 
 cussion. Better transportation facilities, development of seaports, 
 direct trade, lines of steamers to Europe and South America, im- 
 provement of rivers and harbors, encouragement of manufactures, 
 
 "DeBozv's Review, XVIII, 354; Charleston Conner, Mar. 3, 1854, quoting 
 the New Orleans Delta; Memphis Eagle and Enquirer, June 16, 1853, letter from 
 C. G. Baylor, editor of the Cotton Plant (Baltimore); Memphis Daily Appeal, 
 June 23, 1853; New Orleans Commercial Bulletin, Jan. 4, 1855. 
 
 "The Baltimore Sun of Dec. 27, 1852, quoted a number of Southern papers 
 as expressing friendliness to Baltimore. 
 
 "Four hundred ninety-six delegates were present. Proceedings, in Proceed- 
 ings of the Southern and Western Commercial Convention at Memphis, Ten- 
 nessee, in June, 1853 (pamphlet, 64 pp.). See also the Memphis Daily Appeal, 
 June 7, 10, 20, 1853; DeBow's Review, XV, 254-274; Western Journal and 
 Civilian, X, 191-197. 
 
132 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840-1 86 1 [132 
 
 and, finally, the Pacific railroad, "the great work of the age and 
 the world," were all specified as subjects which deserved the con- 
 sideration of the convention. 33 
 
 This statement suggested a wide range of discussion; the con- 
 vention went even beyond it. After considerable debate resolutions 
 were adopted asking Congress to appropriate money to improve 
 the channels of the mouths of the Mississippi river, the Des 
 Moines and Rock river rapids, and the harbors of Charleston, 
 Savannah, Wilmington, Norfolk, Mobile, and Galveston. Other 
 resolutions looked to aid from the Federal government in protect- 
 ing the lands along the Mississippi from inundation. Resolutions 
 were adopted relative to direct trade and steamship communica- 
 tion with Europe. Provision was made for a committee to prepare 
 for publication and distribution, particularly in the manufacturing 
 districts of Europe, a full report on the peculiar facilities offered 
 by the South and West for the manufacture of cotton. The con- 
 vention resolved that Southern youth should be educated at home 
 rather than in Northern schools. Native teachers should be em- 
 ployed, and textbooks written by Southern men should be used. 
 The state governments were requested to consider the establish- 
 ment of normal schools. There were long speeches on the free 
 navigation of the Amazon river a subject which Lieutenant M. 
 F. Maury had been agitating for a year or two. The projected 
 railroad across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec was endorsed, and 
 the government was requested to hasten the negotiations with 
 Mexico relative to the right of way. The New Orleans delegation 
 was especially interested in the Tehuantepec project. A St. Louis 
 project for a Mississippi valley railroad from New Orleans to 
 St. Paul via St. Louis was likewise endorsed, and Congress was 
 requested to grant unsold lands along the route in aid thereof. 
 
 But the subject that occupied the largest share of the time and 
 interest of the convention was the Pacific railroad. "This," said 
 the New Orleans Delta, "was the Aaron's rod that swallowed up 
 all others. This is the great panacea, which is to release the South 
 from its bondage to the North, which is to pour untold wealth into 
 our lap; which is to build up cities, steamships, manufactories, 
 educate our children, and draw into our control what Mr. Bell 
 
 K DeBow's Review, XV, 256 ff. 
 
133] THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTION 133 
 
 calls 'the untold wealth of the gorgeous East.' " 3 * The convention 
 unanimously adopted resolutions which declared the road a 
 national necessity, and requested Congress, as soon as the surveys 
 of routes which were then being prosecuted should be completed, 
 to adopt such measures as would insure the construction of the 
 main trunk at the earliest possible period. It refused to suggest 
 that the Federal government construct the main trunk; but it 
 did declare it right, expedient, and proper for the government to 
 make large donations of the public lands to the different states 
 bordering on either side of the Mississippi to enable all sections 
 to connect themselves with the main line by branches. No specific 
 route was recommended. 
 
 The third session of the Southern Commercial Convention was 
 held in Charleston in April, 1854. It was a much larger gathering 
 than either of its predecessors. 35 Senator Dawson again presided. 
 The convention sat six days. The debates were longer and covered 
 an even wider range of subjects than those at Memphis. The 
 Pacific railroad again occupied the center of the stage; but such 
 subjects as direct trade, the encouragement of manufacturing and 
 mining, the remission of duties on railroad iron, and the improve- 
 ment of rivers and harbors were discussed at some length. Among 
 the other topics which received consideration were opening the 
 Amazon river to the navigation of the world; the repeal of the 
 United States tonnage duties and fishing bounties; the admission 
 of foreign vessels to the American coasting trade; direct shipments 
 of cotton to the ports of Continental Europe European manu- 
 facturers purchased their stocks in Liverpool usually ; uniform 
 coinage among the nations of the earth; improved mail service 
 in the South; milling and lumbering; agricultural exhibits and 
 institute fairs; and education in the South. The tone and temper 
 of the gathering were unmistakable; it was a Southern convention 
 determined to find some means of advancing the interests of the 
 South as distinguished from the North. The multiplicity of sub- 
 ducted with approval in the Richmond Enquirer, June 24, 1853. 
 M It was in fact the largest of the whole series. There were present 857 dele- 
 gates from 13 states. The proceedings are in the Charleston Courier, April n- 
 14, 17, 18, 1854; New York Herald, April 14-19 (taken in part from the Courier); 
 DeBow's Review, XVI, 632-41; XVII, 91-99, 200-213, 250-61, 398-410, 491-510 
 (taken from Charleston papers, chiefly from the Courier). 
 
134 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [134 
 
 jects pressed upon it for attention indicates the earnestness, at 
 least, of many of the men who composed it. 
 
 Several essays were made to define the objects of the Southern 
 Commercial Convention. C. K. Marshall, of Mississippi, offered 
 a resolution to the effect that, while commerce was the subject for 
 special consideration by the convention, other matters tending to 
 the accomplishment of the general design of the development of 
 the rights and resources of the Southern and Southwestern states 
 were legitimate subjects. 36 DeBow, who was unable to be present, 
 wrote to the committee in charge of arrangements stating his 
 understanding of the objects of the convention. He emphasized 
 the point that these conventions were successors of the direct 
 trade conventions of the late thirties, the Memphis conventions of 
 1845 and 1849, and the New Orleans Railroad Convention of 
 1852. He believed these conventions had contributed largely to 
 the great development which had been exhibited everywhere 
 throughout the South during the several years preceding. Further- 
 more, they had taught the South to see and feel with humiliation 
 her dependence upon the North, not only in industry and com- 
 merce but in matters not of a material character. As he saw it, 
 the task which lay before them was no less than the regeneration 
 of the South. 37 This seems to have been the view also of gentle- 
 men who addressed the convention; and this must be set down as 
 the purpose of the Southern Commercial Convention when at its 
 best. 
 
 The lengthiest debates of the session were upon a scheme pro- 
 posed by Albert Pike, of Arkansas, for building the Pacific railroad 
 along a Southern route without aid from the Federal government. 
 The Legislature of Virginia was called upon to charter a Southern 
 Pacific Railroad company with sufficient capital to build the road. 
 The stock was to be subscribed by the Southern states and Cali- 
 fornia to the sum of $2,000,000 each, by cities, by private cor- 
 porations, and by individuals. Texas was expected to make a 
 liberal grant of public land. The Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek 
 nations were to be invited to join the enterprise. The board of 
 directors was to consist of an equal number from each state. The 
 corporation was to be granted power by its charter to negotiate 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XVII, 92 f. 
 
 "Ibid., XVII, 95 ff.; Charleston Courier, April 10, 1854. 
 
135] THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTION 135 
 
 with Mexico for, and to purchase if necessary, a right of way 
 through her territory to the Pacific or the Gulf of California; and 
 to agree that the company would maintain military posts along 
 the portion of the road which should lie in Mexico. 38 
 
 This extraordinary plan was opposed upon the floor by some 
 of the ablest and most practical men of the convention, including 
 Senator Dawson, Lieutenant Maury, Judge Nesbit, of Georgia, 
 Governor J. A. Jones, of Tennessee, and N. D. Coleman, of Mis- 
 sissippi the last two being railroad men. According to these men, 
 the plan was chimerical; it would be impracticable to unite the 
 Southern states upon it; it would disrupt the South; it was too 
 sectional; it savored too much of politics; definitely broke with the 
 Western states; was of doubtful constitutionality; and the consti- 
 tutions of several states forbade them entering any such corpora- 
 tion. Yet the convention, voting by states, unanimously endorsed 
 Pike's scheme: Pike was a brilliant orator and presented his plan 
 in a most convincing manner; 39 some support may have been 
 attracted among strict constructionists by the omission of any 
 demand for Federal aid; but the chief recommendation of the 
 plan was its sectional nature. 
 
 Sectionalism was running high at this time. The Kansas- 
 Nebraska bill was before Congress. A Pacific railroad bill had 
 been defeated in the short session of the Thirty-second Congress, 
 1853, largely because partisans of a Southern route feared that it 
 gave some advantage to the North. 40 Since that time partisans of 
 the several proposed routes had been exerting themselves to the 
 utmost to gain some advantage in the struggle. Surveys made in 
 1853 under the direction of Jefferson Davis, Secretary of War, had 
 shown that the best Southern route ran south of the Gila River in 
 Mexican territory. 41 Very late in the same year the Gadsden 
 treaty had been negotiated with Mexico securing, among other 
 things, the desired route. While the Charleston convention was 
 sitting, the treaty was being considered by the Senate in secret 
 
 "Resolutions embodying the plan, DeBow's Review, XVI, 636-37. 
 
 "For debate see ibid., XVII, 205-13, 408-10, 492-506. 
 
 40 This statement is based upon an unpublished study, made by the author, 
 of the struggles in Congress over the Pacific railroad. 
 
 "Reports of the Explorations and Surveys, to Ascertain the Most Practical 
 and Economical Route for a Railroad from the Mississippi River to the Pacific 
 Ocean, I, 4, 29. 
 
136 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [136 
 
 session; and, rumor had it, was meeting opposition, which was 
 attributed to the unwillingness of Northern men to purchase a 
 Southern route to the Pacific. 42 General Gadsden himself addressed 
 the convention in favor of a resolution in support of ratification of 
 the treaty and in favor of Pike's plan. 43 Albert Pike took strong 
 sectional grounds in his speech in support of the resolutions 
 embodying his plan. He invited the attention of the convention 
 to the great Northwest, which, he said, never seemed to be taken 
 into consideration by Southern men. This region was bidding for 
 immigration: laws granting foreign immigrants the suffrage before 
 they had declared their intention of becoming United States 
 citizens were one inducement; the proposed homestead legislation 
 was another; the Kansas-Nebraska bill another. The North was 
 increasing her political power at the South's expense. "And with 
 this continued increase in foreign and Northern influence was it 
 not obvious that the prospect of the South ever getting a Pacific 
 Railroad was put further and further off every year?" The North 
 was looking out for her own interests; "the North knew full well 
 that wherever the Pacific Railroad went, there too, would go the 
 power and wealth of the country." The South should look to her 
 interests. He wanted his plan to be a "sort of declaration of inde- 
 pendence on the part of the South." 44 
 
 After the great meeting at Charleston, the Southern Com- 
 mercial Convention languished for a couple of years. The session 
 in New Orleans in January, 1855, was very poorly attended and 
 attracted little attention from the South at large. 45 There were 
 several reasons for the poor showing. The Western rivers were 
 low, making travel difficult. Congress and the state legislatures 
 were in session. The country was suffering somewhat from a tem- 
 
 "Dt Bow's Review, XVII, 210, 408; New York Herald, April 19, 1854. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XVII, 408-9; letter from John R. Bartlett, one of the 
 Mexican boundary commissioners, taking umbrage at Gadsden's remarks in the 
 convention, Charleston Courier, April 28, 1854. 
 
 "I have followed the synopses of his speeches as given in DeBow's Review, 
 XVII, 208-12, 499-506. The same arguments are set forth in a very striking and 
 able manner in a memorial to the state legislatures which Pike prepared. Ibid., 
 XVII, 593-99- 
 
 45 Two hundred twelve delegates from twelve states. The proceedings are in 
 ibid., XVIII, 353-60, 520-28, 623-35, 749-60; New Orleans Commercial Bulletin, 
 Jan. 10-16, 1855. 
 
137] THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTION 137 
 
 porary financial stringency.* 6 The presence of so many radicals 
 in the Charleston convention had discredited the movement in the 
 eyes of many of more conservative opinions. 47 
 
 But the chief reason for the poor showing made was the attitude 
 of the people of New Orleans and vicinity. The city council took 
 tardy action, and the committee on arrangements did little. The 
 Governor of Louisiana neglected to appoint delegates. Several of 
 the New Orleans newspapers were antagonistic, expressing the 
 opinion that the convention had been decidedly hostile to New 
 Orleans from the beginning. 48 A specific grievance was the refusal 
 of the Charleston convention to adopt resolutions requesting 
 Congress to make appropriations for the improvement of the navi- 
 gation of the Mississippi. 49 On the other hand there was a feeling 
 throughout the South that the people of New Orleans were only 
 lukewarm for the Southern cause. This feeling of hostility on the 
 one hand and distrust on the other found expression upon the 
 floor of the convention, and visiting delegates left with the feeling 
 that they had not been cordially received. 50 The session at Rich- 
 mond, Virginia, early the following year, 1856, made no better 
 showing, only seven states being represented; 51 but in this case the 
 want of success seems to have been largely due to severe weather 
 and to the fact that, the meeting having once been postponed in- 
 definitely because of an epidemic of small-pox in Richmond, too 
 
 "Charleston Courier, Jan. 13, 1855. 
 
 * 7 Savannah Daily Republican, Nov. 17, 1856; DeBow's Review, XVIII, 523. 
 Senator Benton, of Missouri, had denounced the Charleston convention as a 
 disunion convention and Pike's plan for building the Pacific railroad as a plan 
 for dissolving the Union. Ibid., loc. cit. 
 
 *DeBow's Review, XVIII, 353; New Orleans Commercial Bulletin, Jan. 4, 
 1855. "This feeling of indifference and apathy is not at all to be wondered at. 
 All disclaimers to the contrary notwithstanding, the series of Southern Commer- 
 cial Conventions, commencing at Baltimore, and continued at Memphis and 
 Charleston, were decidedly antagonistic to the interests of New Orleans; and 
 this inimical tendency was more than once exhibited in a manner invidiously 
 offensive and calculated to disturb and wound our amour propre." Ibid., Jan. 
 
 17, i8SS- 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XVIII, 628. 
 
 "Ibid., XVIII, 354, 624, 632, 634. 
 
 "Proceedings, in ibid., XX, 340-354; Richmond Enquirer, Jan. 31, Feb. I, 
 2, 4, 5, 1856. The resolutions are in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXXIV, 
 392. There were 213 delegates present, of whom 183 were from Virginia. 
 
IjS ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [138 
 
 short notice was given of the time of the meeting. 52 The chief topic 
 of discussion at New Orleans was the Pacific railroad; at Rich- 
 mond, direct trade. Most of the other topics discussed at previous 
 sessions were considered in a more or less perfunctory manner. 
 
 The Richmond convention determined that a greater effort than 
 theretofore should be made to insure a large attendance at the 
 next meeting; a committee was appointed to address the Southern 
 people in its behalf. 83 The Savannah committee on preparations 
 worked hard. But it was the political situation which was chiefly 
 responsible for the large attendance at Savannah: the convention 
 met in December, 1856, a month after the exciting presidential 
 campaign had resulted in the narrow defeat of the "Black Repub- 
 lican" party. 64 
 
 The fire eating element in the Southern Commercial Conven- 
 tion had been gradually growing. Several members of the com- 
 mittee which issued the call for the Savannah convention were 
 known to be disunionists. 55 Many friends of the Union had come 
 to look upon the convention with distrust, and branded the 
 Savannah session in advance a disunion scheme. 56 The city council 
 of Nashville, Tennessee, for example, refused to appoint delegates 
 to the convention, because it feared its disunion proclivities. 57 On 
 the other hand, the New Orleans Delta, a journal which had been 
 antagonistic when the dominant purpose was the economic regen- 
 eration of the South, gave cordial support now that the objects 
 were becoming political. 58 The convention at Savannah was com- 
 posed largely of politicians, and a large minority, if not an actual 
 majority, were disunionists. 59 James Lyon, of Virginia, upon tak- 
 
 "DfBow's Review, XX, 340. 
 
 "Ibid., XX, 351; XXI, 550-552 (the call). 
 
 "Savannah Republican, Oct. 17, 21, 29, 1856. There were 564 delegates from 
 ten states. 
 
 "The Savannah Republican thought that "aside from the known character 
 and sentiment of the men who compose that committee," there was nothing in 
 the call that could be tortured into a disunion sentiment. Nov. 17, 1856. The 
 Republican was a Union paper. 
 
 "The Savannah Republican, Dec. I, 1856. 
 
 "Ibid., Nov. 25. 
 
 M Quoted in the Charleston Courier, Nov. 6, 1856. 
 
 "The Savannah Republican, Dec. 16, 1856, thought the convention was by 
 large odds a "conservative body," but admitted the presence of a considerable 
 number of disunionists. A list of the delegates is in DeBow's Review, XXII, 82 ff. 
 
139] THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTION 139 
 
 ing the chair, stated the objects of the convention as they had 
 already been stated several times. He defended the convention 
 against the charge of disunionism. It was commercial and not 
 political independence the South sought. But, in a strain quite 
 common in that day, he "looked to the future," and expressed 
 the fear that the time might come when the South would have to 
 defend her rights. For such a time it behooved her to be strong 
 and ready. 60 
 
 The convention considered rather perfunctorily the subjects 
 discussed at previous sessions. 61 Albert Pike was again able to 
 secure endorsement of his plan for building a railroad to the 
 Pacific. A. Dudley Mann's scheme for establishing a "steam ferry" 
 between the Chesapeake and England was endorsed; as was -also 
 Thomas Rainey's project for a line of steamships from New York 
 to the La Plata, via Savannah. But the chief interest was in 
 questions more political in character. Robert Toombs addressed a 
 letter to the convention proposing that the state legislatures en- 
 courage direct trade by levying an ad valorem tax upon the sale 
 of all goods imported into their respective states except goods im- 
 ported directly from foreign countries. Such a tax, Toombs be- 
 lieved, would not only enable the states to dispense with direct 
 taxation, but would also provide ample revenue to carry out works 
 of internal improvement. 62 The letter was referred to the general 
 committee, which reported not Toombs' plan but resolutions in 
 favor of free trade and direct taxation as measures best calculated 
 to promote direct trade. The report was tabled (by a vote of 
 57-24) ; but the subject was kept alive by the appointment of a 
 committee to report upon it at the next session. 63 
 
 Resolutions in favor of reopening the African slave trade, an 
 issue raised shortly before, 61 were introduced and debated at 
 
 "Savannah Republican, Dec. 9, 1856; DeBow's Review, XXII, 86-7. 
 
 "Proceedings, in Official Report of the Debates and Proceedings of the South- 
 ern Commercial Convention, assembled at Knoxville, Tennessee, August 10, 1857, 
 Appendix: Proceedings of the Southern Convention at Savannah. Also in De- 
 Bow's Review, XXII, 81-105, 216-24, 307-18; Savannah Republican, Dec. 9-13, 
 1856; Charleston Courier, Dec. 11-13. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXII, 102-104; Charleston Courier, Dec. 15, 1856. The 
 plan was not original with Toombs. For fuller discussion see below, p. 167 f. 
 
 "Proceedings and debate, in DeBow's Review, XXII, 92 ff., 307-18. 
 
 'The question was fairly launched by Governor Adams, of South Carolina, 
 in his message to the Legislature, Nov. 24, 1856. Charleston Courier, Nov. 26. 
 
140 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [ 140 
 
 length, the debate turning not so much upon the propriety of con- 
 sidering such a question in a commercial convention as upon the 
 expediency of reopening the foreign slave trade. This question, 
 too, was carried over by the appointment of a committee to report 
 at the next meeting of the convention. 65 Resolutions were also 
 adopted recommending organized Southern emigration to Kansas; 
 requesting Southern representatives in Congress to inquire whether 
 their respective states had received their full quota of the public 
 arms, and to insist that Southern posts be properly fortified; 
 recommending the establishment of state armories; and expressing 
 sympathy with the "efforts being made to introduce civilization 
 in the States of Central America, and to develop these rich and 
 productive regions by the introduction of slave labor," that is, 
 with the Walker filibusters. 66 
 
 The Southern Commercial Convention had now reached a 
 stage where nothing could be expected from it in the way of ad- 
 vancing commerce and industry in the South. The committee 
 which issued the call for the succeeding session at Knoxville 
 styled it, rather suggestively, the "Southern Convention," and 
 declared its purpose to be to unite the South upon a sectional 
 policy. "Every other purpose," said the committee, "is of trifling 
 importance in comparison with the high moral and social objects 
 of the Convention. They are intended to spread far and wide, 
 correct, enlarged, and faithful views of our rights and obligations, 
 and to unite us together by the most sacred bonds to maintain 
 them inviolate for ourselves and our posterity." 67 At Knoxville in 
 August, i857, 68 J- D. B. DeBow, already an avowed disunionist, 
 was made president, and opened the convention with a ringing 
 disunion speech. He admitted that the convention had built no 
 railroads and established no steamship lines; but it had caused 
 the people of the South to understand the importance of all those 
 things; and they would come in the fullness of time. It had taught 
 the people that the South had rights a thousand times more valu- 
 
 '"DeBow's Review, XXII, 216-224 (summary of the debate). 
 
 6t lbid., XXII, 96-102 (resolutions of the convention in full). 
 
 "Ibid., XXIII, 193. 
 
 "Proceedings, in Official Report of the Debates and Proceedings of the 
 Southern Commercial Convention, assembled at Knoxville, Tennessee, August 
 10th, 1857; DeBow's Review, XXIII, 298-320; New York Herald, 17, 18, 19 
 (best report). There were 710 delegates from eleven states and Arizona territory. 
 
I4l] THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTION 14! 
 
 able than the Union, and that she had resources sufficient to make 
 her important in the Union or to enable her to maintain herself 
 as an independent nation. 69 
 
 Resolutions in regard to reopening the foreign slave trade were 
 introduced and debated at great length. By a scale vote of 66 to 
 26 a resolution was adopted which put the convention on record 
 in favor of the annullment of that article of the Webster-Ash- 
 burton treaty, ratified November 10, 1842, which provided for 
 keeping a squadron of naval vessels off the coast of Africa for the 
 purpose of suppressing the slave trade. An amendment offered 
 by a Tennessee delegate declaring it "inexpedient and contrary to 
 the settled policy of this country to repeal the laws prohibitory of 
 the African slave trade" was defeated by a vote of 40 for, 52 
 against. 70 The amendment was almost identical in language with 
 a resolution introduced in the House of Representatives, December 
 15, 1856, by James L. Orr, of South Carolina, and adopted with 
 only eight dissenting votes. 71 One delegate broached the subject 
 of free immigration, but it did not meet with favor among the body 
 of delegates; 72 it was, of course, a much more practical subject. 
 Another long debate occurred upon the resolution, offered by W. 
 W. Boyce, of South Carolina, declaring that the system of duties 
 on imports should be abandoned by the Federal government and 
 direct taxation be resorted to exclusively. 73 Whatever the merits 
 of absolute free trade, its establishment in the Union was about as 
 impossible as was reopening the foreign slave trade. 74 
 
 It is true, the former objects of the convention were not com- 
 pletely lost sight of. A. Dudley Mann's scheme for establishing a 
 steamship line between Chesapeake Bay and Milford Haven was 
 debated and endorsement defeated, probably at the instigation of 
 friends of rival Virginia projects. 75 A resolution was adopted 
 
 DeBow's Review, XXIII, 225-38; Richmond Enquirer, Aug. 17, 1857. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXIII, 309-10; New York Herald, Aug. 18. 
 
 "Ibid., Aug. 19; Cong. Globe, 34 Cong., 3 Sess., 125-126. 
 
 "New York Herald, Aug. 19; DeBow's Review, XXIII, 319. 
 
 n lbid., XXIII, 313 ff. 
 
 "The convention was not of a practical bent: a good part of two days was 
 spent debating a resolution to exclude reporters of Northern newspapers. New 
 York Herald, Aug. 17, 1857; DeBow's Review, XXIII, 302-305. 
 
 "New York Herald, Aug. 17; DeBow's Review, XXIII, 306, 308. 
 
142 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840-! 86 1 [142 
 
 recommending the extension of state aid to steamship lines be- 
 tween Southern and foreign ports. The Federal government was 
 requested to grant to Southern steamship lines the same subsidies 
 for carrying the mails that it granted to Northern lines. The meet- 
 ing recommended patronage of home manufactories and of 
 merchants who imported directly from foreign countries. Resolu- 
 tions were adopted asking the Federal government to fortify the 
 harbors of Port Royal, South Carolina, Mobile, Alabama, and 
 Beaufort, North Carolina, and make them coaling stations for 
 large government steamers. A resolution recommending taxation 
 by the Southern states upon sales within their respective borders 
 of articles manufactured in the North was rejected. A committee 
 was appointed to memorialize Congress upon the subject of duties 
 imposed by foreign countries upon American tobacco; 76 the duties 
 imposed by some countries were very high, and it was felt that 
 the American government had not made the effort it might have 
 made to secure their reduction. The Pacific railroad was not 
 mentioned. There were the usual resolutions relative to Southern 
 education. The disposition to call for Federal aid for various 
 purposes is noteworthy. 
 
 In the earlier sessions of the Commercial Convention there had 
 been a sprinkling of public men of more than local prominence, 
 and, of course, a larger number of local politicians. The majority 
 of the delegates came from towns and cities; but the planters had 
 been well represented. In the earlier meetings, as in the later, 
 there were editors, preachers, physicians, and professors; but there 
 were also a large number of business men, bankers, merchants, a 
 few manufacturers, and men interested in promoting particular 
 railroad projects, steamship lines, or other enterprises, for which 
 they hoped to secure the endorsement of the convention. By the 
 time of the Knoxville convention this latter element had practi- 
 cally ceased to attend. After the Knoxville meeting the dwindling 
 conservative element also disappeared from the convention, and it 
 fell everywhere into disrepute except among the disunionists, who 
 continued to hope that it would serve some useful purpose in mak- 
 ing Southern men acquainted with each other, in consolidating 
 
 "The memorial is in DeBow's Review, XXIV, 291-300. 
 
143] THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTION 143 
 
 Southern feeling, and in harmonizing differences between different 
 quarters of the South. 77 
 
 The Montgomery convention, May, 1858, was well attended. 78 
 The debates, as far as oratory was concerned, were more brilliant 
 than those of any other session of the series. Among the orators 
 were Henry W. Milliard and William L.Yancey, of Alabama, rivals 
 of long standing. 79 But it was not a commercial convention; it was 
 a gathering of disunionists. The Montgomery Daily Confederation 
 said, "every form and shape of political malcontent was there 
 present, ready to assent in any project having for its end a disso- 
 lution of the Union, immediate, unconditional, final." 80 Edmund 
 Ruffin, of Virginia, himself an ardent secessionist, found only two 
 delegates outside the Virginia delegation who were not disunion- 
 ists. 81 But the proceedings took a turn which all secessionists even, 
 could not approve. Practically the whole time of the session was 
 devoted to debating the question of reopening the African slave 
 trade. The debate proved the delegates to be hopelessly divided, 
 not only upon the expediency of reopening the foreign slave trade, 
 but also upon the more practical question, whether or not agita- 
 tion for the repeal of Federal laws prohibitory of the slave trade 
 would promote or injure the cause of disunion. 82 Ridiculed both 
 
 ''Address of the committee which called the Montgomery convention. 
 Charleston Mercury, April 8, 1858; DeBow's Review, XXIV, 424-28. The Knox- 
 ville (Tenn.) Citizen thought the call "an invitation to take counsel whether the 
 Union can be longer maintained or is worth maintaining." Quoted in Charleston 
 Mercury, April 20, 1858. 
 
 "About 400 delegates were present from ten states. Proceedings, in DeBow's 
 Review, XXIV, 574-606; Montgomery Daily Confederation, May 11-15, 1858. 
 
 "Yancey's part in the convention is discussed at length in DuBose, The Life 
 and Times of William Lowndes Yancey, 358 ff. Cf. Ruffin' s Diary, entry for May 
 13, 1858; DeBow's Review, XXIV, 583-88. 
 
 ""May 18, 1858. "When the South gets ready to dissolve the Union, all she 
 has to do is to reassemble the Southern Commercial Convention which met at 
 Montgomery and give the word." Milledgeville (Georgia) Federal Union, quoted 
 in the New Orleans Picayune, May 25, 1858. A. P. Calhoun, son of John C. 
 Calhoun, and a disunionist per se, was president. 
 
 ^Ruffiin's Diary, May 11, 1858. 
 
 "Charleston Mercury, May 15, 1858. The press of South' Carolina was al- 
 most unanimous in recommending that delegates be sent to Montgomery, think- 
 ing the result would be to harmonize and consolidate the South. When, how- 
 ever, the introduction of the slave trade question served only to sow seeds of 
 
144 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM,l84O-l86l [144 
 
 in the North and the South, 83 denounced by the Union element in 
 the South, and distrusted by the cooler headed disunionists, 84 the 
 Vicksburg meeting, in May, 1859, was able to summon only a 
 corporal's guard, chiefly of the more radical type of disunionists. 
 For five days the convention indulged in heated debate upon the 
 great questions confronting the South, particularly the reopening 
 of the African slave trade, adopted a string of resolutions as long 
 as those of its predecessors, and adjourned to meet again at the 
 call of the president. 85 That gentleman chose not to issue the call; 
 and, thus, rather ingloriously the Southern Commercial Conven- 
 tion came to an end. 
 
 There were reasons for the change in the character of the per- 
 sonnel and the perversion of purpose of the Southern Commercial 
 Convention other than the growing intensity of the sectional strug- 
 gle and the aggressiveness of the disunion elements. With the 
 exception of the one at Baltimore, these assemblies were practi- 
 cally mass meetings. The task of insuring a large attendance was, 
 in the majority of instances, left to a committee of the city council 
 or board of trade of the city in which the convention was to meet. 
 Delegates were appointed by governors, mayors, city councils, 
 boards of trade, and meetings of citizens. In making their selec- 
 tions they were governed solely by their own judgment; for no 
 qualifications for membership were prescribed. Distinguished in- 
 dividuals were sometimes invited by the local committee; a general 
 invitation was always extended to editors. Not a tenth part of 
 those designated as delegates attended. No one participated in the 
 
 dissension, the press of the state very generally condemned it. Camden, (S. C.) 
 Journal, quoted in the Montgomery Daily Confederation, May 15, 1858. Ed- 
 mund Ruffin was very much disappointed at the turn the convention took, 
 though he saw redeeming features. Diary, May 11-16, 1858. 
 
 '"'"Was there ever such another gathering in all this world as the Vicksburg 
 fire eaters' convention? Let Garrison and his motley crew of old women in 
 breeches, and would-be-men in petticoats retire from the field. They are tame, 
 flat and stupid compared with these fiery, fussy, belligerent, and terrible South- 
 ern salamanders." New York Herald, May 18, 1859. 
 
 "When Georgia and Alabama refused to appoint delegates, the Montgomery 
 Daily Confederation remarked: "These Southern Commercial Conventions have 
 run their course and we shall hear no more of them forever." May 14, 1859. 
 
 "Proceedings in New York Herald, May 18, 21; DeBow's Review, XXVI, 
 713; XXVII, 94-103, 205-20, 360-65, 468-71 (taken largely from the New York 
 Herald). 
 
145] THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTION 145 
 
 proceedings who had not been certified as a delegate; 86 but, it is 
 evident, anyone who desired to attend could readily secure the 
 necessary credentials. Thus there was nothing in the organization 
 of the convention to present a change in the character of the 
 personnel. 
 
 When the convention failed to produce the results which its 
 founders hoped for it, many of its early patrons confessed it a 
 failure and ceased to attend it. This failure was due in large part 
 to the inherent limitations of a convention as a means of effecting 
 a revolution in commerce and industry. It was unreasonable to 
 expect, as many seem to have expected, a convention to build 
 railroads, establish steamship lines, erect cotton factories, or open 
 mines. Numerous examples can be cited of individual local con- 
 > ventions, particularly railroad conventions, held during the decades 
 preceding the Civil War which aided greatly in crystallizing the 
 sentiment of their respective communities in favor of particular 
 railroad or other projects and in securing subscriptions to the 
 capital stock. A few might be mentioned which powerfully influ- 
 enced a city or state to embark upon an internal improvements 
 program. But a convention representative of many so widely 
 separated communities and so many conflicting interests as was 
 the Southern Commercial Convention could not be expected to 
 accomplish anything so tangible in character. 
 
 The convention failed largely, however, to accomplish what it 
 might legitimately have been expected to accomplish. The meet- 
 ings were not well managed. No programs were made before 
 convening; and no efforts were made to have subjects presented 
 by those best prepared to discuss them. There was no steering 
 committee. The rules of the House of Representatives were fol- 
 lowed; the chair recognized the first to claim the floor, and debate 
 was rarely limited. The most fluent orators were able to monop- 
 olize the time of the convention to the exclusion of practical busi- 
 ness men, whose counsels might have been more worth while. As 
 the objects of the convention were not strictly defined, anyone 
 with a hobby could secure a hearing. Too large a part of the time 
 was spent in discussing panaceas, magnificent schemes like the 
 Pacific railroad or the navigation of the Amazon. Things of just 
 
 ""However, the conventions sometimes invited distinguished visitors present 
 to participate in the proceedings as delegates. 
 
146 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [ 146 
 
 as great importance but appealing less to the imagination, such as 
 geological surveys, banking facilities, boards of trade, advertising, 
 encouragement of home industry by correction of the irregularities 
 of taxation systems or by bounties, were not taken up in real 
 earnest. Immigration, except of negro slaves, was not discussed. 
 No consideration was given the possibility of utilizing the poor 
 white population in productive industry. No invitations were sent 
 to foreign capitalists. 
 
 Great faith was put in the efficacy of resolutions. All resolu- 
 tions introduced were referred to a general committee composed 
 of a number of delegates from each state, from which they were 
 reported after due consideration to be acted upon by the whole 
 convention. Resolutions deemed important were debated at length, 
 and the voting thereon would not have been watched more jeal- 
 ously had the convention been a legislative body framing the laws 
 of the land. 87 Said the New York Tribune: "For a quarter of a 
 century past she has been holding conventions, at which it has 
 been resolved that Norfolk, Charleston, and Savannah should be- 
 come great commercial cities, which obstinately they refuse to 
 be." 88 The convention might have been employed to better advan- 
 tage had it collected useful information in regard to economic 
 conditions in the Southern states and disseminated it. Such a work 
 would at least have contributed to a better understanding of the 
 causes for the backwardness of the South a useful preliminary 
 to a prescription of the remedies. The convention left no reports 
 or publications, however, comparable even to the reports and ad- 
 dresses of McDuffie, Hayne, Longstreet, and Mallory, of the direct 
 trade conventions of 1837-1839. This was due to the disinclination 
 of individuals to contribute anything, except speeches and resolu- 
 tions, to make the convention a success. 
 
 "Voting was by states. In some of the conventions (Memphis and Charles- 
 ton) each state was allowed one vote, in others a number equal to the state 
 representation in Congress. This system had some incongruous results; often one 
 or two delegates from a poorly represented state cast the entire vote of the state, 
 and thus had as much to do with determining the official action of the conven- 
 tion as a hundred delegates from another state. 
 
 ""Reprint, The North and the South, 1854. Also quoted in Charleston Cou- 
 rier, April 24, 1854. "Much time is consumed in talking, and most scrupulous 
 attention is paid to punctilio and the rules of debate .... but as soon as the fiat 
 of the convention has gone forth, the members seem to think that their task is 
 complete." 
 
147] THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTION 147 
 
 Time and again recess committees were appointed to investigate 
 and report, to memorialize Congress or the state legislatures, and 
 for other purposes. With a few exceptions they failed to do the 
 work assigned them. At Memphis an able committee was named 
 to prepare for publication and distribution, especially in the man- 
 ufacturing districts of Europe, a full report of the peculiar facilities 
 offered by the Southern and Western states for the manufacture 
 of cotton. This was a very worth-while task. The committee was 
 not supported in its labors, 89 however, and there is no record that 
 it made any report. The Charleston convention appointed a com- 
 mittee of three from each state to gather statistics and other infor- 
 mation on mining, manufacturing, lumbering, milling, internal 
 improvements, and capacities for trade and commerce in the 
 South, to address the people, urge the legislatures to action in 
 favor of education, manufacturing, shipbuilding, direct trade, and 
 mining, and report to the next convention. The committee was 
 divided into five sub-committees with able chairmen. 90 This com- 
 mittee, notwithstanding the immensity of the task imposed upon 
 it, might have performed a useful service had it gone intelligently 
 to work. At the succeeding convention the chairmen of the sub- 
 committees had no reports whatever, and the chairman of the 
 committee transmitted certain documents and a letter relative to 
 his duties. 91 Naturally this failure to take seriously the work 
 assigned the committees tended to convince practical men that no 
 good could come from these meetings. "But it cannot be expected," 
 said one delegate, "that a commercial convention can produce any 
 useful result when committees appointed by it pay no attention to 
 subjects committed to them, after adjournment." 92 
 
 In the earlier sessions of the convention an apparently honest 
 attempt was made to keep party politics out of the proceedings. 
 It proved well nigh impossible to do so. Politics played a very 
 large part in the life of the South; from the very first many of the 
 delegates were politicians; and many of the matters which legiti- 
 mately came before the convention had become party questions. 
 Whig and Democratic members of the convention watched mem- 
 
 "DeBotv's Review, XV, 268, 432. 
 
 "Ibid., XVI, 635; XVII, 325. 
 
 "Ibid., XVIII, 357. 
 
 "Ibid., XVIII, 524, remarks of Albert Pike. 
 
148 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84<>l86l [148 
 
 bers of the opposite political faith closely to see that they did not 
 attempt to make political capital from the action of the convention. 
 The more partisan journals approved or disapproved the conven- 
 tion according as their party or the opposition party could better 
 capitalize its proceedings. 93 At Memphis a political debate over 
 resolutions calling upon the Federal government to appropriate 
 money for the improvement of rivers and harbors was avoided 
 with difficulty. 94 The opponents of Federal aid to internal im- 
 provements, led by General John A. Quitman, forced the omission 
 from the resolutions on a Pacific railroad, of a clause calling upon 
 the government to build the main trunk. 95 At Charleston the same 
 questions were fought over. It was evident that a large majority 
 was willing to ask the government to improve rivers and harbors. 96 
 A Louisiana delegate threatened to speak all week before he would 
 see the convention turned into a Whig meeting. Governor Chap- 
 man, of Alabama, served notice that the next convention would 
 see few delegates from Democratic Alabama if the resolution was 
 passed. A Georgia Whig appealed to the convention to keep out 
 party questions, and the resolution was withdrawn. 97 The intro- 
 duction of party politics discredited the convention in the eyes of 
 many who had hoped that some real good would flow from it in 
 the way of promoting the material prosperity of the South. 
 
 Defenders of the Southern Commercial Convention admitted 
 the justice of many of the criticisms made of it both at home and 
 in the North. They sometimes countered, however, with the com- 
 plaint that the fault lay in the failure of Congress and the state 
 legislatures to act upon the convention's recommendations. And, 
 with a very few exceptions, it would be impossible to name any 
 concrete suggestions which were acted upon. This defense over- 
 
 ""Before the Charleston convention met, the Richmond Enquirer believed it 
 would be composed of able and practical men and confidently hoped it 
 would take action towards securing Southern commercial independence. But 
 some of the views there expressed were too ''federal" to harmonize with the 
 Enquirer's strict construction principles; and the convention was described as 
 ''an abortion if not something worse." April 4, 14, 21, 1854. Two years later the 
 Enquirer was again the champion of the convention. Jan. 28, 31, 1856. 
 
 ^De Bow's Review, XV, 265. 
 
 "Ibid., XV, 265 ff., 270 f. 
 
 'Ibid., XVII, 261. 
 
 "Ibid., XVII, 400 ff.; New York Herald, April 19, 1854. 
 
THE SOUTHERN COMMERCIAL CONVENTION 149 
 
 looks the fact that the convention might have served the cause in 
 other ways than through recommendations to legislative bodies; 
 in fact, it is questionable how far the economic development of 
 the South could have been promoted by legislation. But this 
 aside. It was one of the inherent limitations of the convention that 
 it could not legislate, but only recommend legislation. No doubt 
 action by the state legislatures or by Congress in accordance with 
 many of the recommendations of the convention would have 
 greatly benefited the South. On the other hand, the recommen- 
 dations were not always well advised, were often indefinite, and, 
 in general, were not pressed upon the state legislatures and Con- 
 gress with vigor. 
 
 Defenders of the convention claimed for it important results in 
 the way of creating public sentiment and educating the public in 
 regard to its objects. It had aroused the public mind, they said, 
 to the need of diversifying industry, fostering commerce, and de- 
 veloping the South's natural resources. It had been the means of 
 disseminating useful information, teaching the South the extent 
 of her resources, and pointing the way to their utilization. These 
 claims are true to a degree. Perhaps the judgment of the New 
 Orleans Picayune was as fair and as near the mark as could be 
 made. When the movement was initiated, it said, practical men 
 had hoped that at last the public would be aroused. To some 
 extent this hope had been realized. The importance of commer- 
 cial enterprise had been impressed upon the public mind. The 
 necessity of manufacturing industry to local independence was 
 generally acknowledged. The certainty of the ultimate growth and 
 importance of Southern seaports, aided by the completion of pro- 
 jected internal improvements, was perceived. These results were 
 due in part to the Southern Commercial Convention. 98 
 
 Men of the disunionist faction, which had dominated the later 
 sessions of the Southern Commercial Convention, claimed that the 
 convention has been a potent means of uniting the South, consol- 
 idating public opinion, and preparing the people for the crisis. It 
 had made Southern men more extensively acquainted with each 
 other, and had shown that, while they might disagree as to meas- 
 ures, they were one in purpose. The convention had also taught the 
 people that the South had resources sufficient to maintain herself 
 
 "May 20, 1858. 
 
I5O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [150 
 
 as an independent nation. According to the Charleston Mercury, 
 one result of the convention was a knowledge that nothing could 
 be done in the Union to change the course of Southern commerce; 
 and "To know our condition, is the first great requisite for alter- 
 ing it." 99 These claims may be admitted with qualifications. The 
 meetings of the Southern Commercial Convention no doubt con- 
 tributed to the spread of disunion sentiment; but it was through 
 declamation rather than argument. They were conducive to pas- 
 sion and resentment rather than clear thinking and sound judg- 
 ment. While they brought men from widely separated states 
 together in a common cause, they also exposed to view the divi- 
 sions in Southern opinion, the discordant elements, the local 
 jealousies, and the inability of too many Southern men to rise 
 above petty politics. Finally, they countenanced the agitation of 
 a question, the reopening of the foreign slave trade, which bade 
 fair to wreck the disunion cause altogether. The Southern Com- 
 mercial Convention did not tend to put the disunion cause upon 
 a high plane. 
 
 Perhaps the chief significance of the Southern Commercial Con- 
 vention for the student of the period lies in the fact that a conven- 
 tion professing the purposes which it did, met year after year, 
 attracted a considerable degree of interest, and, as long as it re- 
 tained its original purpose of regenerating the South, commanded 
 the good will of a great majority of the Southern people. 
 
 M May 16, 1858. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION, 
 FEDERAL, STATE, AND LOCAL, 1840-1860 
 
 The attitude of the South upon the tariff was determined in the 
 main by the dominant economic interests of the section. The 
 South was practically unanimous in opposition to the Tariff of 
 1828. One state went to the extreme of declaring it and the amend- 
 ments of 1832 null and void. There was much sympathy with this 
 action in other Southern states, particularly Georgia. The South- 
 ern delegation in Congress was all but unanimous in voting for 
 the Compromise Tariff of 1833. At this period the demand for 
 protection came only from the hemp growers of Kentucky and 
 Missouri, the sugar planters of Louisiana, and mining interests in 
 Virginia and Maryland. 
 
 In the early years of its existence the Whig party in the South 
 was more strongly anti-tariff than the Democratic. As late as 1840 
 the party, because of divisions in its ranks, went before the coun- 
 try without committing itself upon the subject. In 1842, however, 
 Southern Whigs in Congress, with a few exceptions, were whipped 
 into line in support of the protective tariff measure of that year. 1 
 Again in 1844, during a presidential campaign in which Henry 
 Clay, the champion of the "American System," was the Whig 
 candidate, every Southern Whig member of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives but one voted against the McKay bill, which was sup- 
 ported by every Southern Democrat but one. 2 The action of the 
 Whigs may be attributed chiefly to political considerations; South- 
 ern Whig leaders felt the need of a broadly national conservative 
 party, and recognized that it could be built only upon the basis 
 of compromise. 3 In 1842 the state of the public treasury impera- 
 tively demanded an increase in the revenues, so that the tariff of 
 that year could be plausibly defended as a revenue measure offer- 
 ing incidental protection by discriminatory schedules. 4 In 1844 
 
 'Cole, Whig Party in the South, 98, 99. 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 28 Cong., i Sess., 622; NileS Register, LXVI, 177. 
 
 3 Cole, op. cit., loo; National Intelligencer, Jan. 4, 1844, letter of Wm. A. 
 Graham accepting the Whig nomination for governor of North Carolina; ibid., 
 Jan. 13, letter from Wm. C. Rives; ibid., Jan. 20, Feb. 15, Mar. 7. 
 
 *National Intelligencer, Mar. 19, 1844, address to the people of Virginia on 
 the Tariff of 1842 by the Whig State Convention. 
 
152 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [152 
 
 repeal could be opposed upon the grounds that the revenues were 
 still required, and that the tariff was working well. 5 Whigs pointed 
 to the signs of reviving prosperity after the panic of 1837 as evi- 
 dence that the tariff was not injuring the South. Furthermore, 
 they welcomed the cotton factories which were springing up here 
 and there throughout the Southern states as a justification of the 
 protective policy, and prophesied that soon the divergence of inter- 
 ests between the sections, upon which the division on the tariff 
 issue was based, would cease to exist. 6 They charged the slow 
 progress of manufactures in the South to the hostility of the 
 Democratic party, and declared the absence of diversified indus- 
 try to be the cause of the declining prosperity which all deplored. 7 
 Southern Democrats in Congress were unanimous in opposing 
 the Tariff of 1842; but the majority at that time did not hold 
 extreme views. In 1843 Calhoun came forward as the free trade 
 and reform candidate for the Democratic nomination for the 
 presidency. Finding his chances poor, he wrote, early in 1844, a 
 letter announcing his withdrawal. 8 The section devoted to the 
 tariff was too extreme for his friends outside of South Carolina, 
 and at their request was modified before the letter was published. 9 
 The McKay bill, upon which an attempt was made to unite the 
 Democratic party in the summer of 1844, was a moderately pro- 
 tective measure. 10 Although there was considerable dissatisfaction 
 with it among Southern Democrats, every Southern Democrat in 
 the House but one voted for it. 11 When a faction in South Caro- 
 lina proposed to take the defeat of the McKay bill by the defec- 
 tion of twenty-seven Northern Democrats and the subsequent 
 publication of Folk's "Kane Letter," designed to hold Northern 
 tariff Democrats in line, as proof positive that no relief from the 
 
 'Cong. Globe, 28 Cong., I Sess., 511, 612; National Intelligencer, Aug. 6, 
 1844, quoting the Charleston Courier. 
 
 *Niles' Register, LXII, 71; LXVII, 132, quoting the Vicksburg Whig; Cong. 
 Globe, 28 Cong., i Sess., 512, Berrien, of Georgia, in the Senate. 
 
 'See ante, pp. 37-41. 
 
 *Works, VI, 239-54; National Intelligencer, Feb. 3, 1844. 
 
 "''But I soon found, it was altogether too high to be sustained by a large 
 portion; much the majority; and among them many of the most intelligent and 
 devoted." Calhoun to Jas. Edw. Calhoun, Feb. 14, 1844, Calhoun Correspond- 
 ence; Calhoun to Duff Green, Jan. 15, 1844. 
 
 K Cong. Globe, 28 Cong., i Sess., 369, text of the bill. 
 
 "Ibid., 28 Cong., I Sess., 622; N lies' Register, LXVI, 177. 
 
153] ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION 153 
 
 burdens of protection could be expected from the Democratic 
 party, and sought to put the state again "upon its sovereignty," 
 they received remarkably little sympathy outside their own state. 
 A correspondent of the Charleston Mercury wrote, "It is not to 
 be disguised that, out of South Carolina, the whole tariff battle 
 has to be fought over." 12 The Walker tariff, enacted in 1846 after 
 a sharp struggle, was by no means a free trade measure. 13 Tea 
 and coffee were put on the free list; raw materials used in manu- 
 factures were taxed only five per cent; duties on most manufac- 
 tured articles were high enough to afford considerable incidental 
 protection to those engaged in their manufacture; whereas the 
 Compromise tariff of 1833 had recognized the principle of a hori- 
 zontal rate, the Walker tariff contained nine schedules. Upon the 
 whole, the bill was satisfactory to Southern Democrats. Senator 
 Haywood, of North Carolina, however, resigned his seat rather 
 than vote for it. 14 He opposed it because it abandoned the prin- 
 ciples of the McKay bill, upon which the party had appealed to 
 the country; it broke faith with Northern Democrats; it would 
 not meet the demands for revenue created by the Mexican War; 
 it did not give sufficient notice to interests formerly protected; and 
 together with the independent treasury constituted too great a 
 revolution in the government's financial policy. On the other hand, 
 the bill was not revolutionary enough to satisfy some of the free 
 trade members from South Carolina and other cotton states, and 
 they voted for it only because they considered it a decided im- 
 provement over the Tariff of 1842, and because nothing better 
 could be secured. 15 
 
 The election of 1844 nac ^ cut down materially the number of 
 Southern Whigs in Congress. With two exceptions in the House 
 and one in the Senate, they voted with their colleagues of the 
 North against the bill. 18 After a few years Southern Whigs mani- 
 fested a disposition to acquiesce in the continuance of the Walker 
 tariff, and for several years the tariff was not an issue in Southern 
 politics. Whigs contended that in yielding opposition to the exist- 
 
 "Quoted in Niles' Register, LXVI, 435. 
 "Cf. Dewey, Financial History of the United States, 249-52. 
 "''Address of Honorable Wm. H. Haywood, Jr., to the people of North Car- 
 olina," etc., in National Intelligencer, Aug. 19, 1846; Niles' Register, LXX, 410-15. 
 "Cong. Globe, 29 Cong., i Sess., 1043, W. L. Yancey's speech in the House. 
 "Ibid., 1053, 1157. 
 
154 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [154 
 
 ing tariff they abandoned none of their principles; for, they said, 
 the duties were high enough to afford a fair degree of protection, 
 and protective principles were recognized. From time to time, par- 
 ticularly from the border states, there came restatements of the 
 arguments for a protective tariff and reaffirmations of the faith. In 
 1849, when the Southern people were interested in the possibility 
 of developing cotton manufactures, a suggestion from Hamilton 
 Smith, of Kentucky, that the Constitution should be amended to 
 permit the imposition of an export duty upon raw cotton was re- 
 ceived in some quarters with favorable comment. 17 
 
 As long as the tariff was a party issue the opponents of protec- 
 tion were inclined to oppose the introduction of manufacturing. 
 Men too often confused manufactures and protection, and in op- 
 posing the latter were led into hostility to the former. Calhoun, 
 indeed, always protested that he was not opposed to manufactures 
 as such, 18 and the same may be said of other leaders. But, in gen- 
 eral, there was a feeling that the establishment of diversified in- 
 dustry would take the edge from the anti-tariff sentiment. 19 The 
 advocates of diversified industry had to be very chary in asking for 
 fostering legislation, especially in Democratic states. They fre- 
 quently gave the assurance that the only thing needed in the way 
 of encouragement was liberal incorporation laws and freedom from 
 discriminatory taxation. It was difficult to secure even the passage 
 of general corporation laws. Corporations were unpopular in the 
 forties as a result of the experience of the previous decade with 
 banking institutions, in particular. In 1847-1848 the question of 
 granting liberal charters to corporations for manufacturing pur- 
 poses became a political issue in Georgia. Governor Crawford, 
 Whig, recommended such legislation. He was supported by the 
 Whig press and a portion of the Democratic press. Other Demo- 
 
 ""I enclose you a letter of Ex. Pres. Tyler. The only objection he makes to 
 my first proposition is that it would act as a bounty to foreign cotton growers." 
 Smith to Hammond, Mar. 4, 1849, /. H, Hammond Papers. Cf. Smith to Ham- 
 mond, Aug. 14, 1849; DeBow's Review, VII, 48 ff. Smith's suggestion was first 
 made in two letters to the Louisville Journal. The idea was amplified by S. R. 
 Cockrill, a planter, of Tennessee. DeBow's Review, VII, 484-90; Western Journal 
 and Civilian, III, 95-106. 
 
 "Calhoun to Abbott Lawrence, May 13, 1845, Calhoun Correspondence; 
 Works, IV, 183-84. 
 
 "Niles' Register, LXVIII, 374 (Aug. 16, 1845), quoting Charleston Mercury. 
 
155] ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION 155 
 
 cratic organs, however, were persuaded that Crawford's sugges- 
 tions were parcel of a design to "quench the growing spirit of 
 Democracy everywhere," and "ride us down by the Massachusetts 
 policy of incorporated wealth, under the false plea of 'developing 
 our resources.' " 20 The general incorporation laws were enacted. 21 
 In 1850, Governor Seabrook, of South Carolina, wrote William 
 Gregg asking what measures he considered necessary for the en- 
 couragement of manufactures. Gregg replied that he considered 
 unnecessary and unwise any pecuniary aid from the state either 
 in the form of loans or otherwise. The only thing needed was the 
 "privileges and advantages granted in other states in the use of 
 associated capital." He told how cheaply goods were being made 
 in the Graniteville factory; this fact, he said, should "disarm all 
 opposition from those who fear that we may ultimately join the 
 Northern people in a clamor for protection .... " 22 
 
 After the Walker tariff had been in effect a few years, and the 
 tariff controversy had abated, opposition to diversified industry 
 on anti-protectionist grounds gave way to a considerable extent, 
 and many anti-tariff men and journals strongly supported the 
 movement to bring the spindles to the cotton and to diversify in- 
 dustry generally. Typical of their reasoning was the reply of the 
 Richmond Enquirer to a Whig contemporary's charge of incon- 
 sistency. Said the Enquirer: "We have never denounced home 
 industry. We have, however, steadily denounced that hot-bed 
 system of legislation, whose effect is to pamper one class at the 
 expense of all others, and especially, to foster the monopolies of 
 the North, which have flourished and grown fat upon the tribute 
 of the South. It was to benefit home manufactures and not to 
 destroy them that we opposed the tariff." 23 There was a common 
 element in the contention of the free traders that the tariff ben- 
 
 s Hopkins Holsey, editor of the Athens [Georgia] Southern Banner, to Howell 
 Cobb, Dec. 3, 1847, Toombs, Stephens, Cobb Correspondence. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XVII, 257. 
 
 22 Gregg to Seabrook, May 10, 1850, Whitemarsh B. Seabrook Papers. The 
 absence of general incorporation laws was not an insurmountable obstacle. Little 
 difficulty was experienced in getting special characters through the legislatures. 
 The session laws of the various states are full of such special legislation. 
 
 "July 23, 1850. James H. Hammond, who certainly could not be charged 
 with protective principles, carefully distinguished between manufactures and the 
 protective system. DeBoui's Review, VIII, 508. 
 
156 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [156 
 
 efited New England and Pennsylvania manufactures at the ex- 
 pense of Southern agriculture, and the contention of those 
 who labored for Southern industrial independence that it was the 
 manufacture of Southern staples and the sale to the Southern 
 people of numerous articles which should be produced at home 
 which strengthened and enriched the North while weakening and 
 impoverishing the South. Both arguments represented one section 
 as paying tribute to the other. This common element made it easy 
 for anti-tariff men to support efforts being made to diversify 
 Southern industry. 
 
 When the desirability from both the economic and political 
 viewpoints of making the South commercially and industrially 
 independent of the North was understood, it was inevitable that a 
 demand should arise for the protection of home enterprises against 
 Northern competitors. A tariff might protect American industries 
 from European competition; but more dangerous to the infant 
 industries of the South than foreign competition were the firmly 
 established industries of the North. 
 
 In fact, in the forties several Southern states intermittently dis- 
 criminated in their tax laws in favor of home manufactures. The 
 laws of Virginia in 1840 and a number of years thereafter ex- 
 empted articles made within the state from the tax on sales. 24 By 
 act of 1843 South Carolina exempted from this tax "the products 
 of this State, and the unmanufactured products of any of the 
 United States or Territories thereof." 25 Alabama also, by an act 
 of January 15, 1844, exempted articles manufactured within the 
 state from the tax on sales. 26 Taxation during the period was very 
 light, and these exemptions amounted to little. There were also 
 as many cases of exemptions of other classes of property from 
 taxation, for example, farm implements and mechanics' tools. 
 
 In the tariff debates of 1844 an ^ 1846 anti-tariff men from the 
 South referred to the possibility of adopting a policy of state pro- 
 tection. "If the protective policy," said R. B. Rhett, "is wise and 
 just with foreign nations, it must be equally so between the States, 
 for there is far more intercourse and affinity of interest between 
 portions of the United States and foreign nations, than between 
 
 M Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia, 1839-184.0, act of Mar. 3, 1840. 
 ^National Intelligencer, Aug. 10, 1844, "Precept and Practice of South Car- 
 olina." 
 
 **Acts of the General Assembly of Alabama, 1843-1844, p. 65. 
 
157] ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION 157 
 
 different portions of the Union." 27 George McDuffie threatened, 
 in 1844, to resign his seat in the United States Senate, secure a 
 seat in the South Carolina legislature, and bring forward a propo- 
 sition to tax all manufactured goods brought into the state. 28 
 Seaborn Jones, of Georgia, also suggested that Southern states had 
 a remedy at hand for unjust taxation in "countervailing legisla- 
 tion, putting excise duties upon manufactured articles which have 
 not paid revenue duty to the Government." 29 
 
 During the political crisis of 1850 and thereabouts many pro- 
 posals were made in the South for non-intercourse with the North, 
 discriminatory taxation of Northern manufactures, exclusion of 
 Northern ships from Southern harbors, cessation of business and 
 pleasure trips to the North, withdrawal of subscriptions to North- 
 ern newspapers, and a number of other measures of the same 
 general character. They can be attributed chiefly to a desire to 
 retaliate against the anti-slavery party, to arouse the business 
 interests of the North to the necessity of curbing the abolition 
 agitation, and to teach the North the "money value of the Union"; 
 but it was an added recommendation that these measures would 
 tend to promote commercial and industrial independence. J. C. 
 Calhoun wrote to public men throughout the South requesting 
 their views upon two lines of procedure for bringing the North to 
 a sense of justice. One was the assembling of a Southern conven- 
 tion, the other, retaliation against Northern states for unconstitu- 
 tional acts. 30 In one of these letters he suggested that closing 
 Southern ports to Northern seagoing vessels would promote direct 
 trade with Europe. 31 
 
 In the Nashville Convention of 1850, retaliation was supported 
 by a minority as a proper measure to employ in case the North 
 did not grant justice to the South. 32 At the adjourned session, 
 November, 1850, the Tennessee delegation supported resolutions 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 28 Cong., i Sess., Appx., 658. 
 
 "NUei Register, LXVI, 230. 
 
 ""Cong. Globe, 29 Cong., i Sess., 991. 
 
 ""Wilson Lumpkin to Calhoun, Nov. 18, 1847; Joseph W. Lesesne to Calhoun, 
 Sept. 12, 1847; H. W. Conner to Calhoun, Nov. 2, 1848; Calhoun to John H. 
 Means, Apr. 13, 1849, Calhoun Correspondence. 
 
 "Benton, Thirty Years' View, II, 698-700, quotation from a letter from Cal- 
 houn to a member of the Alabama Legislature, 1847. 
 
 32 See above, pp. 73-76, for a discussion of the Nashville Convention. 
 
158 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [158 
 
 which accepted the recently adopted compromise, outlined the 
 line of conduct Northern states would be expected to pursue in 
 the future, and recommended that, in case this line should be 
 transgressed, the people of the South resort to the "most rigid 
 system of commercial non-intercourse" with all offending states, 
 cities, and communities. The legislatures of the several states were 
 invited to join in the recommendation. Counties, towns, and 
 neighborhoods were asked to adopt resolutions against purchasing 
 or using articles from offending Northern states or communities. 
 To make it possible to follow these recommendations, it was fur- 
 ther recommended that the states encourage their own mechanics 
 and manufactures, and push forward their internal improvements 
 to the seaboard. 33 
 
 In Virginia such a remedy met with considerable favor. When, 
 after the passage of the Compromise of 1850, a disposition was 
 shown in the North, particularly in Boston, not to acquiesce in the 
 execution of the Fugitive Slave law, Virginians took fire, and a 
 strong sentiment for retaliation developed. The citizens of Prince 
 George County met for the purpose of forming a Southern rights 
 association. 34 Resolutions were adopted pledging those present to 
 buy in the North no coarse cottons or woolens, ready made cloth- 
 ing, carriages, buggies, plows, axes, harness in general, nothing 
 which could be produced in the South or obtained from Europe. 
 The resolution furthermore pledged them to employ no Northern 
 teachers; to withdraw patronage from Northern schools, newspa- 
 pers, and books; to take no pleasure trips to the North; to buy of 
 no merchant or employ no mechanic not identified with the South; 
 and to employ no vessels owned or commanded by a North- 
 ern man or manned by a Northern crew. 35 Similar associations 
 were formed in other counties. 36 The most important and per- 
 manent of the Southern rights associations in the state was the 
 Central Southern Rights Association of Virginia, which was organ- 
 
 "National Intelligencer, Nov. 16, 19, 1850; A. V. Brown, Speeches, Congres- 
 sional and Political, etc., 318-21 (text of the resolutions );DuBose, Life and Times 
 of Yancey, 248; Speech of the Hon. Langdon Cheves in the Nashville Conven- 
 tion, p. 20. 
 
 "Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 15, 1850. 
 
 "Ibid., Nov. 20, Dec. 10, 1850. 
 
 *Ibid., Dec. 31, 1850. 
 
159] ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION 159 
 
 ized in Richmond in December, 1850," and continued in existence 
 until the outbreak of the Civil War. Some of the ablest and most 
 prominent men of Richmond and the state at large were members. 
 The members were pledged to "use all lawful and constitutional 
 means in our power to arrest further aggressions of the non-slave- 
 holding states," and to appeal to the legislature of the state to 
 enact such laws as were "prudent and constitutional for effecting, 
 ultimately, commercial independence" of such states as by laws 
 or otherwise sought to prevent the execution of the Fugitive Slave 
 law. 38 The first petition addressed by the association to the State 
 Legislature requested the passage of excise tax laws discriminating 
 in favor of articles of Virginia manufacture or of direct importa- 
 tion from abroad. Such taxation was believed to be the most 
 certain means of securing ultimately Virginia's commercial inde- 
 pendence and the safety of her property and institutions. 39 
 
 A year earlier Governor Floyd had suggested discriminatory 
 taxation in a special message to the General Assembly. 40 In No- 
 vember, 1850, he introduced the subject in the state Constitutional 
 Convention. 41 In his last message to the General Assembly, shortly 
 after, he again recommended it. 42 As a member of the Legislature 
 he championed a bill to impose a tax of five per cent on all goods 
 brought into the state for sale except direct imports. 43 The Dem- 
 ocratic press of the state generally supported the plan of discrim- 
 inatory taxation. 44 In the opinion of the Richmond Enquirer, it 
 would check the abolition movement in the North, "give tone and 
 strength to Southern manufactures, commerce and all the interests 
 of the South," and ward off disunion. 45 The Enquirer charged the 
 Whigs with inconsistency in opposing Floyd's proposal while ad- 
 vocating a higher tariff. 46 The conservative press generally op- 
 
 "Richmond Enquirer, Dec. 10, 13, 17, 24, 31, 1850. 
 
 ^Virginia Documents, 1850-1851, doc. LX, "Petition of the Central Southern 
 Rights Association of Virginia, and Accompanying Documents," p. 5. 
 w lbid., doc. LX; DeBow's Review, XII, 109. 
 "Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 15, 1850. 
 "Ibid., Nov. 19, 1850. 
 
 Ibid., Dec. 3, 1850; Virginia Documents, 1850-1851, doc. I. 
 "Richmond Enquirer, Jan. 31, 1851. 
 
 "Ibid., Nov. 15, 22, 1850, quoting a number of Virginia newspapers. 
 "Dec. 13, 1850. 
 "Dec. 17, 1850. 
 
l6o ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [l6o 
 
 posed the plan. 47 They denounced it as calculated to lead to a 
 dismemberment of the Union and as "subversive of the true in- 
 terests of the Southern states." In the North it would not injure 
 the abolitionists but rather the friends of the South; for the 
 former were not engaged in commerce. It was said to be unconsti- 
 tutional; the National Intelligencer called it "another form of nulli- 
 fication." 48 In opposing Floyd's proposal the Whigs resorted to 
 good free trade arguments : Virginia must depend upon the North 
 for materials with which to construct her internal improvements; 
 she could not rely upon her own resources. Were discriminatory 
 taxation imposed, the North would lose a market, and both sec- 
 tions would be sacrificed to the cupidity of England. The tax 
 would be paid by the consumer. 49 The Whigs were not, of course, 
 animated by any feeling of hostility to the cause of Southern com- 
 mercial and industrial independence. 
 
 Senator Berrien, of Georgia, a Whig, in public speeches ex- 
 pressed views similar to those of Governor Floyd. At Macon he 
 was reported to have said that he did not wish the Georgia Con- 
 vention to propose non-intercourse nor an import tax, as both 
 would be unconstitutional; but he thought it best to recommend a 
 measure by which Northern goods, after they had arrived in 
 Georgia and had been delivered into the hands of the merchants, 
 should be charged with a high and discriminatory tax. Such a 
 measure would encourage Georgia manufactures, greatly abridge 
 importations of Northern goods, and arouse the North to a sense 
 of the power of the South to protect herself. 50 In Alabama, South- 
 ern rights associations were formed, and resolutions adopted 
 similar to those adopted by the associations in Virginia. 51 In 
 Mississippi, members of the Southern rights party expressed them- 
 selves in favor of excluding by legislative enactment goods manu- 
 factured north of Mason and Dixon's line. 52 
 
 In South Carolina, after the passage of the Compromise of 1850, 
 public opinion was, as we have seen, widely divided in regard to 
 
 "Richmond Whig, Jan. 2, 22, Feb. 12, 1851; National Intelligencer, Dec. 9, 
 12, 17, 28, 1850. 
 
 *T)ec. 17, 1850, editorial. 
 
 "Richmond Whig, Jan. 2, 22, 1851. 
 
 ""Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 15, 1850. 
 
 "Ibid., Nov. 22, 1850; DeBow's Industrial Resources, III, 122. 
 
 "'Cong. Globe, 32 Cong., I Sess., Appx. 284. 
 
l6l] ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION l6l 
 
 the proper policy to be pursued. In the hope of unifying the 
 state, J. H. Hammond brought forward a "Plan of State Action," 
 which, although not adopted, met with considerable favor. 63 He 
 proposed that the State Convention declare the right of secession; 
 prohibit citizens from holding Federal offices outside the state; 
 refuse to accept Federal appropriations for any purpose; impose 
 a double tax upon the property of non-residents; "as far as it 
 constitutionally may," impose taxes upon manufactures of non- 
 slaveholding states; encourage manufactures by granting liberal 
 charters to companies; encourage agriculture; and with state funds 
 "aid in the establishment of direct commercial intercourse with 
 foreign nations, by steamships adopted to purposes of war, in 
 case of need." Already Governor Seabrook had recommended the 
 encouragement of manufactures by liberal corporation laws 54 and 
 the Legislature had discussed a proposal to levy discriminatory 
 taxation upon Northern goods. 55 
 
 A bill was introduced in the North Carolina Legislature, No- 
 vember, 1850, to impose a tax of ten per cent upon goods brought 
 into the state from non-slaveholding states after January i, i852. 56 
 The House of Commons adopted resolutions introduced by a Whig 
 member which declared 57 that ( I ) North Carolina was absolved by 
 the abolition agitation from further obligation to protect Northern 
 manufactures by a tariff; (2) if North Carolina industries re- 
 quired protection, it could be "better effected by State than by 
 Congressional Legislation;" (3) the Walker tariff was high enough; 
 (4) and requested that members of Congress from North Carolina 
 vote against any increase. These resolutions were adopted by 
 votes of 105-2, 62-32, 75-18, and 84-8 respectively, Whigs as well 
 as Democrats composing the majorities. 68 Even before these reso- 
 
 **/. H. Hammond Papers, No. 22,198, a broadside printed by the Charleston 
 Mercury, accompanied by a note to the editors, dated April 29, 1851; Hammond 
 to Wm. Gilmore Simms, April 29, 1851; A. P. Aldrich to Hammond, May 16, 
 Nov. 10; Hammond to Simms, May 29, July i; Maxcy Gregg to Hammond, 
 Nov. 14, 1851. Edmund Ruffin to Hammond, Nov. 13, 1851. 
 
 ^Richmond Enquirer, Dec. 3, 1850. 
 
 "National Intelligencer, Dec. 9, 12, 1850. 
 
 ""Richmond Enquirer, Nov. 29, 1850. 
 
 "Richmond Whig, Jan. 17, 1851. 
 
 **Cong. Globe, 31 Cong., 2 Sess., Appx. 206, Thomas L. Clingman, in the 
 House, Feb. 15, 1851. 
 
l62 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840-1 86 1 [l62 
 
 lutions had been adopted, Southern Whig members of Congress, 
 particularly from North Carolina, had defeated attempts made in 
 the first session of the Thirty -first Congress to revise the tariff 
 upward in the interest, chiefly, of the Pennsylvania iron industry. 59 
 
 The action of the North Carolina Whigs was indicative of a 
 marked falling off in tariff sentiment in the South. So staunch a 
 protectionist organ as the Richmond Whig wavered in its faith, 
 and warned manufacturers that they need not expect further pro- 
 tection. 60 For several years after the attempt of the iron interest 
 in 1850 to secure higher duties, the tariff question was not before 
 Congress or the country except for occasional attempts of Southern 
 and Western congressmen to secure the remittance or repeal of 
 the duty on railroad iron. North as well as South came to ac- 
 quiesce in the Walker tariff, with the exception, in the South, of 
 men of the South Carolina school, who professed to find the Tariff 
 of 1846 oppressive, just as they had found that of 1842 to be. 61 
 
 The Walker tariff, however, proved an excellent revenue pro- 
 ducing measure, receipts exceeded expenditures, and an accumu- 
 lating surplus in the treasury finally forced Congress to undertake 
 revision. A late attempt in the second session of the Thirty-third 
 Congress, March, 1855, failed; 62 but it was generally understood 
 that the next Congress must act. Contemporaneously, agitation 
 was started by extreme anti-tariff men in the South for the aban- 
 donment of the tariff system altogether and the substitution of 
 direct taxation. In the Southern Commercial Convention, Savan- 
 nah, December, 1856, resolutions were reported which pronounced 
 the tariff to be the cause of the decline of Southern commerce and 
 declared for absolute free trade and direct taxation. 63 The reso- 
 lutions were not adopted, but were referred to a committee in- 
 structed to report at the next convention. 
 
 '"Cong. Globe, 31 Cong., i Sess., 1728, 1812, 1951; ibid., 31 Cong., 2 Sess., 
 Appx. 206, Clingman's explanation of the action of North Carolina men. 
 
 ""Jan. 17, Feb. 12, Mar. 19, 21, and 31, 1851. 
 
 61 Cong. Globe, 32 Cong., 2 Sess., 35, Woodward, of South Carolina, in the 
 House, Dec. 10, 1852. 
 
 62 The House attached sections reducing the tariff as a rider to the Civil and 
 Diplomatic bill, the Senate struck them out. Ibid., 33 Cong., 2 Sess., 914, 1088, 
 1178. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXII, 92. 
 
163] ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION 163 
 
 The Tariff of 1857 was passed after short and rather desultory 
 debates in the House and Senate. The debates contained remark- 
 ably little of a sectional nature, and the only interests greatly dis- 
 satisfied were the iron manufacturers and the wool growers. The 
 bill as finally passed was written by Senator Hunter, of Virginia. 
 As did Secretary of the Treasury Guthrie, Hunter took a fairly 
 liberal attitude toward the manufacturing interests. 64 The rates 
 were somewhat lower than those of the Walker tariff. In one re- 
 spect, however, the bill was more in accord with protective prin- 
 ciples than the former act; it provided for free raw materials where 
 the demand was for manufactures. Cotton manufactures were 
 favored by leaving the duties nearly as high as those of the Tariff 
 of 1846. Some objection was raised by Southern members to the 
 enlarged free list. The only out-and-out free trade views expressed 
 came from South Carolina men. Senator A. P. Butler said, "Cotton 
 would rise to twenty cents tomorrow ... if we had no tariff." 65 
 Representative W. W. Boyce, of Charleston, declared for free 
 trade and direct taxation. 66 Only two Southern congressmen 
 voted against the bill. 67 Outside Congress there was little dissatis- 
 faction except among the ultras. DeBow, for example, was at first 
 inclined to approve the measure as a step in the right direction, 
 but later found that "the manufacturers have again had a victory 
 in the adroit combinations made." 68 
 
 The free trade faction in the South followed up this partial vic- 
 tory over protection by a general attack against every form of 
 protection and privilege granted by the Federal government. In 
 the Southern Commercial Convention, at Knoxville, August, 1857, 
 W. W. Boyce again brought forward the proposal for free trade 
 and direct taxation. A committee reported it adversely, while the 
 debate showed sharp divisions of opinion. 69 A Virginia delegate 
 offered resolutions declaring that the merchant vessels of foreign 
 nations should be admitted to the United States coasting trade 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 34 Cong., 3 Sess., Appx. 328 ff., speech in the Senate, Feb. 26, 
 1857; ibid., 36 Cong., i Sess., 3188. 
 
 K Ibid., 34 Cong., 3 Sess., Appx. 350. 
 
 "Ibid., 34 Cong., 3 Sess., Appx. 215 ff. 
 
 "Ibid., 34 Cong., 3 Sess., 971; Appx. 358 (votes in the House and Senate). 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXII, 381, 554. 
 
 "Ibid., XXIII, 305, 309, 310-15. 
 
164 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84<>l86l [164 
 
 upon the same footing as our own. 70 Roger A. Pryor, of Virginia, 
 secured the appointment of a committee to memorialize Congress 
 for the repeal of the fishing bounties, which benefited New Eng- 
 land particularly. 71 In the next session of Congress W. W. Boyce 
 secured the appointment of a select committee of the House to 
 inquire into and report upon a reduction of the expenditures of 
 the government, the navigation laws, the existing duties on im- 
 ports, and a resort exclusively to internal taxation. 72 As chairman 
 of the committee, Boyce brought in an able and elaborate report, 
 presenting all the free trade arguments. 73 Senator C. C. Clay, of 
 Alabama, attacked the fishing bounties, and secured the passage 
 through the Senate, 1858, of a bill repealing them. 74 He regarded 
 this action as but the initial step to the repeal of the "ship-build- 
 ing, coast-wise trade, and other monopolies now enjoyed by the 
 North to the wrong of the South." 75 The policy entered upon dur- 
 ing the preceding decade of subsidizing steamship lines by making 
 liberal contracts for carrying the mails was repeatedly attacked by 
 Southern Democrats led by Senator Hunter, of Virginia. 76 After 
 June 14, 1858, no new contracts were made; finally, on October 
 I, 1859, notice was given of complete abrogation of existing con- 
 . tracts. 77 
 
 The Tariff of 1857 had been in operation but a few months when 
 the financial crash of that year occurred. Imports fell off greatly, 
 and shortly the treasury was confronted by a deficit. It soon be- 
 
 DeBow's Review, XXIII, 306, Fuqua, of Virginia. 
 
 "Ibid., XXIII, 307. The subject was not a new one. It had been brought 
 up in previous commercial conventions, and time and again in Congress. See, 
 e. g., ibid., XVII, 204, Ruffin in the Southern Commercial Convention in Charles- 
 ton, 1854. 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., I Sess., 509. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXV, 1-27; Charleston Mercury, June i, 4, 1858. 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., I Sess., 1930 ff., Clay's speech, May 4, 1858; ibid., 
 35 Cong., i Sess., 2239, vote upon passage of the bill. 
 
 "C. C. Clay to VVm. Burwell, May 7, 1858, Wm. M. Burwell Letters. Cf. 
 DuBose, Life and Times of W. L. Yancey, 368 ff., quoting letter from Yancey 
 to Thomas J. Orme, May 22, 1858. 
 
 "Hunter's most famous speech on the subject is in Cong. Globe, 32 Cong., 
 i Sess., 1147 ff. (April 21, 1852). He termed the policy the adoption of the 
 "protective system in one of its very worst forms." 
 
 "Bates, American Navigation: the Political History of Its Rise and Ruin, 
 346 (a table of mail subsidy legislation); U. S. Statutes at Large, Act of June 
 14, 1858. 
 
165] ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION 165 
 
 came apparent that another revision of the tariff would have to 
 be undertaken. The discussion then provoked revealed that in 
 certain quarters of the South the same feeling against the tariff 
 existed as had been displayed in 1832 and 1844. After the Kansas 
 question had been temporarily put at rest in the spring of 1858 
 by the passage of the English Bill, Senator Hammond told his 
 constituents that the state could now remain in the Union "with 
 honor." He gave warning, however, that an attempt would be 
 made in the next session of Congress to increase the tariff, and 
 declared that the "plantation states should discard any govern- 
 ment" which adopted protection. "Unequal taxation is, after 
 all, what we have most to fear in this Union." 78 A. P. Calhoun, in 
 an address in which he advocated secession, also put the tariff 
 foremost among the grievances of the South. 79 In Georgia there 
 was a group of free traders, led by John A. Jones, who were as 
 violent in their opposition to the tariff as were those of South 
 Carolina. The Montgomery Daily Confederation thought free 
 trade had already "culminated into universal sanction and adop- 
 tion" in the Southern states, and pronounced "woe to the states- 
 man that should attempt to lend himself to any move to restore" 
 the protective system. 80 
 
 President Buchanan in his annual message, 1858, and Secretary 
 of the Treasury Cobb in his annual report, both recommended a 
 revision of the tariff; but the Democratic caucus considered it 
 inexpedient to make any changes in the tariff during the session. 81 
 In the next Congress, the Thirty-sixth, the Republicans controlled 
 the House. Justin S. Morrill, of Vermont, reported a bill whose 
 level of rates was about equal to that of the Tariff of 1846, al- 
 though it was constructed more in accord with protective prin- 
 ciples. 82 The bill was passed over the opposition of the 
 Democrats. 83 There was little sectionalism in the debates; few 
 Southern men spoke upon the bill. Several Southern Democrats 
 
 "Charleston Mercury, July 22, 1858, Feb. 3, 1859. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXVI, 476. 
 
 '"Feb. I, 1859. 
 
 "Montgomery Daily Confederation, Feb. 3, 1859. 
 
 si Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., i Sess., 1830 ff. 
 
 "Ibid., 2056. 
 
l66 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840-1 86 1 [l66 
 
 declared their willingness to restore the Tariff of i846. 84 The 
 Democratic Senate postponed action upon the bill until the short 
 session, 1860-1861, when, after the secession of several Southern 
 states had withdrawn a number of senators from the opposition, it 
 was passed. 
 
 On the very eve of the Civil War, however, there still lingered 
 in some quarters of the South a sentiment for a protective tariff. 
 The Louisiana sugar planters persistently demanded protection. 88 
 In Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina there were interests 
 which asked for governmental encouragement. Even in South 
 Carolina such men as Richard Yeadon, of the Charleston Courier, 
 and William Gregg retained their tariff views to the end. 86 And 
 in general, it is safe to say, the South as a whole was not com- 
 mitted to free trade, but rather to a tariff for revenue with inci- 
 dental protection. Many Democratic leaders admitted the 
 propriety of discrimination in duties within the revenue limit. 
 Only in South Carolina, if, indeed, in any state, would a majority 
 have been willing to substitute internal taxation for duties upon 
 imports. 
 
 Nor can the general opposition to a high tariff, the agitation for 
 free trade, and the concerted attack upon monopolies, bounties, 
 and special privileges of all kinds be taken as proof that the 
 doctrine of laissez faire had come to prevail in the South more 
 than elsewhere. A protective tariff was opposed not only because 
 it fostered manufactures at the expense of the planting interests, 
 but also because the manufactures were in the North. Likewise, 
 the fishing bounties were opposed not only because they were 
 bounties, but also because they directly benefited only New Eng- 
 land. The navigation laws were objectionable to Southern men 
 not only because they enhanced freight rates in coastwise trade, 
 but also because the shipping industry which profited thereby was 
 almost a monopoly of the North. If we turn our attention to local 
 policies, we find about as much disposition in the South as else- 
 where to attempt by legislative enactments to modify the courses 
 capital and labor might take. 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., I Sess., 3187, Jefferson Davis in the Senate. Cf. 
 Charleston Mercury, Feb. 26, 1859, quoting Rep. Taylor of Louisiana. 
 "De Bow's Review, XXII, 320-25, 433-36; XXVI, 481. 
 **Ibid., XXX, 102 f., for an expression of Gregg's views. 
 
167] ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION 1 67 
 
 The policy of encouraging manufactures and direct trade by 
 levying discriminatory taxes upon goods manufactured in the non- 
 slaveholding states and upon articles imported from foreign coun- 
 tries through Northern ports, or by offering bounties or granting 
 exemption from taxation to home industries, was kept under ad- 
 visement in the South until secession. In the Southern Commercial 
 Convention in Charleston, 1854, General Tilghman offered in 
 behalf of the Maryland delegation a resolution that the legislatures 
 of the Southern states should encourage manufactures and com- 
 merce "by the granting of bounties and all such other benefits and 
 privileges as the powers reserved and possessed by the States may 
 permit." 97 His arguments were strikingly similar to those which 
 might be employed in the advocacy of a protective tariff. The con- 
 vention appointed a committee upon the subject of promoting 
 "Southern and Western manufactures and mining operations," 
 and recommended the encouragement of direct trade either by 
 exempting the goods imported from taxation or by allowing direct 
 importers an equivalent drawback or bounty. 88 D. H. London, 
 president of the Central Southern Rights Association of Virginia 
 thought: "If there were absolute free trade, Southern ports would 
 soon surpass the North, not only in commerce but in industry and 
 arts." Since, however, it was impossible to secure free trade, he 
 thought the state legislatures should place an excise tax upon in- 
 direct imports. 89 
 
 In Georgia, in 1854, a proposal was being discussed to exempt 
 from taxation property of corporations engaged in manufactur- 
 ing. 90 At the same time, Nelson Tift, of the Albany Patriot, and 
 others were advocating as a purely retaliatory measure the imposi- 
 tion of a tax of one hundred per cent upon the sale of goods from 
 states which did not observe their constitutional obligations. 91 A 
 Democratic party convention, 1855, unanimously adopted resolu- 
 tions requesting the Legislature to enact effective retaliatory 
 measures. 92 Somewhat different was the proposal submitted by 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XVII, 255. 
 
 Ibid., XVII, 254, 258. 
 
 ""Charleston Courier, Mar. 16, 1854, D. H. London to F. W. Connor. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XVII, 257. 
 
 n lbid., XVII, 399; Savannah Republican, Dec. 25, 1856. 
 
 "Phillips, Georgia and State Rights, 183. 
 
l68 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [l68 
 
 Robert Toombs to the Southern Commercial Convention in 
 Savannah the following year. 93 He proposed to secure direct trade 
 "by imposing a State tax of per cent, ad valorem upon all goods, 
 wares, and merchandise offered for sale within the State, other 
 than those which shall be imported from foreign countries." The 
 rate should be high enough to prevent all indirect importations of 
 foreign merchandise and "to raise sufficient revenue for all the 
 wants of the State, without imposing upon the people any capita- 
 tion or other direct tax whatever." "Levy our taxes on con- 
 sumption," he said; "it can be more easily paid; we shall then 
 fill our treasury to the extent of our wants, protect ourselves 
 against the unjust legislation of our sister States, bring direct 
 trade to our ports, give profitable employment to our capital and 
 labor, educate our people, develop all our resources, and build up 
 great, powerful, and prosperous commonwealths, able to protect 
 the people from all dangers from within and from without." Such 
 a tax, with the exemption of direct imports, would be constitution- 
 al, he said, and could be easily collected. This plan, it will be 
 observed, did not call for discriminatory taxation upon sales of 
 Northern made goods; it would have operated as hardly upon 
 Georgia manufactures as upon those of New England. Toomb's 
 proposal was not widely endorsed. 94 
 
 The Southern Commercial Convention which met at Richmond, 
 January, 1856, adopted by acclamation a resolution recommending 
 the release of direct importations from license fees. 95 About the 
 same time ex-Governor Floyd introduced a bill in the Virginia 
 House of Delegates providing for an excise tax upon goods 
 brought into the state for sale except goods directly imported from 
 abroad. 96 Attacks were made upon the merchants' license tax and 
 the tax on sales, which were imposed both by the state and mu- 
 nicipal governments. 97 These taxes were said to act as bounties to 
 induce retail merchants to go outside the state to purchase their 
 stocks; for if they bought of home jobbers who, in turn, bought 
 
 * 3 DeBow's Review, XXII, 102 ff. The latter was headed, Washington, Ga., 
 Dec. 6, 1856. 
 
 "Savannah Republican, Dec. 22, 25, 1856, quoting other journals. 
 
 m De Bow's Review, XX, 351. 
 
 ""Richmond Enquirer, Feb. 16, 20, Mar. 14, 1856. 
 
 "Ibid., March 2, 5, 1856, letters signed "Junius." 
 
169] ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION 169 
 
 of Virginia importers, the consumers paid the taxes three times, 
 whereas if the retailers bought in states where no such taxes were 
 levied, the consumers paid the taxes only once. 98 The Finance 
 Committee of the House of Delegates was dominated by the plant- 
 ing interests of the tidewater region, and proposals for tax reform 
 met little favor." However, a provision was included in the tax 
 bill of 1856 allowing the importing merchant a deduction from the 
 amount of sales on which he paid license tax equal to the value of 
 the goods imported by him plus the duties paid upon them. 100 
 This was not a very considerable concession; for a sales tax upon 
 imported goods sold in the original packages was unconstitu- 
 tional. 101 . 
 
 After the John Brown Raid at Harper's Ferry, October, 1859, 
 the Central Southern Rights Association of Virginia became active 
 again. 102 In a memorial to the General Assembly it presented 
 commercial independence as the "means of remedy and redress" 
 for the grievances of the South. The memorialists asked that the 
 pilot fees be decreased upon vessels owned in Virginia and upon 
 vessels from foreign nations and increased upon Northern vessels 
 engaged in the coasting trade. They would give bounties for 
 direct importations of goods most needed within the state. They 
 recommended that importing merchants be reimbursed for duties 
 paid and exempted altogether from the license tax. 103 In response 
 to the memorial the House of Delegates passed a bill exempting 
 direct importations from all sales taxes. It was defeated in the 
 Senate, largely by the votes of members from districts having the 
 largest slave populations. 104 An act of February 29, 1860, exempted 
 
 De Bow's Review, XX, 623; ibid., XXVIII, 316, argument of D. H. Lon- 
 don, president of the Central Southern Rights Association of Virginia, before 
 the General Assembly. 
 
 "Richmond Enquirer, Feb. 20, 21, 1856, Report of the Finance Committee, 
 Muscoe R. H. Garnett, Chairman. 
 
 100 Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia, 1855-1856, act of Jan. 5, 1856. A 
 similar provision was in the tax act of Mar. 30, 1860. 
 
 10I Brown vs. Maryland, 12 Wheaton, 419; DeBow's Review, XXVIII, 178. 
 
 ""Ibid., XXVIII, 356-7. 
 
 Ibid., XXVIII, 173-182. Cf. ibid., XXVIII, 314-324, "Argument of D. 
 H. London before the General Assembly of Virginia"; ibid., XXIX, 466-88, "Com- 
 mercial, Agricultural, and Intellectual Independence of the South," by D. H. 
 London. 
 
 Ibid., XXIX, 471, 472. 
 
I7O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [170 
 
 vessels four-fifths owned in Virginia from the payment of pilot 
 fees. 105 But so difficult was it to secure fostering legislation that 
 an enactment ambitiously entitled an "Act to Encourage Direct 
 Foreign Trade" provided only for the exemption of Virginia flour 
 from the small inspection fees if exported in ships four-fifths owned 
 in Virginia. 106 
 
 In other Southern states, legislation similar to that proposed in 
 Georgia and Virginia was advocated. Louisiana, by act of the 
 Legislature, March 18, 1852, offered a bonus of five dollars per 
 ton for every ship of over one hundred tons built in the state. 107 
 There was sentiment in the state for the extension of aid in a 
 similar manner to other industries. 108 The Alabama Legislature 
 exempted the sale of all foreign goods directly imported into the 
 Southern states from any description of state, county, or city tax- 
 ation. 109 South Carolina exempted goods imported in vessels 
 owned in the state from taxation while in the hands of the im- 
 porters. 110 In Mississippi discriminatory taxation was advocated 
 both as a means of retaliation against Northern aggression and of 
 promoting direct trade and developing manufactures. 111 In Ten- 
 nessee there was discussion of the desirability of liberalizing the 
 tax laws. 112 - Tennessee and South Carolina appropriated money 
 in aid of mechanics' institutes whose purpose was to encourage 
 manufactures and the mechanic arts. 113 The legislatures of North 
 Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas took a first step 
 toward developing the mineral resources of those states by pro- 
 viding for geological surveys. 114 
 
 of the General Assembly of Virginia, 1859-1860, p. 145. 
 
 Ibid., 167, act of Mar. 31, 1860. 
 
 Acts of the Legislature of the State of Louisiana, etc. 129. The act was 
 somewhat modified three years later. Act of Mar. 15, 1855. 
 
 108 New Orleans Picayune, Jan. 17, 1858; Kettell, Southern Wealth and North- 
 ern Profits, 66. . 
 
 lw DeBow's Review, XXVIII, 492. 
 
 ""Richmond Enquirer, Mar. 24, 1854, Mar. 5, 1856. 
 
 DeBow's Review, XXIX, 233-6, 545-61; Charleston Mercury, Nov. 24, 
 1859, message of Governor McWillie, of Mississippi, Nov. 8. 
 
 "'Republican Banner and Nashville Whig, Oct. 6, 1856, message of Governor 
 Andrew Johnson. 
 
 "'DeBow's Review, XXIX, 499. 
 
 Ibid., XXIV, 403 ff.; XVII, 677 ff.; XXVII, 350. 
 
I7l] ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION 17! 
 
 The sum total of protective legislation enacted in the South, 
 either in the form of discriminatory taxation upon Northern goods, 
 exemption of home manufactures and direct imports from state 
 taxation, or in the form of bounties, was small. The fact cannot, 
 however, be taken without qualification as due to the prevalence 
 of free trade opinions. Discriminatory taxation was advocated 
 as a mode of retaliation for the aggressions of the North as well 
 as a measure of political economy. It was a remedy decidedly 
 unfriendly to the North, subversive of one of the primary pur- 
 poses of the Constitution, and likely to disturb the peace between 
 the sections and lead to disunion. It was extremely doubtful that 
 laws could be so framed as not to be held in violation of the 
 Federal Constitution and, for that matter, the constitutions of 
 some of the Southern states. Such measures were opposed by 
 moderate men who were trying to allay sectional feeling rather 
 than aggravate it, as well as by bona fide free traders who might 
 have been content with their political significance. Furthermore, 
 measures of discriminatory taxation or of non-intercourse would 
 have been unsuccessful unless taken in concert by a number of 
 states. Charleston and Savannah, for example, were rivals for 
 much the same territory; discriminatory taxation in one's state 
 and not in the other's might have put the cities upon unequal 
 terms. 115 
 
 State and local encouragement of desired industries by loans, 
 bounties, and tax exemptions were not objectionable from the 
 political standpoint, though their efficacy may be doubted. That 
 they were not employed to a greater extent was partly due to the 
 fact that the Southern people put the building of internal im- 
 provements first in their programs for developing the South. Taxes 
 had to be increased to meet the growing expenditures on their 
 account, and the people of the South were not accustomed to 
 heavy taxation. In the case of manufactures and mining, there 
 was no considerable class directly and primarily interested in 
 securing protective legislation. The influence of directly interested 
 parties was further lessened because they were generally Northern 
 men or foreigners. State legislatures were too frequently controlled 
 
 1U C. G. Memminger, Commissioner to Virginia, in an address to the Virginia 
 Legislature, 1860. DeBow's Review, XXIX, 770. Also in Capers, Life and Times 
 of Memminger, 247 ff. 
 
1/2 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [172 
 
 by professional politicians, and their time monopolized by consid- 
 eration of national issues and policies to the sacrifice of state 
 interests. 
 
 As far as principles and theories are concerned, it was not a 
 very far cry from the advocacy of fostering commerce and indus- 
 try by discriminatory taxation or by granting bounties and draw- 
 backs to the advocacy of the extension of public credit or of 
 capital in aid of steamship lines to Europe or other enterprises. 
 It should not be forgotten that Southern commercial conventions, 
 even those in which most was said about free trade, were con- 
 stantly calling upon the state and Federal governments to grant 
 financial aid to projects for promoting the objects of the conven- 
 tions. And, in relation to laissez faire and free trade doctrines, 
 what shall be said of state and municipal aid to railroads and 
 other internal improvements? Every Southern state lent aid to 
 internal improvements. 116 Virginia was almost bankrupt by her 
 loans. After 1852 Tennessee extended aid to the extent of $8,000 
 per mile to every mile of railroad built within her limits. 117 
 Georgia, in addition to aiding the construction of other roads, 
 built, owned, and operated a railroad from Atlanta to the Ten- 
 nessee line, near Chattanooga. North Carolina followed a very 
 liberal policy. 118 So also, did Louisiana and Mississippi. Texas 
 offered liberal grants of public lands. By no means least in the 
 extent of financial aid to internal improvements was that free 
 trade state, South Carolina. No city in the South voted more 
 money to further the construction of railroads than did Charleston. 
 
 It is true, state aid to internal improvements met with opposition 
 in the South; but the alignment upon the question by .no means 
 coincided with the alignment upon the tariff, Federal aid to in- 
 ternal improvements, or Federal subsidies and bounties, although 
 there was a tendency in that direction. In Virginia the Demo- 
 cratic party was in power when the immense debt was contracted 
 
 116 It is impossible to develop this subject here. For brief accounts, see 
 Million, J. W., State Aid to Railroads in Missouri, ch. VI; De Bow's Review, 
 XX, 386-389. 
 
 UT The Commissioner of Railroads reported in October, 1857, that the state's 
 obligations to railroads were about $16,000,000. Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, 
 XXXVIII, 243. 
 
 "The railroad debt of North Carolina in 1860 was 8.833,305. DeBow's 
 Review, XXIX, 245. 
 
173] ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION 173 
 
 for aiding railroads, turnpikes, and other internal improvements. 
 In North Carolina the Democrats were in power when aid to rail- 
 roads was voted upon the largest scale; in fact, after 1848 the 
 Democratic party was recognized as being more favorable to the 
 policy of state aid than the Whig. Texas, Mississippi, and Arkan- 
 sas were overwhelmingly Democratic during the fifties; yet all had 
 internal improvement programmes. Alabama, partly because of 
 her peculiar geographical divisions, lent no aid to railroads, and 
 not a great deal to any form of improvements; but there was a 
 strong sentiment for state aid. In 1855 a nearly defunct Whig 
 party almost won the state election by raising the issue. 119 Mobile 
 lent heavily to the construction of the Mobile and Ohio railroad. 
 
 Only one degree removed from the proposals to encourage in- 
 dustry and commerce by legislation were the innumerable pleas ad- 
 dressed to the people to patronize home industries and enterprises, 
 to buy Southern-made in preference to Northern-made goods, to 
 purchase from Southern jobbers and importers rather than from 
 Northern, to hire Southern teachers and mechanics wherever pos- 
 sible, to use school books published in the South, to patronize 
 home literature, to cease sending their youth to Northern. colleges, 
 and to visit Southern rather than Northern pleasure resorts. Every 
 one of these pleas asked the individual, either directly or by im- 
 plication, to sacrifice his own immediate profit or preference to the 
 supposed public good. And all admitted the propriety of appeals 
 for patronage of home industry. Every Southern commercial con- 
 vention, when the members could not agree upon more effective 
 plans for promoting its objects, fell back upon resolutions appeal- 
 ing to the people to patronize home enterprises; for upon such 
 resolutions all could agree. 
 
 There were many, indeed, in the South who believed patronage 
 of home industry to be the most efficacious means for achieving 
 economic independence. An associate justice of the Supreme Court 
 of Alabama said the efforts made to promote direct trade and 
 manufactures had begun at the wrong end; the demands for the 
 goods should be created first, and the steamship lines and fac- 
 tories would follow. Let the people resolve to buy nothing made 
 or grown in the North if they could buy a substitute made or 
 grown elsewhere; let them resolve to buy nothing imported into 
 
 ""DuBose, Life and Times of Yancey, 311. 
 
174 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84<>l86l [l/4 
 
 a Northern port if they could buy a substitute imported into a 
 Southern port. 120 A letter of a Charleston mercantile house ex- 
 pressed the opinion that little could be effected by legislative 
 enactments "as long as we are in the Union; a non-intercourse law 
 will be a dead letter, and bounties of goods of direct importation 
 will not result in any large increase in importations." What was 
 necessary was a determination on the part of the people to patron- 
 ize Southern merchants. 121 There was much impatience with the 
 magnificent schemes which some men, particularly in the Southern 
 Commercial Convention, were bringing forward for achieving the 
 regeneration of the South, and the advice was given to pay more 
 attention to little things. "Great steamships, and grand expan- 
 sions, and magnificent speeches will do well enough, but there are 
 little things, and a thousand of them, too, which might have a 
 little attention, and perhaps lead to some small advantages. Could 
 there not be some purpose, some real resolution to encourage not 
 only by precept, but by example, a little home industry?" 122 
 
 William Gregg, protectionist though he was, put Southern pat- 
 ronage of Southern imports and domestic industry foremost as a 
 measure for promoting direct trade and manufactures. 123 He sug- 
 gested the formation of societies and clubs for practising and 
 preaching patronage of home industries. 124 He charged that the 
 people preferred Northern-made articles because they were North- 
 ern-made. 125 Women did not consider themselves in fashion un- 
 less their clothing came from New York. There was "a rage for 
 cheap Yankee goods." Merchants who handled Southern-made 
 goods had to conceal their origin. The failure of so many South- 
 ern cotton factories during the hard years following 1849, he at- 
 tributed largely to the want of home patronage. 126 
 
 Gregg was not alone in his complaints. Fifty-eight Charleston 
 importing and jobbing houses ran an advertisement in the papers 
 in the form of an address to the merchants of the South and South- 
 
 lM DeBotv's Review, XXIX, 104-107. 
 Ibid., XXVIII, 589. 
 
 Ibid., XXIV, 573 (taken from a Virginia paper). 
 
 12 *Gregg, "Southern Patronage to Southern Imports and Domestic Industry," 
 in ibid., July, 1860, to Feb., 1861. 
 iu lbid., XXX, 222. 
 
 ia See especially ibid., XXIX, 629, 776. 
 "'Ibid., XXX, 102. 
 
175] ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION 1/5 
 
 west. They urged their claims for the patronage and custom of 
 merchants of the interior, and begged them to "lay aside the 
 prejudice (for it is only a prejudice) that your customers prefer 
 goods from New York to those from Charleston . . ," 127 Norfolk 
 merchants advertised goods as "just from the North." 128 The plaint 
 was made that "The very men who most vehemently abuse the 
 Yankees and their humbugs, are generally the first to contradict 
 their own doctrines . . . ." The city council of Charleston sent to 
 Troy, New York, for a fire alarm bell, although one could be pro- 
 cured at home. Charleston mechanics were greatly aroused over 
 the incident. 129 Individuals protested against the continual harp- 
 ing upon Southern dependence; instead of advertising weaknesses 
 they proposed to tell of possessions and possibilities. Occasionally 
 journals of the Southern Rights persuasion declared their desire 
 to publish only Southern advertising matter. The results were 
 disappointing; their columns continued to be filled with Northern 
 advertising. DeBow rather bitterly remarked that he was con- 
 vinced the South had nothing to sell. 130 
 
 These constant appeals to individuals to patronize home indus- 
 tries and home importing merchants were unobjectionable, but 
 could not be otherwise than ineffectual except, possibly, during 
 short periods of great excitement of the public mind. 
 
 After the John Brown Raid at Harper's Ferry a determination 
 was expressed on all sides to practise stern and uncompromising 
 non-intercourse with the North as the best means of silencing the 
 abolitionists and teaching the North the money value of the Union. 
 The governors of several states recommended throwing Southern 
 ports open to the world and levying high excise taxes upon North- 
 ern made goods. The legislatures of Virginia and Tennessee 
 adopted resolutions pledging the enactment of effective measures 
 of retaliation. 131 Southern travel in the North fell off. Many 
 Northern teachers and agents were driven from the South. Oc- 
 casional business firms cancelled orders for Northern goods. 
 Northern firms reported a falling off in their Southern business, 
 
 '"Charleston Mercury, Dec. 17, 1859. 
 I38 W. S. Forest, Sketches of Norfolk, 410. 
 129 Charleston Mercury, June I, 1858. 
 DeBow's Review, XXII, 555, 556; XXVIII, 124, 493. 
 XXIX, 559. 
 
176 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [176 
 
 and the business interests of the Northern states became 
 alarmed. 132 Citizens of Baltimore hastened to declare Baltimore 
 ready to take the place of more northern cities as a commercial 
 center for the South. 133 Southern men did not fail to note that the 
 ill feeling between the sections operated as a form of protection 
 to home industries. "Let non-intercourse be established, and how 
 easy it will be for Georgia to supply half of the Southern States 
 with plantation goods such as she now manufactures." 134 Mer- 
 chants were advised to take advantage of the excited state of the 
 public mind to establish direct trade. 135 
 
 The South produced no Horace Greeleys or Henry C. Careys; 
 but a discussion of free trade versus protection in the South would 
 be incomplete without mention of George Fitzhugh, of Virginia. 
 A lawyer by profession, he took up his pen, about 1850, to defend 
 the South and slavery. He proved himself a bold, ingenious, 
 learned, and prolific, though quite eccentric and erratic, writer. 
 The South conceded him a place alongside Dew, Harper, Ham- 
 mond, and Stringfellow as a Southern apologist. With his defense 
 of slavery and his attack upon free society, with its exploitation of 
 labor by capital, we are not here directly concerned. Although 
 not consistently, he was generally aligned with those who believed 
 the South should diversify industry, build up cities and towns, con- 
 struct internal improvements, and conduct her own commerce. He 
 was particularly interested in improving Southern education, both 
 secondary and primary, and in developing Southern literature and 
 "Southern thought." 
 
 Fitzhugh repudiated laissez jaire, and declared the world "too 
 little governed." Fitzhugh believed in small nations. He repeated- 
 ly depicted the evils of centralization, not only of government but 
 also of commerce, industry, finances, and literature. He dedicated 
 his Cannibals All to the Honorable Henry A. Wise, because "I am 
 acquainted with no one . . . who has seen so clearly the evils of 
 centralization from without, and worked so earnestly to cure or 
 
 '"Charleston Mercury, Dec. 29, 1859, quoting the Boston Commercial Bul- 
 letin; Wolfe, Helper's Impending Crisis Dissected, 128 ff., 164-6, quoting North- 
 ern papers. 
 
 lss Df Bow's Review, XXVIII, 331, quoting the Baltimore Prices Current. 
 
 "'Wolfe, Helper's Impending Crisis Dissected, 129. 
 
 DeBow's Review, XXX, 223. 
 
177] ATTITUDE TOWARD PROTECTIVE LEGISLATION 177 
 
 avert those evils by building up centralization within." 136 And 
 centralization without, he declared to be the "daughter of that 
 Southern goddess, Free Trade." The free traders were "old fogies, 
 sitting like an incubus on the South." 137 The disease under which 
 the South suffered was free trade free trade with the North. The 
 protection Fitzhugh demanded was against the North, not against 
 Europe. He agreed with Southern free traders that a protective 
 tariff imposed by the Federal government would be unconstitu- 
 tional. He thought a revenue tariff afforded ample incidental 
 protection against foreign nations; it was sufficient to enable the 
 North to almost monopolize the Southern market. When the re- 
 sults of the elections of 1858 threatened the enactment of a pro- 
 tective tariff, he suggested that state protection could neutralize 
 and "peaceably and lawfully nullify federal protection." Fitzhugh 
 would not wait for the South to unite upon measures of protec- 
 tion, but have each state take such individual action as it saw 
 fit. 138 When non-intercourse was suggested, he espoused it. "Dis- 
 union within the Union," as he termed it, would "lead at once to 
 direct trade encourage, promote, and build up, Southern com- 
 merce, manufactures, agriculture, education, etc.," and make the 
 South independent at the same time it was bringing the aboli- 
 tionists to terms. 139 He considered disunion to be a measure that 
 would put an end to free trade with the North; but as late as the 
 middle of 1859, at least, was inclined to prefer the "State protec- 
 tive or taxing system" because it was "safer than disunion, equally 
 efficient, and," so he said, "involves no breach of the constitu- 
 tion." 140 
 
 It did not escape Fitzhugh's notice that the South had largely 
 abandoned, if she had ever practised, a let-alone policy. "For 
 twenty years past," he said, "the South has been busy in protect- 
 
 13 *Cannibals All, or Slaves Without Masters, Richmond, 1857. In addition to 
 this work Fitzhugh wrote, Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Socie- 
 ties; Slavery Justified (pamphlet, 1849); and numerous articles for DeBow's Re- 
 view and other periodicals. 
 
 ""DeBow's Review, XXVI, 659, 662. See Sociology for the South, especially 
 chs. I, XIV. 
 
 188 Fitzhugh's views upon state protection are concisely set forth in an article, 
 "State Rights and State Remedies," DeBow's Review, XXV, 697-703. 
 
 ""Ibid., XXVIII, 7, article entitled ''Disunion Within the Union." 
 
 lto lbid., XXVI, 661. 
 
1/8 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [l/8 
 
 ing, encouraging, and diversifying Southern industrial pursuits, 
 Southern skill, commerce, education, etc." Fitzhugh was not far 
 from the truth when he said: "The South has not only adopted 
 the protective policy, but, strange to say, the editors, legislators, 
 and statesmen, who are loudest in professing free trade doctrines, 
 are, invariably, the warmest advocates of exclusive and protective 
 state legislation." And there was also a measure of truth in the 
 statement: "Southern commercial conventions are composed of 
 this class of men, who are actively at work in endeavoring to en- 
 courage, direct, and control Southern pursuits, by legislation and 
 all other feasible means, while they profess to be par excellence 
 free trade men. . . . " 141 
 
 From this survey of their attitude toward protective tariffs 
 and state and local measures to encourage industry and commerce, 
 1840-1860, we may conclude that just prior to secession the South- 
 ern people were by no means thoroughly committed to laissez faire. 
 With regard to duties upon foreign imports, while a respectable 
 minority wanted absolute free trade, the great majority favored 
 a tariff for revenue with incidental protection. The sentiment for 
 protection would have been stronger had it not been for the con- 
 viction that, while North and South were bound together in the 
 Union, tariffs would redound almost wholly to the advantage of 
 the former. In case the South should become independent, a con- 
 siderable protectionist party might be expected to develop. 
 
 De Bow's Review, XXV, 699-701. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE DISUNION 
 MOVEMENT, 1852-1860 
 
 After the defeat of the disunion movement of 1850-1851 the 
 disunionists were comparatively quiet for a few years. The strug- 
 gles over slavery were temporarily abated. All parties seemed to 
 turn with more or less earnestness to efforts to see whether some- 
 thing could not be done in an organized way to hasten the economic 
 and social progress of the South a policy which Unionists had 
 earlier supported as a substitute for disunion. It was during this 
 short period that the Southern Commercial Convention was insti- 
 tuted, and went about its work with a hope of accomplishing re- 
 sults. Meanwhile, however, the Southern Rights wing strengthened 
 its control of the reunited Democratic party. In doing this it was 
 aided materially by the Pierce administration. In his distribution 
 of the patronage Pierce tried to conciliate the Southern Rights 
 faction, and failed to recognize the more conservative element. 
 He submitted himself largely to the guidance of the radical South- 
 ern leaders in the formulation of policies. Meanwhile, too, the 
 Whig party began to dissolve. 
 
 In 1854 the lull in the quarrel over slavery was rudely inter- 
 rupted by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise the motives 
 of which we shall not pause to discuss. The repeal served as the 
 occasion for the organization of a sectional party in the North, 
 which in turn reacted to strengthen the hands of the extremists in 
 the South. The Kansas troubles and the presidential campaign of 
 1856, with its threat of the election of the candidate of a sectional 
 party, called forth again threats of disunion, and once more the 
 subject was canvassed in all its aspects. From this time on little 
 reserve was shown in expressing disunion sentiments. 
 
 The session of the Southern Commercial Convention held in 
 Savannah a month after the election showed unmistakably the 
 growth of disunion sentiment, and proved to be the last controlled 
 by the conservative element; its successors were little more than 
 gatherings of disunionists. A large proportion of the representa- 
 tive newspapers of the South, especially of the cotton states, openly 
 and almost constantly advocated disunion. The Richmond En- 
 quirer, in the summer of 1857, complained that the Charleston 
 
 179 
 
I8O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [l8o 
 
 Mercury "does nothing from year's end to year's end but to an- 
 nounce the speedy dissolution of the Union." 1 Among others 
 scarcely less open in their advocacy of disunion were, not to men- 
 tion South Carolina journals, the Richmond Examiner, Roger A. 
 Pryor's Richmond South, the Columbus (Georgia) Corner Stone, 
 the Mobile Register, the Mobile Mercury, the Montgomery Ad- 
 vertiser and Gazette, the New Orleans Crescent, the New Orleans 
 Delta, the Vicksburg True Southron, and the Memphis Appeal. 
 J. D. B. DeBow had by this time become an avowed disunionist, 
 and DeBow's Review was disunionist in the whole tendency of its 
 teaching. The Review had some quite able writers among its con- 
 tributors, had won for itself a considerable circulation and much 
 prestige, and exercised great influence in the South. The avowed 
 secessionists in Congress had come to be a considerable group, 
 which included Miles, Keitt, and Bonham, of South Carolina, 
 Iverson, of Georgia, Roger A. Pryor, of Virginia, John A. Quit- 
 man, J. D. McRae, Reuben Davis, and Barksdale, of Mississippi, 
 C. C. Clay and J. L. Pugh, of Alabama, and Wigfall, of Texas. 
 Many who did not publicly avow themselves secessionists were 
 known to lean strongly in that direction. Outside of Congress 
 were dozens of men of reputation and influence, most conspicuous 
 of whom was William Lowndes Yancey, of Alabama, who devoted 
 their best energies to advancing the cause of disunion. Through 
 public agitation and discussion and the later meetings of the 
 Southern Commercial Convention, 2 through private conferences 
 and the wide correspondence carried on by various individuals 
 some unsuccessful attempts were made at organization 3 the dis- 
 unionist leaders in the several states became acquainted with each 
 other, came to have a good understanding of the state of public 
 
 *August 13. 
 
 ^Edmund Ruffin's Diary gives a good understanding of the way in which the 
 Southern Commercial Convention, aside from the formal meetings, was used to 
 promote the cause. See entries covering the session at Montgomery, which Ruffin 
 attended. 
 
 'League of United Southerners. Hodgson, Cradle of the Confederacy, 393- 
 396; DuBose, Life and Times of Yancey, 377; Charleston Mercury, Aug. 3, 1858; 
 Montgomery Daily Confederation, May 21, 1859, quoting an editorial in the 
 Mobile Mercury; DeBow's Review, XXV, 250. 
 
l8l] THE DISUNION MOVEMENT, 1852-1860 l8l 
 
 sentiment in all quarters of the South, and strove to approach an 
 agreement in regard to the proper policies to be pursued. 4 
 
 Disunionists frankly expressed their hope that a pretext could 
 be found which would precipitate the cotton states into a revolu- 
 tion. 5 Their desire to make an issue in part explains the agitation 
 for repealing the laws against the foreign slave trade. When the 
 Southern members in Congress compromised the Kansas question, 
 in April, 1858, by accepting the English bill, several prominent 
 disunionists expressed their disappointment that an issue had not 
 been made. 6 Finally, the issue was presented when, largely 
 through the agency of the disunionists, the Democratic party was 
 split in twain at Charleston and Baltimore, and the triumph of a 
 sectional party made inevitable. 
 
 The discussion of disunion during the several years preceding 
 the actual launching of the experiment left no phase of the subject 
 untouched. Every possible angle of the question was explored- 
 the ability of the Southern states to support a separate govern- 
 ment; the probability of their being permitted to secede without 
 war; the attitude the border states would take in case the cotton 
 states should secede; the most desirable boundary line; the di- 
 vision of the territories; the policies the new confederacy should 
 pursue with respect to commerce with the North and Europe, the 
 tariff, the navigation of the Mississippi, the Pacific railroad, immi- 
 gration, the slave trade, expansion of the confederacy to the south- 
 ward, and the military establishment; the effect of dissolution 
 
 *In a letter to Roger A. Pryor, Yancey said he did not expect Virginia to 
 take the initiative. "Her position as a border state, and a well considered South- 
 ern policy (a policy which has been digested and understood and approved by 
 some of the ablest men in Virginia, as you yourself must be aware) would seem 
 to demand that, when such movement takes place by any considerable number 
 of Southern states, Virginia .... should remain in the Union." Hodgson, op. cit., 
 397; National Intelligencer, Sept. 4, 1858. 
 
 "W. L. Yancey to James S. Slaughter, June 15, 1858, in Hodgson, op. cit., 
 393; DuBose, Yancey, 376. 
 
 "Yancey to Thos. J. Orme, May 22, 1858, in Montgomery Daily Confedera- 
 tion, June S, 1858; DuBose, Yancey, 366-75; M. L. Bonham, of South Carolina, 
 in the House of Representatives, June 9, Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., I Sess., Appx. 
 509-11. A correspondent of the Charleston Mercury wrote of the Southern Com- 
 mercial Convention at Montgomery: "I have not met a single man except the 
 Virginians who approves the late compromise in Kansas." May 15, 1858. 
 
l82 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [l82 
 
 upon the prosperity and development of the South as a whole and 
 of particular classes, interests, and localities. 
 
 The various arguments in favor of disunion did not appeal with 
 equal force to all disunionists. Many emphasized the greater se- 
 curity of slavery in a separate republic and the freedom from the 
 quarrels over slavery, which seemed interminable in the Union; 
 and there can be no doubt that, could the slavery quarrel have 
 been hushed, and the issue amicably settled, disunion sentiment 
 would never have reached alarming proportions or have been 
 translated into action. Others were prone to contemplate the 
 glories of a great republic stretching from the Ohio to Panama and 
 encircling the Gulf of Mexico. Others were influenced by the 
 possibility of reopening the foreign slave trade. Too many poli- 
 ticians, it must be said, felt that their political careers had been 
 blighted in the Union, and hoped for better fortune in the nar- 
 rower confines of a Southern confederacy. But almost all dis- 
 unionists believed, or professed to believe, that the South in the 
 Union was being exploited economically for the benefit of the 
 North; that the Southern states had somehow become tributary 
 provinces of the Northern; that Northern wealth largely repre- 
 sented the product of Southern labor; and that, could the Southern 
 states but cut loose from their Northern connections and be per- 
 mitted to work out their own destiny in their own way, their 
 prosperity would be greater and their development quickened. 
 
 The arguments advanced in support of these propositions were 
 similar to those used in 1850 and 1851, but had been modified to- 
 some extent by circumstances. Since that time there had been 
 much discussion of diversification of industry and development of 
 varied resources; commercial conventions had been held and 
 public opinion educated; and various plans for regenerating the 
 South had been tried or proposed, and, in general, had failed. 
 Whereas in the earlier period most of those who hoped for a 
 diversification of Southern pursuits had held aloof from or had 
 opposed the disunion movement, in the latter many of that class, 
 despairing of success in the Union, lent it their support. 
 
 The doctrine that the South paid more than her share of the 
 taxes and received less than her share of the disbursements had 
 been so frequently repeated that it was becoming generally ac- 
 cepted. One estimated at $50,000,000 the sum the South paid 
 
183] THE DISUNION MOVEMENT, 1852-1860 183 
 
 annually, and at $10,000,000 the amount returned in the form of 
 expenditures; $40,000,000 annually would be saved by going out 
 of the Union. Such a sum distributed among the states would give 
 an enormous impetus to manufactures and all other branches of 
 industry which suffered from a deficiency of capital in the South. 7 
 Southern men did not cease to attribute Southern decline to un- 
 equal taxation and disbursements. 8 
 
 Direct trade with Europe would follow, it was said, closely upon 
 the heels of separation; for importers would never pay the duties 
 imposed by the North in addition to the moderate duties imposed 
 by the Southern confederacy. "With a horizontal duty upon all 
 imposts it would be impossible for foreign products to come to us 
 by way of the cities of the North." 9 If necessary, navigation laws 
 could be enacted discriminating against Northern shipping. For- 
 eign ships would flock to Southern ports; Northern ships would 
 be transferred to the South. Northern seaports would decline; 
 Southern would flourish. 10 The South, having control of its own 
 commerce, would control the "exchanges" also, and thus become 
 financially independent. The establishment of direct trade would 
 give an impulse to every other pursuit: "Manufactories would 
 then grow up, commerce would extend, mechanical arts would 
 flourish, and, in short, every industrial and every professional 
 pursuit would receive a vivifying impulse." 11 
 
 Of all those who speculated in regard to the proper policy of a 
 new confederacy, it is worthy of note that very few proposed that 
 the government should be supported without resort to duties on 
 
 ''DeBow's Review, XXI, 543. Similar statements are in the Charleston 
 Mercury, Feb. 25, 1858, quoting the Mobile Mercury; DeBow's Review, XXX, 
 252; ibid., XXI, 532; speech of J. A. Jones, of Georgia, in Vicksburg, New York 
 Herald, May 21, 1859. 
 
 s john Forsyth's lecture on "The North and the South," Mobile, 1854, 
 DeBow's Review, XVII, 368-73; ibid., XIX, 383-4; ibid., XXVI, 476 (A. P. Cal- 
 houn, 1859); ibid., XXX, 436 (DeBow, 1858); W. P. Miles, of South Carolina, 
 in House of Representatives, Mar. 31, 1858, Charleston Mercury, Apr. 17; 
 Southern Literary Messenger, XXXI, 238; "Barbarossa" [John Scott], The Lost 
 Principle, or the Sectional Equilibrium, Pt. I, ch. V; Claiborne, Life and Corre- 
 spondence of John A. Quit-man, II, 186-7. 
 
 'DeBow's Review, XXI, 543. 
 
 "Ibid., XXI, 519; XXV, 373; XXIII, 604; Cong. Globe, 33 Cong, i Sess., 
 375 (Preston S. Brooks). 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXIX, 462. 
 
184 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [184 
 
 imports. It is true many spoke of a free trade republic; but "free 
 trade" was generally equivalent to "tariff for revenue only." 
 Almost all would have had low duties; but while some told how 
 low they would be and emphasized the blessings of free trade, 
 others dwelt upon the incidental protection which would be af- 
 forded by a tariff for revenue. Said Willoughby Newton, a Vir- 
 ginia disunionist of long standing, "A tariff for the support of the 
 new government would give such protection to manufacturers that 
 all our waterfalls would bristle with machinery." 12 Men from 
 border states were more inclined to speak of the advantages of 
 protection against Northern competition than were men from the 
 cotton states, though the latter often held out as an inducement 
 to Virginia and North Carolina to go with the Gulf states the 
 probability that they would supplant New England in manufac- 
 turing for the South. There were free traders, however, who 
 thought it might be well to leave the Northern slave states out of 
 the confederacy lest they should demand protection for their in- 
 dustries. Disunionists believed that, in case of separation, the 
 North would have to resort to direct taxation to support her gov- 
 ernment; for she would no longer be able to import on Southern 
 account, and she could not tax imports from the South, since 
 they were chiefly raw materials. 13 The consequences of direct 
 taxation would be the transfer to the South of much capital in- 
 vested in manufactures. 
 
 The disunionists often took a somewhat skeptical attitude to- 
 ward the efforts which were being made to promote Southern 
 commerce and industry while the Union continued. Each failure 
 confirmed their opinion that such efforts were futile. The Charles- 
 ton Mercury said that in the Union "Direct trade with the cus- 
 tomers of the South in Europe is an impossibility. .. .Norfolk, 
 Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, are only suburbs of New York." 14 
 According to a contributor to DeBow's Review, the process of de- 
 velopment went on much more slowly than in the North, and 
 must as long as the South remained in the Union with the North 
 to lean upon. Disunion would call for and foster a variety of 
 home products. Pride would demand protection for home indus- 
 
 Review, XXV, 373 (Sept., 1858). 
 "Ibid., XXI, 541-44. 
 "May 20, 1858. 
 
185] THE DISUNION MOVEMENT, 1852-1860 185 
 
 tries. Diversification would develop and unfold the wealth of the 
 South. "True, we might, in the course of time, unfold this wealth 
 in the Union, but not till the teeming North has 'embellished all 
 her slopes,' and of her superabundance and for lack of other lands 
 to conquer, empties her surplus on us, ... With all these aids 
 and stimulants we must advance with equal or faster steps than 
 they." 15 A. J. Roane, of Virginia, wrote: "Experience has demon- 
 strated that direct trade to Southern ports cannot be established 
 to any considerable extent in the Union. It can only be accom- 
 plished by the stress of the necessity which separation would cre- 
 ate." 16 In Virginia the opinion was held that in case of disunion 
 the very necessity of her condition of estrangement from the 
 manufacturing North would impel her to add a manufacturing 
 phase to her already innumerable sources of wealth. 17 
 
 As we have seen, certain south Atlantic ports, particularly of 
 Virginia, which was slowly building the Chesapeake and Ohio 
 railroad, aspired to export and import for the Ohio and 
 the upper Mississippi valleys, and had high expectations of 
 the beneficial effects of such a commerce upon the prosperity 
 of the seaboard regions. A considerable part of the exports and 
 some of the imports of the Northwest still followed the Mississippi 
 river with New Orleans as their port of entry and departure. The 
 people of New Orleans, furthermore, hoped to retain or increase 
 her share of the Western commerce by the building of north and 
 south railroads. There continued to be considerable exchange of 
 products between the South and the West. It was to be presumed 
 that the people who profited or expected to profit by this Western 
 trade would be loath to have a measure taken which might injure 
 that trade and destroy the prospects of future benefits from it. 
 Disunionists sought to overcome the objections of those who yet 
 expected much of Western trade in the way of promoting South- 
 ern prosperity. To meet the demands of New Orleans and pre- 
 serve peace with the West, they generally agreed that, in case of 
 separation, it would be necessary to guarantee free navigation 
 of the Mississippi; it was frequently suggested that Western 
 products be admitted free of duty. 18 Some Southerners professed 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXIII, 471-474 (Nov., 1857). Cf. ibid., XXI, 177-186. 
 
 "Ibid., XXIX, 463. 
 
 "New York Herald, October 23, 1860. 
 
 ^DeBow's Review, XXX, 93 (Maj. W. H. Chase, of Florida). 
 
l86 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [l86 
 
 to believe that, in case of a dissolution of the Union, the close 
 commercial relations of the two sections and the absolute neces- 
 sity to the West of the Mississippi river as an outlet for her com- 
 merce would induce the West to cast her lot with the South rather 
 than with the East; 19 they were not averse to admitting free states 
 into their slaveholding republic. 
 
 It is rather strange how tenaciously Southern men on the eve 
 of secession clung to the belief that the old alliance of the South 
 and West, based upon commercial relations and common opposi- 
 tion to the tariff and financial policies of the East, still continued. 
 For example, Governor Wickliffe, of Louisiana, in his message of 
 January, 1859, said: "The position of the Northwestern States 
 of the Mississippi Valley, on this question [slavery] is of especial 
 interest to us. These States are, by geographical position, com- 
 mercially our allies, whether slave or free, while many of the 
 States on the Atlantic side of the Alleghanies are necessarily 
 hostile in commercial interest. ... It is cheering to find our com- 
 mercial allies of the Northwest sustaining our Southern policy." 20 
 This statement is accurate in no particular. The value of the trade 
 between the West and East was several times greater than the 
 value of the trade between the West and South. Not only did 
 most of the foreign imports of the West come by way of the East; 
 but by far the larger part of Western exports went that way. The 
 travel between East and West was much greater than between 
 South and West. Much Eastern capital was invested in the West. 
 In politics, too, the West and East had been drawing closer 
 together. The tariff no longer divided them as it did in the days of 
 Calhoun. Both stood for a liberal policy in regard to improve- 
 ment of rivers and harbors. The South had abandoned her old 
 liberal attitude on the public lands question, and steadily opposed 
 homestead bills and land grants to railroads; while in some 
 quarters the old demand for distribution of the proceeds from the 
 sale of public lands was revived. The East, on the other hand, 
 was inclined to support the public lands policies of the West. On 
 the immigration question, the West agreed with the East rather 
 
 "Senator Hammond, of South Carolina, Mar. 4, 1858, Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., 
 I Sess., 961; "Barbarossa," The Lost Principle, 225; DeBow's Review, XXIII, 603, 
 (Edmund Ruffin). 
 
 30 New Orleans Daily True Delta, Jan. 19, 1859. 
 
187] THE DISUNION MOVEMENT, 1852-1860 l8/ 
 
 than with the South; the same was true of the Pacific railroad 
 question. On the paramount issue of slavery, the people of the 
 free states of the Northwest were rapidly losing their old indiffer- 
 ent attitude, and becoming more hostile to the institution. 
 
 Along with their pictures of the prosperity and progress which 
 would follow the formation of an independent Southern confeder- 
 acy, disunionists frequently advanced arguments to prove that it 
 would be accompanied by no countervaling disadvantages. Seces- 
 sion would be peaceful, they said, because the interruption of 
 Southern trade, in case the North should undertake coercion, would 
 bring such prostration to Northern industry and commerce that she 
 would not have the means to go to war. Furthermore, England 
 and France would not permit a blockade, because a cutting off of 
 the supply of cotton would bring ruin to important industries. 21 
 Thus the disunionists had an argument at every turn. 
 
 About the time of Lincoln's election there was published a 
 volume by Edmund Ruffin entitled, Anticipations of the Future to 
 Serve as Lessons for the Present Time, in the Form of Extracts 
 of Letters from an English Resident in the United States, to the 
 London Times, from 1864 to 1870, etc. 22 Ruffin was a man of con- 
 siderable ability. He was known throughout the South, and his 
 name carried great weight because of his long record of valuable 
 services to Virginia and the South at large, chief of which were his 
 contributions to improved methods of agriculture. He was a 
 secessionist of long standing, and one of the leaders of the move- 
 ment. 23 His book gives such a complete statement of the disunion 
 arguments, colored perhaps by his Virginia viewpoint, that a 
 summary of it is desirable. 
 
 Ruffin allowed Lincoln to serve one term and his more radical 
 successor, Seward, to serve part of one without a dissolution of 
 the Union. When, however, Seward proposed to stand for a 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXIII, 596-601; XXIX, 457-463; XXX, 95 if. 
 
 22 The earliest notice I have seen of the book was in the National Intelligencer, 
 Nov. 15, 1860, which said the work belonged to the "disunion literature of the 
 current day." It was published anonymously, but the authorship was evident 
 from the appendage of a series of essays on "The Causes of the Independence of 
 the South" which had appeared in 1856 and of which Ruffin was known to be 
 the author. Essays were in Richmond Enquirer, Dec. and Jan., 1856-1857; De- 
 Bow's Review, XXII, 583-93; XXIII, 266-72, 546-52, 596-607. 
 
 23 For a brief biographical sketch, see ibid., XI, 431-436. 
 
l88 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [l88 
 
 second term, six cotton states seceded. Whereupon, after some 
 attempts at settlement, the Federal government established a 
 blockade of Southern ports, and war ensued, the northern slave 
 states remaining neutral. By May, 1868, because of the loss of 
 Southern trade and cotton, there were great suffering, threatening 
 mobs, and sanguinary riots in the North. Northern merchants and 
 manufacturers felt very severely the loss of $40,000,000 due them 
 from the South and sequestered by the government of the new 
 confederacy. The South suffered also from the blockade; but there 
 were compensations in that it taught the Southern people to be 
 independent of the North. Soon Virginia, North Carolina, and 
 Maryland found it no longer possible to remain neutral, and 
 entered the war on the side of the South. Another $50,000,000 of 
 debts were sequestered. The North did not attempt to carry the 
 war into the border states. In July, 1868, it was reported that 
 the imports and revenues of the North had fallen off tremen- 
 dously; for the "greater part of the former importations to North- 
 ern ports and in Northern ships, was for transhipment to and con- 
 sumption in the Southern states." 24 In August outbreaks and 
 violence were reported in the impoverished Northern cities; New 
 York was sacked and burned a rather bitter commentary on the 
 supposed friendship of the South and New York City. Soon the 
 North was unable to continue the war; and a truce was made. 
 
 By February, 1869, renewal of commercial intercourse and 
 peaceful relations had given a wonderful impulse to trade and 
 business in the South. But Southern merchants had entirely 
 ceased going to the North to purchase goods of any kind: "For all 
 Northern fabrics being now subject to high duties, would thereby 
 be so much enhanced in price, that but few kinds can be sold in 
 Southern markets, in competition with European articles subject to 
 the same rates of duties only or of Southern manufactures, now 
 protected by the same tariff law which had formerly been enacted 
 by the superior political power of the North, and to operate 
 exclusively for the profit of Northern capital and industry." 25 
 Northern ship owners were transferring their ships to the South; 
 Northern manufacturers were coming; and much Northern capital 
 was seeking investment there. A month later it was reported that 
 the "commercial prosperity of the South is growing with a force 
 
 "P. 283. 
 "P. 318. 
 
189] THE DISUNION MOVEMENT, 1852-1860 189 
 
 and rapidity exceeding any previous anticipations of the most 
 sanguine early advocates for the independence of the Southern 
 states." 26 
 
 The Western states had taken but little part in the war. The 
 South had granted them free trade and free navigation of the 
 Mississippi. Because of this indulgent and conciliatory treatment 
 the people of the Northwest had not tried to open direct trade with 
 Europe, but were content to trade principally with New Orleans. 
 On April 7, 1869, it was reported that New England and the West 
 were at loggerheads over the tariff. 27 The volume closes with a 
 prediction that the North would soon split, the Western states, 
 upon their own offer, going with the South. "And should New Eng- 
 land be left alone, thenceforward its influence for evil on the 
 Southern states will be of as little effect, and its political and 
 economical position scarcely superior, to those conditions of the 
 present republic of Hayti." 28 
 
 By April 14, 1869, it was reported, commercial treaties had been 
 made by the South with European powers. No duties were to be 
 over 20 per cent. The treaties might be terminated after ten years. 
 The tobacco growers, who had so often in the old Union requested 
 the government to attempt to secure a relaxation of the heavy 
 duties imposed upon their product by France and England, now 
 had their wishes gratified.' 29 
 
 Ruffin's book was written during a political campaign when it 
 was well understood that, in case of Lincoln's election, the cotton 
 states would in all probability secede; but its content was only an 
 amplification of a series of letters published in the Richmond 
 Enquirer in December, 1856, and January, 1857. And the argu- 
 ments for secession which he used were typical of the secessionist 
 -per se propaganda to which the people of the South had been ac- 
 customed for at least a decade. 
 
 Southern people were strengthened in their expectations of 
 beneficial economic effects to follow secession by a class of poli- 
 ticians, writers, and newspaper editors representing those 
 Northern commercial and mercantile interests whose business was 
 largely with the South, and those Northern manufacturing inter- 
 
 2C P. 323. 
 "P. 328. 
 *P. 338. 
 "P. 329. Cf. "Barbarossa," The Lost Principle, 176 ff. 
 
I9O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 
 
 ests who either sold their products in the South or purchased their 
 raw material there, or both. The best known and most trust- 
 worthy individual of this class was Thomas Prentice Kettell, 
 mentioned before in connection with the secession movement of 
 1850. He was, in 1860, the editor of Hunt's Merchants' Magazine. 
 His views carried considerable weight, especially in the South, 
 where his free trade principles, his sympathetic attitude on the 
 slavery question, and his interest in Southern economic develop- 
 ment had long been known. Early in the presidential campaign of 
 1860 there was published a book by him entitled, Southern Wealth 
 and Northern Profits, As Exhibited in Statistical Facts and 
 Official Figures; Showing the Necessity of Union to the Future 
 Prosperity and Welfare of the Republic. The book showed an 
 excellent understanding of the commercial and financial relations 
 of the North and South; the conclusions were supported by tables 
 of statistics, largely drawn from official sources. The burden of 
 the book was, as the title indicates, that the South produced 
 wealth, but that this wealth accumulated in the North: Capital, 
 said Kettell, accumulates slowly in all agricultural countries and 
 rapidly in commercial and manufacturing countries. 30 He de- 
 scribed the resources of the South, her enormous production of 
 cotton and numerous other products, and her immense exports to 
 the North as well as to Europe. He further showed the extent of 
 Southern purchases in the North, the value of the commerce 
 carried for the South by the North, the Northern tonnage so 
 employed in short he discussed every form of profit derived by 
 the North from her relations with the South. The total profits 
 the North derived annually from Southern wealth he summarized 
 in the following table: 31 
 
 "P. 126. 
 
 S1 P. 127. There is no way to check these items with any accuracy, were it 
 worth while to do so. The fishing bounties were paid from the general revenues, 
 and, therefore, by both North and South in proportions of their respective con- 
 tributions. The second is undoubtedly greatly exaggerated. The average yearly re- 
 ceipts from customs, 1856-1860 inclusive, was $54,487,600. Assuming that the 
 people of the South paid as much per capita as the people of the North, which 
 they probably did not (See ante p. 103.), the South paid about $21,440,000 an- 
 nually. A part of this at least was disbursed in the South. The sixth item is 
 probably much too large. So, also, is the last. Northern investments in the South 
 and loans and extensions of credit greatly exceeded in amount Southern invest- 
 
I9l] THE DISUNION MOVEMENT, 1852-1860 19! 
 
 Bounties to fisheries, per annum $ 1,500,000 
 
 Customs, per annum, disbursed at the North. . . . 40,000,000 
 
 Profits to Manufacturers 30,000,000 
 
 Profits to Importers 16,000,000 
 
 Profits to Shipping, imports and exports 40,000,000 
 
 Profits on Travelers 60,000,000 
 
 Profits of Teachers, and others, at the South, 
 
 sent North 5,000,000 
 
 Profits of Agents, brokers, commissions, etc 10,000,000 
 
 Profits of Capital drawn from the South 30,000,000 
 
 Total from these sources $232,500,000 
 
 In sixty years, according to Kettell's estimate, $2,770,000,000 
 had been transferred from the South to the North in these ways. 
 Such heavy drains had prevented the accumulation of capital in 
 the South. 32 
 
 Kettell's arguments were addressed to the Northern people; he 
 urged them not to endanger their prosperity by the unnecessary 
 agitation of the slavery question. The South and West were por- 
 trayed as having great natural resources, whereas the East had 
 few; the prosperity of the latter depended upon manufacturing 
 and shipping for others. 33 He described the efforts which had been 
 made in the South to make the section independent of the North, 
 and the progress already made toward that goal; these he at- 
 tributed to the anti-slavery agitation. He considered the possibil- 
 ity of a dissolution of the Union. In that case, "it is quite apparent 
 that the North, as distinguished from the South and West, would 
 be alone permanently injured." As for the South, "in the long 
 run it would lose after recovering from first disasters nothing 
 by separation." 34 
 
 Disunionists saw in Kettell's book an argument for secession. 
 John Townsend, of South Carolina, cut Kettell's estimate of 
 Northern profits from Southern industry to less than half 
 $105,000,000 annually or $2,100,000,000 in twenty years. What 
 would not this sum have accomplished for the South in twenty 
 years? he asked. Direct trade and flourishing cities. "Domestic 
 
 ments in the North and deposits of Southern funds in Northern banks. The 
 item should read, "interest on Southern debts to Northern citizens;" at any rate 
 such an item, and it would not be a small one, should be included in the table. 
 
 "P. 127. 
 
 "P. 75- 
 
 "P. 75- 
 
192 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [192 
 
 manufactures would have occupied every water power, and the 
 whole South, wealthy and equipped, and armed at every point, 
 would have been able to defend herself against the world." 35 
 DeBow, another disunionist, in his review of Southern Wealth and 
 Northern Profits, said: "The author deserves, by his labors, not 
 only on this occasion, but during a long and active career, the 
 most substantial recognition, as one of the noblest and truest 
 patriots, the most profound economists, and ablest statistical 
 philosophers of the age." 36 
 
 Of Northern newspapers which encouraged the Southern people 
 to believe that disunion would be followed by unprecedented 
 prosperity, none was more widely read and quoted or wielded 
 greater influence in the South than the New York Herald. It kept 
 close watch of events and the state of public opinion in the South, 
 and should have known, perhaps did know, the temper of the 
 people. It constantly advocated a policy of meeting Southern 
 demands and avoidance of wounding Southern sensibilities in 
 order that the South might not be compelled to resort to measures 
 which would work injury to the navigating, mercantile, and 
 financial interests of New York, which the Herald represented. In 
 case of disunion, according to the Herald, the imports of the 
 Northern confederation would so fall off that it would have to 
 resort to direct taxation, while the South would have ample 
 revenue. Manufactures would be established in the South with 
 Northern capital. Northern shipping would rot at its docks. Part 
 of the Northern population would migrate to the South, so the 
 disproportion in numbers would cease to exist. The value of real 
 estate in the North would be greatly reduced. 37 
 
 The views which disunionists, and others both South and North, 
 held in regard to the economic benefits to follow the formation of a 
 Southern confederacy did not go uncontroverted in the South. 
 Conservative journals, such as the New Orleans Picayune, perhaps 
 the best newspaper in the South, the Montgomery Daily Confed- 
 eration, the Republican Banner and Nashville Whig, and the 
 Savannah Daily Republican, did not consider that the Union 
 
 *The South Alone Should Govern the South. And African Slavery Should 
 Be Controlled by Those Only Who Are Friendly to It (pamphlet), 3rd edition, 
 
 P- Si- 
 
 ^DeBoiv's Review, XXIX, 213. 
 "October 30, 1860, editorial, for example. 
 
193] THE DISUNION MOVEMENT, 1852-1860 193 
 
 injuriously affected the economic interests of the Southern states. 
 Said the Picayune, 1858: "One of the most erroneous ideas, 
 strangely obtaining considerable currency at the South, is that 
 which attributes apparent decay of the older, and comparative slow 
 growth of the younger Southern States, to a fixed policy of the 
 General Government, assumed to be partial to sections in which 
 slavery does not exist." 38 The Montgomery Daily Confederation 
 said, 1859: "Nor are we wanting in a proper appreciation of the 
 value of the Union. . . . We sing no anthems to its glories, at 
 the same time we cannot forget that under it, we have grown to be 
 a great, prosperous, and after all, a happy people." 39 Occasionally 
 DeBow's Review contained an article which refuted the views 
 presented by the majority of its contributors. 40 Conservative 
 statesmen often described the South as prosperous, and attributed 
 that prosperity to the Union. Such a one was Alexander H. 
 Stephens. 41 Senator Bell, of Tennessee, in his speech on the 
 Lecompton bill, 1858, described the disunionists perseoi the South, 
 and expressed his dissent from their doctrines. 42 
 
 Disunionists were forced to admit on the eve of the war that 
 the South was enjoying a comparative degree of prosperity; and 
 they expressed concern lest a feeling of content with their eco- 
 nomic condition would make the Southern people incapable of 
 maintaining their rights. 43 The Charleston Mercury found it 
 necessary to protest against an editorial of the New Orleans Bee, 
 "an inveterate old Whig paper," for intimating "that the Southern 
 people are so cankered by prosperity as to be incapable of resist- 
 ing the sectional domination of the North, and that the Union will 
 
 ss May 22, 1858. 
 
 "May 19, 1859. A year earlier it had said: ''We scout the position so often 
 assumed that we are inferior that we are degraded in this Union . . . That the 
 North does our trading and manufacturing mostly is true, and we are willing that 
 they should. If we thought as some seem to think on the subject, we should 
 boldly raise the standard of secession, and never cease the strife until the Union 
 were dissolved." May 19, 1858. 
 
 "XXIV, 431-39, e.g. 
 
 "Letter to J. J. Crittenden, Jan. 2, 1860; address to his constituents, Aug. 
 14, 1857, Toombs, Stephens, Cobb Correspondence, 415 ff. 
 
 "Ccng. Globe, 35 Cong., I Sess., Appx., 139-40. 
 
 "Speech of R. B. Rhett, July 4, 1859, in Charleston Mercury, July 7; ad- 
 dress of Col. A. P. Aldrich at the fair of the South Carolina Institute, Nov. 17, 
 1859, ibid., Nov. 19. 
 
194 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [194 
 
 be continued because of this prosperity." 44 Disunionists found it 
 necessary, also, to allay the fears of those engaged in industry and 
 commerce who, while desirous of Southern industrial and com- 
 mercial independence, believed that the sudden disruption of 
 established relationships which disunion might cause would pros- 
 trate their business. 45 Much of the disunion argument seems to 
 have been designed to win over this class of men. 
 
 Some of the leaders in the various efforts made to effect an 
 industrial and commercial revolution in the South were not con- 
 vinced by the arguments of the unconditional disunionists. James 
 Robb, to whom more than to any other individual belongs the 
 credit for the successful building of the New Orleans, Jackson, 
 and Great Northern railroad, undertook to expose the fallacies of 
 the secession arguments. It would be suicide for the South to 
 abandon the Union. The pursuits of the people of the South were 
 incompatible with any considerable progress in manufacturing 
 and commerce. The remedy for dependence upon the North was 
 not secession but a change of habits. The South had better be 
 dependent ypon the North than upon Europe. "The Southern 
 mind is deluded in the belief that England and France will give 
 to a separate Southern Confederacy, founded on Slavery, Free 
 Trade, and Cotton, their entire sympathies." If self-interest did 
 not appeal to New England, would it appeal to England and 
 France? The belief that the withdrawal of Southern trade would 
 ruin the East was too absurd to merit notice. "Where," he asked, 
 "is the evidence of the prosperity of the Southern States being 
 seriously endangered by a continued fellowship with New Eng- 
 land? Our material progress for the last fifteen years is without 
 example, . . . " 46 
 
 William Gregg, one of the ablest and sanest thinkers in the 
 South upon questions affecting the economic interests of the sec- 
 tion, was not a secessionist per se.* 7 The South was not ready 
 
 "April 30, 1859. 
 
 "See, for example, A. J. Roane in DeBow's Review, XXIX, 462. 
 
 "Letter to Alexander H. Stephens, Nov. 25, 1860, in a pamphlet, A South- 
 ern Confederacy. Letters by fames Robb, late a citizen of New Orleans, to an 
 American in Paris and Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, pp. 11-24. 
 
 "The statements relative to Gregg's position are based upon a series of 
 essays on "Southern Patronage to Southern Imports and Domestic Industry" 
 which appeared in DeBow's Review, July, 1860. to February, 1861, but all of 
 
195] THE DISUNION MOVEMENT, 1852-1860 195 
 
 for independence, he said. The Southern people should make 
 themselves commercially and industrially independent of the 
 North before going out of the Union. There would be no ad- 
 vantage in turning from the Yankees and relying upon Europe. 48 
 Free trade among the states he considered the greatest bond of 
 Union; and at the time he wrote, 1860, still thought it, "if proper- 
 ly poised and equalized throughout our common country, will 
 dispel the dark cloud which hangs over truth and justice . . ," 49 
 Yet Gregg was not oblivious to some of the possible advantages of 
 disunion. If a line were drawn which would be a barrier to the 
 importation of Northern locomotives, for example, two years 
 would not elapse before the South would manufacture them her- 
 self. Disunion would stop the practice followed by Southern banks 
 and money lenders of employing their money in New York rather 
 than at home, which was- a "monstrous barrier to Southern 
 enterprise." 50 
 
 Yet, after giving due weight to such Union arguments as we 
 have just analyzed, it remains that the disunionist arguments in 
 regard to the material benefits of their project were not adequately 
 refuted in the South. Unionists more frequently took the course of 
 appealing to the common history of the American people, their 
 common republican institutions, the greatness of the Union, its 
 prestige among the nations of the earth, its vast military strength, 
 the weakness and insignificance the South would have as an 
 independent nation, her inability to protect an institution con- 
 demned by the opinion of the world, and the danger of plunging 
 the country into fratricidal war. They also found it effective to 
 cast aspersions upon the motives of the secessionist leaders, to 
 represent them as restless spirits, broken down politicians, dis- 
 appointed in their political ambitions. 
 
 Northern men contributed but little to a true understanding of 
 the causes of the disparity of the sections in prosperity and 
 progress, and of the effect which a division of the Union might 
 have upon the great material interests of the country; such an 
 
 which were written before Lincoln's election. But see Victor S. Clark in The 
 South in the Building of the Nation, V, 323. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXIX, 78, 79, 773. 778. 
 
 "Ibid., XXX, 217. 
 
 "Ibid., XXIX, 79, 495. 
 
196 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84<>l86l [196 
 
 understanding, it is believed, would have tended to allay disunion 
 sentiment. Northern men were not as well informed as they 
 should have been of the number of disunionists per se in the 
 South, nor of the arguments they advanced. Practically all of the 
 discussions dealing with disunion were colored by partisan bias. 
 As we have seen, representatives of those business interests of the 
 East which were closely allied with the cotton power exaggerated 
 the value of the Southern connection and the injurious effects of 
 disunion upon the North. They sought to fix the guilt for en- 
 dangering the Union upon the Northern "fanatics" who were 
 agitating the slavery question. Republican and anti-slavery 
 writers and oraters, who, it must be remembered, were not trying 
 to win converts in the South but to build up a great party in the 
 North, dealt with disunionism in a variety of ways. They de- 
 nounced as mercenary those who would calculate the value of the 
 Union in dollars. They commonly charged that threats of dis- 
 union were mere gasconade for the purpose of frightening North- 
 ern men into voting for Southern measures. They often, also, as 
 did William H. Seward in his great speeches during the campaign 
 of 1860, protrayed the magnitude of Northern productions and 
 Northern internal commerce as compared with the products ex- 
 changed between the sections, and minimized the value of the 
 Southern trade and Southern raw materials to the North and the 
 injury which would be inflicted upon Northern interests by dis- 
 union. 51 Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, said cotton was not 
 king; cotton made but one-seventeenth part of the manufactures 
 of the North. 52 The Republicans, and anti-slavery men generally, 
 attributed the "decline" of the South and its dependence upon the 
 North chiefly to the blighting effects of slavery; they saw no hope 
 of remedy so long as slavery continued to exist. 53 
 
 "In a speech at Palace Garden, New York City, Nov. 2, 1860, he said: 
 "New York is not a province of Virginia or Carolina, any more than it is a 
 province of New York or Connecticut. New York must be the metropolis of the 
 Continent." New York Herald, Nov. 3. 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., i Sess., Appx., 169, speech of Mar. 20, 1858, in 
 reply to J. H. Hammond's "Mud-sill" speech of Mar. 4. 
 
 "The speech of Senator Wilson just quoted is a good example. Another is 
 Hannibal Hamlin's reply to Hammond, Mar. 8, II, 1858, Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., 
 i Sess., 1002-1006, 1025-1029. 
 
197] THE DISUNION MOVEMENT, 1852-1860 197 
 
 Perhaps the ablest and most philosophical exposition of moder- 
 ate Republicanism made between 1854 an< i J 86i is George M. 
 Weston's Progress of Slavery, a work which it would have been 
 well worth the while of Southern thinkers to study. We are here 
 concerned only with those of the propositions he sought to es- 
 tablish which relate to disunion. He told of nullification in South 
 Carolina and of its partisans and sympathizers in other slave 
 states. "The real cause of this Southern predisposition to listen 
 to the appeals of the Palmetto nullifiers, was Southern discontent 
 at the prosperity of the North. . . . Refusing to see the true 
 cause of their own misfortunes, and eager to attribute them to 
 every cause but the right one, they insisted that they alone were 
 the real producers of wealth, and that the North was thriving at 
 their expense." This doctrine of the nullifiers had been steadily 
 insisted upon during the following quarter of a century. "It has, 
 without doubt, become the settled conviction of large numbers of 
 persons in the slave States, that in some way or other, either 
 through the fiscal regulations of the Government, or through the 
 legerdemain of trade, the North has been built up at the expense 
 of the South." 55 These were the views which prompted disunion. 
 He illustrated the reasons for wanting to dissolve the Union by an 
 extract from a public address of John Forsyth, of Mobile: 
 
 I have no more doubt that the effect of separation would be to 
 transfer the energies of industry, population, commerce, and 
 wealth, from the North to the South, than I have that it is to the 
 Union with us, the wealth-producing States, that the North owes 
 its great progress in material prosperity. . . . The Union broken, 
 we should have what has been so long the dream of the South 
 direct trade and commercial independence. Then, our Southern 
 cities, that have so long languished in the shade, while the grand 
 emporia of the North have fattened upon favoring navigation laws, 
 partial legislation by Congress, and the monopoly of the public 
 expenditure, will spring into life and energy, and become the 
 entrepots of a great commerce. 36 
 
 The slavery agitation was not the cause of disunion feeling but 
 the pretext, according to Weston. The disunionists had been 
 chiefly instrumental in getting it up: "It is quite notorious that it 
 
 "Published in 1858. 
 "P. 68. 
 "P. 69. 
 
198 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [198 
 
 is not the slaveholding class at the South which particularly 
 favors nullification." 
 
 The impoverished condition of the South, which Weston consid- 
 ered the source of the disunion feeling, he thought attributable in 
 part to slavery and in part to, "that unnatural diffusion of their 
 population over new territories," which the Republican party was 
 opposing. 57 There were no internal elements of change in slave 
 society. The slaves were held to their condition by force. The 
 masters were confined to planting by the want of flexibility and 
 adaptibility in the character of the labor which they controlled 
 and upon the proceeds of which they subsisted. The non-slave- 
 holding whites were degraded by slavery with no hope of escape 
 from their abject poverty. 58 There was no hope from any 
 elements of such a population of the growth of towns, of the 
 mechanic arts, or of manufacturing and commercial interests. 
 "Throughout the South, towns are built up only by Northern and 
 European immigration, and without it there would be scarcely any 
 manifestation of civilization. Mills, railroads, cotton presses, sugar 
 boilers, and steamboats, are mainly indebted for their existence in 
 the Southern States to intelligence and muscle trained in free 
 communities." 59 The redemption of the South would come only 
 with the gradual encroachment of the free-labor system of the 
 North and Europe and the non-slaveholding regions of the South 
 upon the slave belts. That encroachment had begun, or soon 
 would begin. As the slave area should be contracted, the discon- 
 tented area would also be diminished, and the Union would be 
 strengthened. "If the course of events in the immediate future 
 be such as may reasonably be anticipated, no separate Southern 
 Confederacy could possibly embrace more than a few States in 
 the southeast corner of the existing Union; and the scheme of such 
 a Confederacy would be put down by the good sense of the people 
 in that quarter, if, indeed, their patriotism would allow it to be 
 even entertained." 60 
 
 "P. 58. 
 "P. 13- 
 "P. 15. 
 
 T. 70. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 FACTORS WHICH TENDED TO ALLAY DISCONTENT 
 
 WITH THE SOUTH'S ECONOMIC SYSTEM, 
 
 1850-1860 
 
 During the decade 1850-1860 there were factors and conditions 
 whose tendency was to make the people of the South better con- 
 tent with their economic system and position. These factors were 
 in part economic, in part political and social. The economic 
 factors tended also, in part not altogether, to allay Southern 
 sectionalism. That on the whole sectional feeling increased during 
 the period was due, in the main, to other and stronger factors. 
 
 Southern agriculture was comparatively prosperous during the 
 decade. This was especially true of the cotton planting industry. 
 During the decade of 1840-1850 the average price of cotton at 
 Southern seaports was 8 cents; 1 during the following decade it was 
 10.6 cents. 2 The price was steadier also during the later period. 
 The higher price level was maintained in spite of a rather remark- 
 able succession of large crops from 1851 to 1861. The average 
 yearly production during the first decade was 2,155,400 bales, 
 and during the second, 3,374,100 bales, 3 an increase of over 56 
 per cent, while the total value of the cotton produced during the 
 latter period was about double that of the former. The crop of 
 1852-1853, the largest to that time, brought cotton planters nearly 
 $150,000,000. This crop was exceeded both in amount and ag- 
 gregate value by that of 1855-1856. A considerably smaller crop 
 the following year brought in an even greater aggregate, which was 
 exceeded the next year, although the financial crash of 1857 cost 
 the planters many millions. The high-water mark of the ante- 
 bellum cotton industry was reached in 1859-1860, when a crop 
 of 4,861,000 bales was sold for nearly $250,000,000. 
 
 The tobacco and sugar industries were almost as prosperous. 
 As a result of the development of improved varieties and better 
 methods of curing, the demand for tobacco increased, and produc- 
 tion in the United States grew from 200,000,000 pounds in 1849 
 
 *C. F. M'Cay, of Georgia, in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXIII, 602. 
 *DeBow's Review, XXVII, 106. The increase was due in part to an expand- 
 ing money supply. 
 
 "Donnell, History of Cotton, passim. 
 
 199 
 
2OO ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [2OO 
 
 to 434,000,000 in 1859, about 124 per cent. In Virginia and Ken- 
 tucky, the leading tobacco-producing states, the production was 
 doubled, while in North Carolina it was tripled. 4 Although the 
 tobacco growers continued to complain of the heavy duties im- 
 posed by foreign countries upon American tobacco, 5 there can be 
 no doubt that the industry was more prosperous during the 
 decade before the Civil War than in any other period since 
 colonial times. The sugar industry was a somewhat uncertain one. 
 The crop fluctuated widely from year to year because of occasional 
 early frosts and other unfavorable weather conditions. The price 
 fluctuated even more widely, being dependent not only upon the 
 crop in the United States and the tariff, but also upon the crop in 
 Cuba and Hayti, whence sugar was imported. 6 In 1856 the crop 
 in Louisiana, which produced virtually all of the United States 
 sugar, was only 73,976 hogsheads, and sold for $110 per hogshead. 
 In 1858 the crop was 362,296 hogsheads, and the price $69. 
 However, the industry seems to have been more prosperous from 
 1850 to 1860 than during the previous decade. The average price 
 was $63, and the average crop 273,450 hogsheads from 1850-1860; 
 the same items for 1840-1850 were $49.75 and 165,150 hogsheads 
 respectively. 7 
 
 It was an axiom in the South that when the planting sections 
 were prosperous, the grain-growing and stock-raising regions were 
 also prosperous. In the decade before the war their prosperity was 
 enhanced by the readier access to market which improved roads 
 and newly built railroads afforded. At the same time competition 
 with the agricultural states of the Northwest was rendered less 
 injurious because prices were kept up by the growing demand of 
 the East and Europe for foodstuffs. 8 
 
 *Meyer Jacobstein, The Tobacco Industry in the United States, 38-39; 
 Eighth Census, Agriculture, Introduction, pp. xcvi-xcvii. 
 
 *"Barbarossa," The Lost Principle, 176 ff.; memorial to Congress, by a com- 
 mittee of the Southern Commercial Convention, Knoxville, in DeBow's Review, 
 XXIV, 291-300, Apr. 1858; ibid., XXVI, 315. 
 
 'Ibid., XIX, 353, XXII, 320-25, 433-36; Robertson, A Tew Months in 
 America, 88; Stirling, Letters from the Slave States, 182. 
 
 7 DeBow's Review, XXIX, 524; Eighth Census, Agriculture, Introduction, 
 xcix. 
 
 'Ibid., cxli, cxlvi-cxlix (tables illustrating growth of trade between the West 
 and the East and Europe). 
 
2Ol] FACTORS WHICH TENDED TO ALLAY DISCONTENT 2OI 
 
 The growing degree of content with the rewards of the cotton 
 industry was reflected in the increased frequency of expressions 
 of fear for the security of America's monopoly of the production 
 of raw cotton. Livingston was said to have reported that cotton 
 grew in the interior of Africa. 9 Attention was given to the possi- 
 bility that India might be stimulated to increased production. 
 Much interest was taken in the Cotton Supply Association, which 
 was organized in 1857 by English spinners for the purpose of 
 stimulating cotton production in India and elsewhere. 10 
 
 It has always been true in the South that when cotton prices 
 have risen pleas for the diversification of agriculture have fallen 
 upon deaf ears; so it was during the decade before the War. The 
 agricultural reformers in the cotton belt pleaded with the planters 
 not to make more cotton, but to raise their own hogs, cattle, 
 horses, and mules, and to grow their own corn and wheat thus 
 they would cut down expenses and conserve the fertility of the 
 soil. The reformers told the planters that the high prices were 
 only temporary, and were caused in part by the increased gold 
 supply resulting from the opening of the California mines. 11 The 
 rise in the price of cotton was no greater than the rise in the 
 prices of other things. 12 A small cotton crop, they said, and 
 truly, often brought a greater aggregate than a large one. But 
 planters could not resist the temptation to take advantage of 
 prevailing high prices by increasing their acreage. 13 Somewhat 
 better transportation facilities between the planting and the farm- 
 ing regions promoted the tendency to specialization. The agri- 
 culture of the planting belts was no more diversified, if as much, 
 in 1860 than in 1850. 
 
 The sugar and cotton planters seem to have resorted, to no 
 diminishing extent, to Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, and states 
 
 'DeBow's Review, XXIV, 580; Donnell, History of Cotton, 466. 
 
 "Donnell, op. cit., 454, 466, 478; Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XLIII, 640. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XIV, 280. 
 
 "Address of A. P. Aldrich at the fair of the South Carolina Institute, 1859, 
 Charleston Mercury, Nov. 19, 1858. 
 
 "'The price of cotton has raised the price of land, so there is no chance of 
 buying you a cleared plantation now. And during such prices it would be folly 
 to take hands from making cotton in Baldwin to clear the place in Dooly, so we 
 shall have to let planting affairs remain in 'statu quo.' " John B. Lamar to 
 Howell Cobb, Feb. 7, 1850, Toombs, Stephens, Cobb Correspondence. 
 
202 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [2O2 
 
 even farther north for horses and mules, hay, bacon, pork, and 
 beef, and even corn and flour. "There is no reason," wrote a 
 planter, "why Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, 
 Georgia, and Texas should not raise all of their own horses and 
 mules. There is no earthly reason why these states should not 
 also raise all their own corn, hogs, cows, etc." 14 James L. Orr 
 described the planter of South Carolina as buying his bacon and 
 pork, much of his beef, and not infrequently his corn and flour. 15 
 Robert Russell, an English traveler, writing of the planters of 
 Mississippi, said, "The bacon is almost entirely imported from the 
 Northern States, as well as a considerable quantity of Indian 
 corn." 16 
 
 Exports of Western produce from New Orleans to the North 
 and to Europe fell off very rapidly after the building of railroads 
 from the North Atlantic ports to the West; but there was no 
 falling off in the total receipts of Western products at New 
 Orleans. 17 This was due in part to the increased demands of New 
 Orleans herself, in part to the increased demands of the South 
 generally. Of 1,084,978 barrels of flour received at New Orleans 
 in 1858-1859, 306,090 were exported to Northern ports, 133,193 to 
 foreign countries, and 165,397 to other Southern ports. 18 The fol- 
 lowing year' 965,860 barrels of flour were received at New 
 Orleans, of which 58,739 went to the North, 80,541 abroad, and 
 247,231 to other Southern ports. 19 The statistics for corn, bacon, 
 pork, and other articles produced north of the planting belt show 
 similar proportions. Moreover, only a portion of the Western 
 provisions shipped down the Mississippi reached New Orleans. For 
 example, of 92,919 barrels of flour shipped from Cincinnati in 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XIX, 229. 
 
 "Ibid., XIX, 21 (July, 1855). 
 
 "North America, 265, 290. 
 
 "Eighth Census, Agriculture, Intro., clvi, clvii, Tables N and 0; DeBow's 
 Review, IV, 391; V!, 434; X, 448; XII, 83; XVII, 530; XXIII, 365; XXV, 469; 
 XXVII, 471-479. "As an outlet to the ocean for the grain trade of the west, the 
 Mississippi river has almost ceased to be depended upon by merchants." "And 
 even, at no distant date, all the western grain and flour which found a market 
 in New York or New England was shipped to New Orleans in steamboats, and 
 thence around the coast in ocean ships." Eighth Census, Agriculture, Intro., clvii, 
 civ. 
 
 "Ibid., Intro., clvii; DeBow's Review, XXVII, 479. 
 
 "Ibid., XXIX, 784; Eighth Census, Agriculture, Intro., clvii. 
 
203] FACTORS WHICH TENDED TO ALLAY DISCONTENT 2O3 
 
 1860 to points below Cairo, only 35,146 went to New Orleans. 20 
 By 1860 the railroads were carrying no inconsiderable amounts of 
 provisions from the West and the farming sections of the South 
 into the planting sections. 21 
 
 A comparison of the census reports for 1850 and 1860 indicates 
 that the agriculture of the South as a whole was less diversified 
 in the latter than in the former year. It is sufficient to compare 
 such large items as cotton, tobacco, corn, wheat, oats, potatoes, 
 hogs, sheep, cattle, and draught animals. 22 The per capita produc- 
 tion of Indian corn in the South was 33 bushels in 1840, 32.75 
 bushels in 1850, and 31 bushels in 1860. The population of the 
 South increased 23.9 per cent between 1850 and 1860; during 
 the same time the annual production of cotton had been doubled 
 and of tobacco more than doubled. In the leading cotton state, 
 Mississippi, the cotton crop was increased 150 per cent, and the 
 corn crop, 32 per cent. The percentages for Alabama were 73 
 and 18, for Louisiana 336 and 65, and for Georgia 41 and o. 
 South Carolina produced less corn but 17 per cent more cotton in 
 1860 than in 1850. Tennessee, the leading corn state of the 
 South, grew no more corn in 1860 than in 1850, but had increased 
 her cotton crop by one-half. Virginia and North Carolina gained 
 but little in corn produced; but tobacco production had been 
 doubled in the one and tripled in the other. During the decade 
 the annual oats crop had declined in every Southern state except 
 Virginia and Texas; for the South as a whole the falling off was 
 over 40 per cent. In 1850 the Southern states produced 4.87 
 bushels of sweet potatoes per capita; in 1860, 4.16 bushels. There 
 were fewer hogs in the South in 1860 than in 1850; the leading 
 hog-raising states, Tennessee and Georgia, showed decreases, 
 while Virginia, Texas, and Arkansas showed increases. Outside 
 Texas there were fewer neat cattle in the South in 1860 than in 
 1850. The number of milch cows, however, increased 20 per cent; 
 and the production of butter increased from 6.12 to 6.55 pounds 
 per capita. The number of sheep had increased less than 10 per 
 cent, and the wool clip but 18. The statistics for hogs, neat cattle, 
 and sheep may be contrasted with those for draught animals, 
 
 ""Eighth Census, Agriculture, Intro., clviii. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXIV, 214. 
 
 "Eighth Census, Agriculture, Intro., passim. 
 
2O4 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [204 
 
 which were employed in the culture of the staples. The number 
 of mules, oxen, and horses increased between 1850 and 1860 by 
 103, 42, and 22 per cent respectively. The only important food 
 stuff of which there was a remarkable increase of production was 
 wheat. The crop was 17,795,761 bushels in 1850 and 31,441,826 
 bushels in 1860, a gain of 77 per cent and an increase from 2.5 to 
 3.5 bushels per capita. The largest gains were made in Tennessee, 
 North Carolina, and Georgia; they were attributable very largely 
 to the building of railroads which gave access to market to the 
 farmers of eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, upper 
 Georgia, and north Alabama. 
 
 As the great staple industries became more profitable, a 
 tendency was manifested to boast of the prosperity of the South, 
 to proclaim her strength rather than her dependence, and to 
 glorify agriculture and assert its superiority to other industries in 
 every respect in productivity, in the development of individual 
 character and strength, as the conservator of the moral and social 
 order, as a guarantee of the permanence of republican institutions, 
 and as a basis for the political power of a nation. 
 
 Planters had long complained that they were at the mercy of 
 the "money power," the Bank of England or combinations of 
 speculators and spinners, who took advantage of the necessity of 
 cotton planters to realize quickly upon their cotton in order to pay 
 advances they had received while their crop was growing. As 
 late as October, 1851, a cotton planters' convention at Macon, 
 Georgia, published a scheme for organizing the planters to keep 
 up the price of cotton. 23 Later in the decade, with demand out- 
 running production, the "law of supply and demand" seemed 
 sufficient guarantee against exploitation. "Cotton has outlived 
 and outgrown the influence of the money power of the Bank of 
 England," wrote a contributor to DeBow's. "Many years since, 
 Mr. Van Buren . . . said that a combination of the Bank of 
 England 'diminished the value of every man's property in 
 America.' This was particularly true at the South, . . . That 
 plan was tried to check the rising values in 1856 and 1857; but 
 for the first time without success. . . . The combinations of 
 spinners are of no avail; the manufacturing wants exceed the 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XII, 110, 121-6, 275-80. 
 
2O5] FACTORS WHICH TENDED TO ALLAY DISCONTENT 2O5 
 
 power of the South." 24 There were even signs of a breaking away 
 from the deplorable system of advances to planters; and certain it 
 is that the advances came more frequently from home banks and 
 less frequently from foreign factors than formerly. 25 The South 
 was beginning to accumulate the capital with which to market her 
 staples. 
 
 There was reason for self-congratulation also in the way the 
 South came through the financial crash of 1857. The South was 
 not as hard hit as the West and North, and, because of large crops 
 at good prices, recovered more rapidly. 26 Southern merchants 
 paid their debts in Eastern cities as usual in 1858;" and Eastern 
 merchants were induced to seek purchasers in the South rather 
 than in the West. 28 Never before had Southern banks held so 
 large a proportion of the nation's specie as in 1858, 1859, and 
 i86o. 29 This favorable balance may have been due in some degree 
 to smaller purchases of Northern and foreign goods after the panic, 
 and, possibly, to a partial carrying out of threats of non-inter- 
 course in retaliation for Northern "aggressions"; but the chief 
 explanation lies in the unusual sums realized from the crops of 
 those years. 
 
 Formerly when comparisons had been made between the slave- 
 holding and the free states, Southern men had generally been con- 
 tent to trace " 'Southern decay' to other causes than Slavery which 
 in fact is all that saves us." 30 In 1849 Ellwood Fisher, of Cin- 
 cinnati, in a lecture there, maintained, "in opposition to the exist- 
 ing opinion on the subject," that the "South is greatly the superior 
 of the North in wealth in proportion to the number of their 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXVII, 107. "Cotton is king. The Bank of England was 
 until lately, but the last time she tried to put on the screws she failed." J. H. 
 Hammond in the Senate, Mar. 4, 1858, Cong. Globe, 35 Cong., I Sess., 961. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXVII, 107; Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XLII, 157; 
 Charleston Courier, Nov. 5, 1860. 
 
 ~*DeBow's Review, XXVI, 92, 582, quoting the United States Economist. 
 
 "Charleston Mercury, Mar. n, 1858, quoting the New York Herald; Hunt's 
 Merchants' Magazine, XXXVIII, 583. 
 
 "Ibid., XLII, 70; DeBow's Review, XXVI, 583. 
 
 "Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXXIX, 459; XLII, 157; XLIII, 455. 
 
 *J. H. Hammond to Calhoun, Aug. 18, 1845, Calhoun Correspondence. 
 
2O6 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [206 
 
 citizens respectively." 31 This proposition he sought to demonstrate 
 by a formidable array of miscellaneous statistics ingeniously 
 arranged. Both the thesis and the method of demonstration were 
 comparatively new to the South. J. H. Hammond, reviewing the 
 lecture for the Southern Quarterly Review, said: "It will be per- 
 ceived .... that Mr. Fisher strikes out into a bold and to most 
 persons we doubt not an entirely new train of facts and arguments 
 in his discussion of this subject." 32 He refuted some of Fisher's 
 arguments. Fisher's lecture, however, was well received in the 
 South. 33 Both his conclusions and method were followed with in- 
 creasing frequency in succeeding years, chiefly, no doubt, because 
 slavery must be defended, but partly because the economic posi- 
 tion of the South seemed to justify doing so. Alexander H. 
 Stephens defended slavery by demonstrating the superiority of 
 the slave state of Georgia over the free state of Ohio in prosper- 
 ity and all other respects in which abolitionists were wont to make 
 invidious comparisons. 34 B. F. Stringfellow used Fisher's method 
 in his pamphlet, Negro Slavery No Evil, as did many other less 
 able defenders of the institution. 
 
 The arguments of those who would diversify Southern industry 
 were more frequently refuted during the few years preceding the 
 war than before. This was due in part to improved economic con- 
 ditions in the South, in part to growing fears on the part of the 
 dominant social class that diversification would tend to undermine 
 the existing social order, and in part to the political situation. 
 "For fifty years," wrote George Fitzhugh, "she [the South] has 
 been more usefully, more industriously, more energetically, and 
 more profitably employed than any people under the sun. Yet all 
 the while she has been envying and wishing to imitate the little 
 'truck patches,' the filthy, crowded, licentious factories, the mer- 
 cenary shopkeeping, and the slavish commerce of the North." 35 
 
 n Lecture on the North and the South, delivered before the Young Men's 
 Mercantile Library Association, of Cincinnati, 1849 (pamphlet), p. 7. The lec- 
 ture is in DeBow's Review, VII, 134 ff., 262 ff. 
 
 "Southern Quarterly Review, XV, 276. 
 
 **DeBow's Review, VII, 134. Fisher was made editor of the Southern Press, 
 a short-lived organ established in Washington, 1849, by Southern members of 
 Congress. 
 
 "Cleveland, Alexander H. Stephens in Public and Private, 429-32; 432-59. 
 Review, XXIII, 587. 
 
FACTORS WHICH TENDED TO ALLAY DISCONTENT 2O/ 
 
 The Montgomery Daily Confederation, a conservative organ, pro- 
 tested against the doctrines which found favor in the Southern 
 Commercial Convention: "That the North does our trading and 
 manufacturing mostly is true, and we are willing that they 
 should. Ours is an agricultural people, and God grant that we 
 may continue so. We never want to see it otherwise. It is the 
 freest, happiest, most independent, and, with us, the most power- 
 ful condition on earth." 30 Those who attended the Southern 
 Commercial Convention and interested themselves in schemes for 
 the regeneration of the South made much of the argument that 
 commercial and industrial independence would augment the 
 political power of the South and enable the Southern people to 
 better defend their rights and interests. But the majority seem to 
 have preferred to stake the security of Southern rights and inter- 
 ests upon the efficacy of the "cotton is king" argument, and the 
 "cotton is king" argument arose from the fact that the people of 
 the South were chiefly engaged in producing a few great staples 
 for export. 
 
 Frequent reference has been made in former chapters to the 
 use of this argument in some form or other. It may be briefly 
 recapitulated: The South produced an immense surplus for export 
 of great staples, particularly cotton, which had become necessities 
 for millions of people the world over, supported a large part of the 
 commerce and trade of the world, constituted the raw material for 
 factories in England and America employing millions of capital 
 and hundreds of thousands of hands, and furnished the basis for 
 American credit in Europe. With the return from their staples the 
 Southern people purchased manufactured goods from the North 
 and from Europe and provisions from the West, whose production, 
 sale, and transportation gave employment to factories, farmers, 
 shippers, and merchants. When one computes the capital and 
 labor dependent either directly or indirectly upon the production 
 and export of Southern staples, he has a stupendous total, and 
 the Southerner was only too prone to exaggerate the part his cot- 
 ton played in keeping the wheels of the world's industry in motion. 
 And cotton and negro slavery were said to be synonymous: the 
 South had a monopoly of the world's cotton supply; only negroes 
 held in slavery could make the great crops of cotton; therefore, 
 
 "May 19, 1858. See also above, pp. 50-58, and below, pp. 222-23. 
 
208 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 8401 86 1 [208 
 
 destroy slavery and the mighty structure reared upon it would 
 come down with a crash. 37 Also, as long as the sections were de- 
 pendent upon each other, the South had at hand a powerful 
 political weapon in the form of threats to limit the cotton supply, 
 to manufacture it herself, to conduct her own commerce, to adopt 
 a policy of non-intercourse, to secede, to do anything, in short, 
 which would injure interests elsewhere, the prosperity and perma- 
 nence of which depended upon the continuance of existing com- 
 mercial relationships between the sections. Furthermore, those who 
 desired disunion or believed it inevitable could plausibly argue that 
 secession would be peaceful: the interruption of Southern trade 
 and the cutting off of the cotton supply, which war would cause, 
 would so prostrate Northern industry that the section would be 
 incapable of waging war; England and France would not tolerate 
 a war which might involve the interruption of their supply of cot- 
 ton. A Southern confederacy once established, they could further 
 argue, cotton would be the power which would preserve the 
 peace and secure favorable commercial treaties. 
 
 It is apparent that the continued potency of the "cotton is king" 
 argument depended upon the South's remaining exclusively agri- 
 cultural; to the extent the Southern people should become 
 industrially and commercially independent the argument would 
 lose force. George Fitzhugh wrote: "Indeed, the South will 
 commit a fatal blunder, if, in its haste to become nominally inde- 
 pendent, it loses its present engines of power, and thereby ceases 
 to be really independent .... It is our great agricultural surplus 
 that gives us power, commands respect, and secures inde- 
 pendence. . . ," 38 It is apparent also that for the "cotton is king" 
 argument to be -an entirely satisfactory one from the Southern 
 
 '"'It seems, indeed, when the whole of the facts brought together are con- 
 sidered, that American slavery, though of little force unaided, yet properly sus- 
 tained, is the great central power, or energizing influence, not only of nearly 
 all the industrial interests of our own country, but also all of those of Great 
 Britain and much of the continent; and that, if stricken from existence, the 
 whole of those interests, with the advancing civilization of the age, would receive 
 a shock that must retard their progress for years to come." Christy, Cotton is 
 King (second edition) 163. 
 
 **DeBow's Review, XXIII, 341 (Dec., 1857). Fitzhugh found reason soon 
 to change his opinions somewhat. 
 
209] FACTORS WHICH TENDED TO ALLAY DISCONTENT 
 
 point of view, the agricultural system upon which it was based 
 must be satisfactory to the Southern people. 
 
 Southern statesmen and politicians had long used the "cotton is 
 king" argument in one form or another without reserve and with 
 considerable effect. During the crisis of 1850, for example, it ap- 
 peared in the frequent calculations of the value of the Union. But 
 at no time did cotton seem more powerful, and the Southern 
 people more inclined to exult in it and wield it as an instrument 
 of political power, than during the several years immediately pre- 
 ceding the Civil War. After the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska 
 bill, Professor Christy, of Ohio, published a very ingenious volume 
 entitled, Cotton is King, one of whose theses was that an alliance 
 had been struck between the planters of the South and the pro- 
 ducers of provisions in the Northwest. 39 But it was chiefly to the 
 industrial and commercial centers of the North that the appeal was 
 made. Jefferson Davis, .speaking to a Boston audience in Faneuil 
 Hall, said: "Your interest is to remain a manufacturing, and ours 
 to remain an agricultural people. Your prosperity, then, is to 
 receive our staple and to manufacture it, and ours to sell it to 
 you and buy the manufactured goods." 40 John B. Floyd said in 
 New York: "I rejoice that the great staples of the South are the 
 chief means by which your commerce is fostered, and your 
 mechanics and artisans kept constantly at work." 41 During the 
 campaigns of 1856 and 1860 Southern orators were sent to 
 Northern cities. R. M. T. Hunter, Robert J. Walker, Henry W. 
 Hilliard, Herschel V. Johnson, and even William L. Yancey were 
 all adept in appealing to the business interests. 42 
 
 Nor did these appeals to interest fail to raise up powerful allies 
 for the South in the North the "Northern men with Southern 
 principles." Leading journals closely identified with the business 
 interests, such as the New York Herald, the New York Express, 
 the Boston Post, the Boston Courier, and the Philadelphia Atlas, 
 defended the South and slavery and described the dire effects upon 
 the North of goading the Southern states into non-intercourse or 
 
 Tp. 144 ff., especially. 
 
 *Mrs. Varina Davis, Jefferson Dazis, I, 630. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXI, 604. 
 
 4t lbid., XXI, 53038; 589-602; Hilliard, Politics and Pen Pictures, 294-302; 
 New York Herald, Sept. 22, Oct. n, 1860, speeches of Yancey in Washington 
 and New York. 
 
2IO ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [210 
 
 secession. Slavery had its defenders in the pulpit and in the 
 schools. Northern politicians friendly to the South were not 
 courting Southern popularity only. So effective was cotton as an 
 argument for slavery that optimistic men from time to time 
 detected a "returning sense of justice" in the North and a change 
 in the attitude of the people of England and France toward 
 slavery. 43 
 
 The improved condition of Southern agriculture in the fifties was 
 reflected in, and gave rise to, a somewhat different aspect of the 
 labor problem. Between 1840 and 1850 when prices of cotton 
 and slaves were low, the feeling was pretty strong throughout the 
 South that there was a redundancy of labor engaged in the culture 
 of cotton. Planters welcomed suggestions that slaves be diverted 
 from cultivating cotton to other labor. The possibility of employ- 
 ing them in factories and in the construction of internal improve- 
 ments was canvassed. The experiment was tried in both fields, 
 and in the latter, at least, proved successful. 44 In the next decade 
 the prosperity of Southern agriculture, especially cotton growing, 
 and to some extent the employment of slaves upon works of 
 internal improvement, created a strong demand for labor. Prices 
 of slaves rose to unprecedented figures. A contributor to DeBow's, 
 1856, said the price of field hands had nearly doubled in five 
 years. 45 A Georgia delegate to the Southern Commercial Conven- 
 tion, the same year, said negroes were worth from $1000 to $1500 
 each, and there were ten purchasers to every seller. 46 Frequent 
 accounts of the sales of slaves affirm the truth of these asser- 
 tions. 47 The prices continued to rise until secession. 
 
 This remarkable rise in prices occurred notwithstanding the fact 
 that the labor force engaged in the production of cotton and 
 sugar was receiving large increments in addition to the natural 
 increase of slaves. Partly because of the high prices offered for 
 
 "Cleveland, Alexander H. Stephens, 647 ff.; DeBow's Review, XXIV, 423; 
 New Orleans Picayune, Jan. 5, 1858; J. H. Hammond, speech at Beech Island. 
 S. C., July 22, 1858, in Charleston Mercury, July 27. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXIX, 254; XVII, 76-82; Phillips, American Negro 
 Slavery, 375-378. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXI, 158. 
 
 "Ibid., XXII, 222. 
 
 47 This subject is thoroughly discussed in Phillips, American Negro Slavery, 
 373-375, and chart, p. 370. 
 
21 1] FACTORS WHICH TENDED TO ALLAY DISCONTENT 211 
 
 slaves by planters, and partly because of the influx of foreigners 
 and the increasing difficulty of controlling slaves in cities, the 
 slave population of such large cities as Baltimore, New Orleans, 
 St. Louis, and Charleston declined between 1850 and 1860. The 
 slave population of Charleston fell from 19,532 in 1850 to 13,909 
 in 1860; that of New Orleans declined from 16,845 to I 3>385, 
 notwithstanding there was a remarkable increase in the total 
 population of the city. 48 In Richmond, Savannah, Augusta, 
 Columbus, Memphis, Nashville, Mobile, Natchez, and other 
 towns there was a considerable decline in the proportion which the 
 slave population bore to the white population. 49 Thousands of 
 slaves were transferred each year from the border states and the 
 older cotton states to Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and 
 Texas; and there can be no doubt that they went to the cotton 
 and sugar plantations of those states. Olmsted estimated the 
 number of slaves annually sold south from the northern slave 
 states at more than 2O,ooo. 50 Winfield Collins estimated from the 
 reports of the U. S. Census that during the period 1850-1860, 
 207,000 slaves were transferred from the selling states, which in- 
 cluded North and South Carolina, to the buying states. 51 In 
 Delaware and Maryland the slave population declined during the 
 decade. 52 In Virginia it increased only 3.88 per cent; in South 
 Carolina, 4.53 per cent; in Kentucky, 6.87 per cent; in North Caro- 
 lina, 14.73 P er cent; and in Tennessee but little more. The increase 
 in the total slave population of the United States during the 
 decade was 23.39 P er cent, of which at least 20 per cent represented 
 natural increase. A by no means inconsiderable increment to the 
 labor force of the planting belts of the cotton states consisted of 
 slaves imported from outside the United States in violation of 
 Federal and state laws. Collins considers 70,000 a "moderate and 
 even low" estimate of the number of slaves imported between 
 1850 and i86o. 53 DuBois, in his Suppression of the African Slave 
 Trade, asserts that the laws against the foreign slave trade were 
 
 ^Compendium of the Seventh Census, passim; Eighth Census, Population, 
 passim. The slave populations of St. Louis, Baltimore, and Louisville were small. 
 "Ibid.; DeBow's Review, XXX, 70. 
 ""Cotton Kingdom, I, 58 n. 
 ^Domestic Slave Trade, 66. 
 "Eighth Census, Population, 599. 
 0p. cit., 20. 
 
212 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [212 
 
 "nearly nullified," and that the increase of illicit traffic and actual 
 importations in the decade 1850-1860 may almost be termed a 
 reopening of the slave trade. 54 
 
 But these additions to the labor force of the cotton and sugar 
 plantations were incommensurate with the demand, and could not 
 be made indefinitely. Considerable speculation was indulged in as 
 to whence would come the labor which would enable the cotton 
 planters to extend their operations in the future, and the South 
 to maintain her position as the chief source of the world's cotton 
 supply. John M. Cordoza, an old and reliable commercial editor 
 of Charleston, said the yearly increase in the cotton crop of the 
 United States was regulated by a fixed law, namely, the increase 
 in slave population, which was three per cent per annum. True, pro- 
 duction had been increasing at a more rapid rate because of the 
 transfer of slaves from the non-cotton states to the cotton belt 
 and from poorer to more fertile lands within the belt; but this 
 process could not go on indefinitely. Improved methods and labor 
 saving machinery could be considered negligible factors in in- 
 creasing production. He had no fear of foreign competition. 55 
 Other observers thought the tobacco and grain growing states had 
 no redundancy of labor, and were unlikely to have "so long as 
 their present prosperity continues." 56 J. B. Gribble, a New 
 Orleans cotton factor who reviewed the trade for Hunt's 
 Merchants' Magazine, believed that the poor whites would be in- 
 duced by the high prices to labor; in fact a change was already 
 perceptible, and soon many "small crops" would tell with some 
 effect upon the aggregate yield. 57 The United States Economist, 
 1859, pictured the cotton states as prosperous and the prospects 
 for the future of the cotton industry as brilliant. With the ad- 
 vancing prices of slaves it would be "impossible to limit the in- 
 crease of supply to the rule which now governs it, viz., the natural 
 increase of hands." Cultivation would be undertaken by whites. 58 
 
 About 1856 there was begun a lively agitation in the cotton 
 states in favor of the repeal of the laws prohibiting the foreign 
 
 "Pp. 178, 183. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXII, 337-49 (Apr., 1857). 
 
 "'Charleston Mercury, May 4, 1858, article by P. A. Morse, of Louisiana. 
 The same is in DeBow's Review, XXIII, 480. 
 "XXXVII, 554-61. 
 "'Quoted in DeBow's Review, XXVI, 582. 
 
213] FACTORS WHICH TENDED TO ALLAY DISCONTENT 2IJ 
 
 slave trade; this agitation continued until after secession. The 
 movement for the renewal of the slave trade may be attributed 
 in part to the demand of the planting interest for a larger and 
 cheaper labor supply; to the extent this may be done, the move- 
 ment testifies to the prosperous condition of Southern agriculture. 
 The movement and the accompanying discussion also brought out 
 clearly two divergent conceptions of a proper Southern policy. 
 One looked to the diversification of industry, the encouragement 
 of white immigration, and the development of free rather than 
 slave labor. In this view, the future lay with the white race; 
 and the South had other interests than slavery. The other con- 
 ception of policy looked to the preservation of a slave society 
 and the plantation system, and was antagonistic to any changes 
 which might endanger the existing social and economic order. A 
 study of the movement for reopening the slave trade should con- 
 tribute to an understanding of this deep seated division in 
 Southern public opinion. The movement illustrates also the 
 growth of sectional feeling and disunion sentiment and the 
 existence of sectional divisions in the South, with their basis in 
 conflicting interests. 
 
 As early as 1852, L. W. Spratt, the editor of the Charleston 
 Standard, advocated the reopening of the African slave trade. For 
 a few years he was almost alone. In the Southern Commercial 
 Convention, New Orleans, 1855, a Louisiana delegate introduced 
 a resolution recommending that Southern congressmen work for 
 the repeal of the Federal laws against the slave trade; but the 
 resolution elicited no discussion. 59 The first responsible leader to 
 publicly espouse the cause was Governor Adams, of South Caro- 
 lina. In his message to the Legislature, November, 1856, he argued 
 at length for revival of the trade, examining the subject in all of 
 its aspects, economic, political, social, and moral. 00 The lower 
 house of the Legislature after a short but animated debate referred 
 the governor's recommendation to a special committee, which was 
 permitted to defer its report until the next session. Apparently 
 only a small minority wished to agitate the subject. 61 In South 
 Carolina, as elsewhere, Adams's recommendation was considered 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XVIII, 628. 
 
 "Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 26, 1856. 
 
 l DeBow's Review, XXVII, 364. Savannah Republican, Dec. 15, 19, 1856. 
 
214 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84OI 86 1 [214 
 
 a move to advance the cause of disunion. 62 The Savannah 
 Republican had no idea that it was made in good faith, but only 
 as the "handmaid and twin sister of Disunion." 63 Southern 
 leaders in Congress hastened to correct the impression which the 
 discussion in South Carolina was creating elsewhere, and resolu- 
 tions were introduced and adopted declaring against reopening the 
 foreign slave trade. 64 
 
 But these resolutions failed to check agitation. The subject was 
 injected into the proceedings of the Southern Commercial Con- 
 vention at Savannah, December, 1856, and the revival of the trade 
 was favored by a very aggressive minority. 65 At Knoxville, the 
 following year, the subject occupied the larger part of the time of 
 the convention. 66 A resolution declaring that the joint patrol 
 article of the Treaty of Washington, 1842, should be abrogated, 
 was adopted. At the sessions of the Commercial Convention held 
 in Montgomery, 1858, and Vicksburg, 1859, the foreign slave 
 trade was virtually the only subject discussed. 67 At Vicksburg 
 the convention adopted a resolution declaring that "all laws, state 
 or Federal, prohibiting the African slave trade, ought to be re- 
 pealed." The delegates from Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas 
 formed an "African Labor Supply Association," of which J. D. B. 
 DeBow was made president. 68 The avowed purpose of the organ- 
 ization was not, as the name may suggest, to encourage the im- 
 portation of slaves notwithstanding the laws against it, but to 
 conduct an agitation for their repeal. 69 
 
 Meanwhile the question had come before the state legislatures. 
 The Mississippi Legislature, 1857, had before it a plan to charter 
 the "African Labor Immigration Company" authorized to bring in 
 
 "Savannah Republican, Dec. 5, 1856; Daily National Intelligencer, Dec. 2, 
 1856. 
 
 "Dec. 6, 1856. 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 34 Cong., 3 Sess., 123-26. 
 
 "Proceedings, in Savannah Republican, Dec. 9-15, 1856; Df Bow's Review, 
 XXII, 81-105, 216-24. 
 
 ""Proceedings, in ibid., XXIII, 298-320. 
 
 "Proceedings of the Montgomery session are in ibid., XXIV, 473-491, 574- 
 6c6. Debate upon the slave trade is in Hodgson, Cradle of the Confederacy, 
 371-392. Proceedings of the Vicksburg session are in DeBow's Review, XXVII, 
 94-103, 205-220, 468-471; New York Herald, May 18, 21, 1859. 
 
 e *DeBow's Review, XXVII, 120. 
 
 ""Letters, Yancey to DeBow, DeBow to Yancey, in ibid., XXVII, 231-35. 
 
215] FACTORS WHICH TENDED TO ALLAY DISCONTENT 215 
 
 negroes as "apprentices." 70 No action was taken upon it. The 
 Louisiana House of Representatives, by a large majority, passed a 
 bill providing for the importation of 2,500 African negroes to be 
 indentured for a term of not less than fifteen years. A select com- 
 mittee of the Senate reported the bill favorably. The Senate, by 
 a majority of only two votes, postponed the bill indefinitely. 71 
 Both the Mississippi and the Louisiana measures were said to be 
 compatible with the Federal Laws prohibiting the slave trade. 72 
 In the South Carolina Legislature of 1857-1859 the subject was 
 again considered. In January, 1859, DeBow wrote: "Certainly no 
 cause has ever grown with greater rapidity than has that of the ad- 
 vocates of the slave trade, if we may judge from the attitude it 
 is assuming in most of our Southern Legislatures." 73 In the press 
 also the subject received its full share of attention. 
 
 The great increase in the illicit foreign slave trade during the 
 18505 can be attributed largely to the enormous profits made 
 possible by the high prices slaves were commanding; but the state 
 of public opinion in the South was also favorable to it. It was 
 notorious that the law r s were being violated. The newspapers 
 commented upon the slave smuggling and sometimes with ap- 
 proval. Federal officials were remarkably inefficient and apathetic 
 in the enforcement of the laws against it. It seemed impossible 
 to get a jury in the South to convict a slave trader. 74 In the 
 Southern Commercial Convention at Vicksburg, L. W. Spratt and 
 others openly advocated violation of the laws. When opponents 
 declared the agitation useless because Congress would never legal- 
 ize the trade, Spratt replied that if the trade were approved by 
 Southern sentiment, it would matter little what might be the 
 
 TO New Orleans Delta, Feb. 9, 1858; DeBow 's Review, XXV, 627. 
 
 "New Orleans Picayune, Mar. 5, 21, 27, 1858; De Bow's Review, XXV, 491 
 ff., 627. The report of the select committee of the Senate is in ibid., XXIV, 
 421-24. 
 
 "Henry Hughes, "State Liberties, or the Right to African Contract Labor," 
 in ibid., XXV, 626-53; report of the select committee of the Louisiana Senate, 
 just cited. But see opinion of Secretary of the Treasury Cobb, House Exec. 
 Docs., 36 Cong., 2 Sess., IV, No. 7, pp. 632-36. 
 
 DeBow' s Review, XXVI, 51. See also ibid., XXVII, 493, quoting the 
 Richmond Whig. 
 
 74 New Orleans True Delta, May 5, 1859. Also Charleston Mercury, Mar. 4, 
 II, 1858, quoting the New Orleans Delta; Mercury, May 22, Aug. 5, 1858; Du- 
 Bois, Suppression of the African Slave Trade, 183-87. 
 
2l6 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [2l6 
 
 course of Congress. 75 More honorable was the suggestion fre- 
 quently made that the laws against the foreign slave trade were 
 unconstitutional and should be nullified. The Committee on 
 Federal Relations of the Senate of Louisiana argued that the 
 Federal laws against the foreign slave trade were unconstitutional, 
 and the state was in duty bound to interpose; the legislature had 
 an unquestionable right to enact a law permitting the importation 
 of slaves from Cuba, Brazil, etc., and any attempt on the part of 
 the Federal authorities to interfere with its operation would be 
 tyranny. 76 
 
 We cannot be too critical of the motives either of those who 
 favored or of those who opposed reopening the African slave 
 trade. The prominent leaders of the movement were disunionists, 
 and were known as such before the agitation had well begun. 
 They saw in the foreign slave trade another issue which would 
 divide the sections, and in the certain refusal of the North to 
 permit the revival of the trade another pretext for dissolving the 
 Union. The debate turned almost as much upon the advisability 
 of debating the question as it did upon the advisability of reopen- 
 ing the trade. The Charleston Mercury deplored the agitation of 
 the question because it divided and distracted the South. 77 Others 
 answered that if disunionists waited for a united South they 
 would never get out of the Union. 78 The great majority of the 
 Unionist leaders and newspapers were opposed to raising the 
 question. They charged that the agitation had been got up to 
 promote disunion. 79 Advocates of reopening the slave trade made 
 the counter charge that its opponents were afraid to debate the 
 question on its merits. They were willing to sacrifice the interests 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXVII, 212; New York Herald, May 18, 1859. H. S. 
 Foote branded such utterances as "high treason." 
 
 DeBow's Review, XXVI, 485 (extract from the report). Such prominent 
 men as W L. Yancey and ex-Governor J. D. McRae argued that the Federal 
 laws prohibiting the foreign slave were unconstitutional. Hodgson, Cradle of the 
 Confederacy, 379; DeBow's Review, XXVII, 362-64. 
 
 T7 Mar. 10, 1859. Also speech of R. B. Rhett, July 4, 1859, in Mercury, 
 
 July 7- 
 
 T8 E. g., John A. Jones, of Georgia, in the Montgomery Commercial Conven- 
 tion, Hodgson, op. cit., 377. 
 
 "New Orleans Picayune, Mar. 21, 1858. 
 
2I/] FACTORS WHICH TENDED TO ALLAY DISCONTENT 2 If 
 
 of the South to avoid raising an issue which might endanger the 
 stability of the Union. 80 
 
 The agitation for the revival of the slave trade may be regard- 
 ed as, in a measure, merely a reaction to the excesses of the 
 Garrisonian abolitionists in the North. J. J. Pettigru, in his report 
 to the South Carolina Legislature, said: "It is not intended to 
 impute directly or indirectly a want of sincerity to the supporters 
 of the measure; .... but a great many worthy persons are 
 honestly disposed to make issue with the North from a spirit of 
 pure combativeness, without regard to ostensible causes." 81 
 
 It could very plausibly be argued that the reopening of the 
 African slave trade was necessary if the South were to maintain 
 the sectional equilibrium upon which the maintenance of her 
 rights and interests in the Union was said to depend. The North 
 was said to be gaining three congressmen a year and rapidly 
 settling new free states and territories by virtue of foreign immi- 
 gration. 82 How could the South maintain her political equality 
 when the only class of immigration she could attract and use was 
 barred? A bitter contest was being waged over Kansas. Kansas, 
 it was painfully evident, was being lost to the South because there 
 was no excess of slave population to go into it. Plans for acquiring 
 Cuba and territory in northern Mexico or Central America with 
 a view to making slaveholding states of them were said to be 
 futile without the reopening of the foreign slave trade; for either 
 there would be no slaves to populate them, and they would be- 
 come free states; or the older slave states would be drained of 
 their slave population, and become free states. Alexander H. 
 Stephens and Jefferson Davis both said the South could not hope 
 for any great extension of slave territory unless the slave trade 
 were reopened. 83 Indeed, without population to take advantage of 
 them, the Kansas-Nebraska bill and the Dred Scott decision were 
 empty victories. Even without further extension of territory, it 
 
 *E. g., W. H. McCardle, of Mississippi, in the Vicksburg convention, New 
 York Herald, May 18, 1859. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXV, 306. 
 
 "^Temple, of Tennessee, in Southern Commercial Convention, Knoxville, 1857, 
 ibid., XXIII, 319. 
 
 "Stephens's farewell address to his constituents, Augusta, Georgia, July 2, 
 1859, in Cleveland, Alexander H. Stephens, 647; Davis, quoted in Cairnes, The 
 Slave Power, 243 n. 
 
2l8 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [2l8 
 
 was said, there was a possibility of the loss of Maryland, Ken- 
 tucky, and Missouri to slavery through the transfer South of the 
 slave population and the influx of elements hostile to it. "There 
 is no denying," said Yancey, "that there is a large emancipation 
 interest in Virginia and Kentucky and Maryland and Missouri, 
 the fruits of which we see in Henry Winter Davis, Cassius M. 
 Clay, and Thomas H. Benton." 84 
 
 Advocates of reviving the slave trade contended that the 
 measure was necessary to secure slavery against the attacks of 
 present or future foes within the cotton states themselves. If there 
 should arise a serious shortage of labor, Northern and European 
 labor, unfriendly to slavery, would come in to supply the de- 
 ficiency. Governor Adams, of South Carolina, said, that, if the 
 South could not supply the demand for slave- labor, "we must 
 expect to be supplied with a species of labor we do not want, and 
 which is from the very nature of things antagonistic to our insti- 
 tutions." 85 Fears were expressed that the "labor base" was 
 already becoming too narrow. "We need to strengthen this institu- 
 tion," said Yancey, "and how better can we do that than by 
 showing the non-slaveholding class of our citizens that they can 
 buy a negro for $200, which, in a few years, by his care and in- 
 struction, will become worth a thousand dollars ?" 86 Some of these 
 agitators accepted the "irrepressible conflict" doctrine. " .... in 
 Tennessee, and even Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisi- 
 ana," said L. W. Spratt, "there is a large class of persons who 
 have to make their own bread with their own hands, and these are 
 distinctly conscious that there is a difference between 'labor' and 
 'slave labor.' " 87 Opponents of reopening the slave trade denied 
 that it would make slavery more secure: slavery was most secure 
 when the prices of slaves were highest. 88 They also denied the 
 presence in the South of a large class inimical to slavery. Roger 
 A. Pryor characterized it a "foul libel upon the citizens of the 
 
 M In Southern Commercial Convention, Montgomery, DeBow's Review, 
 XXIV, 587. 
 
 "Charleston Daily Courier, Nov. 26, 1856. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXIV, 587. 
 
 "''Report on the Slave Trade Made to the Southern Convention at Mont- 
 gomery," etc., in ibid., XXIV, 473-91. (Quotation on page 489.) 
 
 ""E.g., H. S. Foote, in the Vicksburg convention, ibid., XXVII, 219; Pettigru, 
 Minority Report in S. C. Legislature, ibid., XXV, 176. 
 
219] FACTORS WHICH TENDED TO ALLAY DISCONTENT 219 
 
 South to thus endorse what Greeley and Seward have been assert- 
 ing so many years . . ." He admitted that "emigrees" from the 
 North might be considered hostile to slavery. The facts seem to 
 have been against Pryor's contention. 89 
 
 Everywhere in the South where white laborers came into com- 
 petition with slaves there was hostility on the part of the whites 
 toward negroes and their masters and a demand, not for the eman- 
 cipation of slaves to be sure, but for their exclusion from the 
 employments in which competition was felt. This spirit was 
 noticeable especially among mechanics and artisans and unskilled 
 laborers in the cities. In South Carolina the white mechanics 
 memorialized the Legislature, 185 8-1859, for l aws prohibiting slaves 
 from hiring their own time and working at mechanical employ- 
 ments. 90 In the Southern Commercial Convention at Vicksburg, Mr. 
 Purdon, of Mississippi, offered resolutions, which had been adopted 
 by a meeting of white mechanics, condemning the practice of making 
 public mechanics of negroes, and declaring that slave labor should 
 be confined to the corn, cotton, and sugar plantations. 91 In Ala- 
 bama and North Carolina also there was opposition to the em- 
 ployment of slaves in mechanical pursuits. 92 In the latter state 
 workingmen's associations began the agitation for the ad valorem 
 tax upon slave property, which became the leading issue of state 
 politics during the few years immediately preceding the war. 93 
 The author of The Impending Crisis of the South claimed to rep- 
 resent the free labor of North Carolina with whose development 
 slavery interfered. In New Orleans and other cities of the South 
 the practice of employing slaves as draymen was abandoned be- 
 cause of the objections of whites. 94 Nor were all of those who 
 favored the restriction of slave labor to the plantations working- 
 
 f De Bow's Review, XXIV, 581. 
 
 ""Extract from the report of the committee on negro population, J. Harlston 
 Read, Jr., chairman, in ibid'., XXVI, 600 ff. 
 
 "Ibid., XXVII, 102. 
 
 "Montgomery Daily Confederation, Jan. 19, 1859; Olmsted, Cotton King- 
 dom, II, 137; Republican Banner and Nashville Whig, Aug. 18, 1857 (riotous 
 demonstration of white mechanics of Wilmington, N. C., against negro me- 
 chanics). 
 
 "J. W. Moore, History of North Carolina, II, 137, 138; Wm. K. Boyd, 
 "North Carolina on the Eve of Secession," in Amer. Hist. Assoc., Rept., 1910, 
 pp. 168, 174. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXIV, 602. 
 
22O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [220 
 
 men. Others favored it to prevent a "war between free labor and 
 slave labor in our midst," to make white labor "aristocratic" and 
 invite immigration, and to obviate difficulties of controlling slaves 
 in cities and towns. 95 Immigrants from the North and Europe 
 were generally unfriendly to slavery. There were farming com- 
 munities in the cotton states from which the whites would have 
 been glad to have all negroes expelled. 96 In several of the slave- 
 holding states, notably Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, and 
 Virginia, there were political divisions based upon the division 
 of each into a farming, largely non-slaveholding section and a 
 planting section or black belt. The people of the farming sections 
 were not generally hostile to slavery, but they did resent the 
 political dominance of the planters. So the fears of Spratt and 
 others that opposition to slavery might grow up in its very midst 
 were not at all groundless. 
 
 All of these classes hostile or potentially hostile to negroes or 
 slavery or both were opposed to reopening the African slave trade. 
 If the South were to have immigration, they preferred that it be 
 white immigration. They were joined by those who, while devoted 
 to slavery, feared it to be a doomed institution: if emancipation 
 should ever occur, they thought, the South would have a quite 
 sufficient race problem with the natural increase of her existing 
 negro population. 97 
 
 On the question whether or not it would be to the economic in- 
 terest of the cotton planters and the South to increase the labor 
 force engaged in the production of cotton by the importation of 
 slaves from abroad, there was a difference of opinion. In the 
 opinion of the advocates of reopening the slave trade, the demand 
 for cotton was growing so rapidly that production could be 
 materially increased without reducing the price. A failure on the 
 part of the South to produce sufficient cotton to supply the de- 
 mand might result temporarily in exorbitant prices which would 
 stimulate production in other quarters of the globe, and, conse- 
 quently, cause the loss of America's monopoly and, finally, a 
 
 "Charleston Courier, Dec. 28, 1856, letter on "Policy of Planters"; So. Quar. 
 Review, XXVI, 447. 
 
 "Olmsted, A Journey in the Back Country, II, 236, and passim (Putnam's 
 ed., 1907). 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXVII, 219. 
 
22 1 ] FACTORS WHICH TENDED TO ALLAY DISCONTENT 221 
 
 permanent decline of prices. The cotton crop could not be 
 sufficiently increased without fresh supplies of labor. Reopening 
 the African slave trade would supply the deficiency. Further, a 
 revival of the slave trade would lower the prices of slaves, and 
 thus reduce the cost of production. 
 
 The possibility of producing cotton by white labor received 
 considerable attention, especially from a class of Northern and 
 English writers who were interested not so much in the future of 
 cotton as in the future of slavery. 98 White labor, they asserted, 
 was cheaper than negro slave labor, and whites could work in the 
 climate of the cotton belt. Robert Russell, the most competent of 
 the British observers, put a high estimate upon the advantages of 
 the plantation system, but saw no bar in the climate to production 
 of cotton by white labor. He remarked the considerable amount 
 of cotton already grown in the pine barrens, whose climate was 
 even warmer than that of the middle zone or uplands, where most 
 of the plantations were located." Of the people of the South some 
 believed white labor for cotton production available, but con- 
 sidered it undesirable; others, waiving the question of desirability, 
 professed to believe it unavailable. Many seem to have believed 
 the assertion so frequently made that, as one put it, "In the cotton, 
 rice, and sugar regions, slave labor is not only more productive, 
 but is the only species of labor which can be depended upon for 
 the cultivation of these great staples." 100 Those who made this 
 assertion knew, of course, that thousands of non-slaveholding 
 whites were engaged in a small way in the production of cotton. 
 DeBow estimated the number so engaged in 1850 at 100,000; the 
 number of slaves employed in the cotton fields he set at 
 Soo.ooo. 101 The great majority of the planter class seem to have 
 taken little interest in the poor whites, and to have had less faith 
 in making them productive members of society. As for European 
 labor, it was not forthcoming, whether for climatic, social, or other 
 reasons. Said DeBow: "It is plain, and time and events have 
 
 M F. L. Olmsted, Cotton Kingdom, II, 254-59, 265-67; Journey in the Back 
 Country, 377 ff.; Edward Atkinson, Cheap Cotton by Free Labor, by a Cotton 
 Manujacturer; Weston, Progress of Slavery, 44; Stirling Letters from the Slave 
 States, 234, 302 if.; Russell, North America, 284 ff. 
 
 "North America, 284, 285. Cf. M. B. Hammond, The Cotton Industry, 94 ff. 
 
 100 A. J. Roane, of Washington, DeBow 's Review, XX, 66 1. 
 
 101 Industrial Resources of the Southern and Western States, I, 175. 
 
222 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [222 
 
 demonstrated the fact, that it is not European labor which we 
 want, since that labor, during so long an experiment has not taken 
 foothold in our limits, evidencing thus an incapacity to adopt 
 itself to our conditions and to become amalgamated with us." 102 
 Naturally the planters themselves, from economic motives alone 
 (although this aspect of the matter was not publicly discussed), 
 would not invite competition from a large number of white farmers, 
 whether native or immigrant. 
 
 Opponents of reopening the slave trade denied that it would 
 benefit the agricultural interests. -A material increase in the 
 cotton crop would depress prices. Cheap cotton would benefit 
 only the manufacturer. America's position as the chief source 
 of raw cotton was not endangered. Slaves from Africa would 
 constitute a poor grade of labor, and, therefore, would not lessen 
 the cost of production, however much they might depress the 
 price of slaves. 103 
 
 Advocates of the reopening of the African slave trade claimed 
 that it would be beneficial to other industries as well as agriculture. 
 The great obstacle, they said, was lack of labor. As long as cot- 
 ton culture paid more for labor than other employments could af- 
 ford, it was idle to attempt to divert labor to them. 104 The use of 
 such an argument was plainly an attempt to meet the opposition to 
 the slave trade ot those who were urging diversification of industry 
 as a proper policy for the South. The argument was inconsistent 
 with the contention that renewal of the slave trade would benefit 
 agriculture. And diversificationists were not desirous of diverting 
 labor to less profitable industries; in their opinion, the develop- 
 ment of varied industry would benefit all. The suggestion made, 
 that slave labor might be used in manufactures, could not carry 
 great weight. It had been tried with small success. However, 
 the great obstacle to the development of diversified industry in 
 the South was not so much lack of labor as a deficiency of capital. 
 There was much unprofitably employed white labor in the South. 
 
 DeBotff's Review, XXVII, 232. 
 
 10S J. J. Pettigru, minority report of a committee of the S. C. Legislature, in 
 ibid., XXV, 166-185; 289-308; speech of ex-Senator Brooke, of Miss., in the 
 Vicksburg Convention, ibid., XXVII, 360-62; and most of the speeches and 
 papers against reopening the slave trade. 
 
 1M The best statement of this argument is in L. W. Spratt, ''Report on the 
 Slave Trade," etc., Montgomery Convention, in ibid., XXIV, 473-91. 
 
223] FACTORS WHICH TENDED TO ALLAY DISCONTENT 22j 
 
 On the very eve of the war, William Gregg wrote, "The idea that 
 we lack laborers at the South, and will be under the necessity of 
 importing wild Africans, is preposterous." He told why the immi- 
 grant did not come South: When he learns that "one-half of our 
 white people, who are willing to work, can not procure employment 
 that able-bodied men are roaming about the country glad to get 
 work at seventy-five cents per day and find themselves while 
 similar labor commands a dollar or more at the North and West, 
 is it at all surprising that he does not come to the South?" 108 
 
 We come again to the fact that many of the slaveholding 
 element in the South, including advocates of the reopening of the 
 slave trade, feared the development of white labor and sought to 
 prevent it by keeping the white laborers in a minority. They 
 neither wished to employ profitably that already in the South or to 
 invite immigration. Gregg and others of his way of thinking, on 
 the contrary, had no fear of white labor. They wanted to put 
 the whites to work as well as the blacks, and they were inclined 
 to welcome immigration from the North and Europe. They pro- 
 fessed to believe that a white population, profitably employed, 
 would not be inimical to slavery. They were not hostile to slavery, 
 but they saw no necessity for subordinating every other interest 
 to this single one. Reopening the African slave trade, could it have 
 been accomplished, would have been a measure to perpetuate the 
 old order in the South. The New Orleans Picayune took note of 
 this fact. After describing at some length the progress being made 
 in manufactures and internal improvements and the changes which 
 were coming over the South, it said: "It is worse than folly to 
 arrest the present direction of capital and enterprise by plans 
 whose effect, if successfully carried into execution, would restore 
 the former tendency of all Southern enterprise to the channel of 
 agriculture." 106 
 
 It could not be concealed that there was very strong opposition 
 to the foreign slave trade on moral and religious grounds. L. W. 
 Spratt, the arch-agitator, said all the women and all the "pious" 
 were against him. 107 The influx of a horde of barbarians, said 
 opponents, would change Southern slavery from a patriarchal 
 
 1<a DeBow's Review, XXIX, 623, 630. 
 
 1M May 22, 1858. 
 
 DeBow's Review, XXVII, 213. 
 
institution to one like that of Cuba, where cruelty and severity 
 were necessary to control the slaves. 108 The people of the South 
 were very sensitive to the opinions of the world. "This proposi- 
 tion, if endorsed, would shock the moral sentiment of Christian- 
 dom," said Roger A. Pryor. 109 
 
 The people of the border states were almost unanimously 
 opposed to the agitation of the slave trade proposal. They were 
 charged (by W. L. Yancey and others) with being desirous of 
 maintaining the high prices of slaves because they held the position 
 of sellers of slaves to the buyers in the cotton states. 110 Virginians, 
 against whom the charge was particularly made, repelled the 
 charge with indignation. Virginia was prospering, they said; she 
 had opened a field for slave labor which rendered it profitable at 
 home. 111 No doubt many slave owners in Virginia and other slave 
 selling states were interested in keeping prices up; but we need 
 not emphasize economic motives to explain the opposition in the 
 border states. They were the states with the largest non-slave- 
 holding population, the largest foreign element (excepting Louisi- 
 ana, of the cotton states), and the largest Northern element. In 
 each of the border states there was considerable emancipation 
 sentiment. Being nearer the North, their people were more sensi- 
 tive to criticisms of slavery than the people farther south. Their 
 institution was milder and more patriarchal; and their moral re- 
 pugnance to the slave trade had not been blunted by familarity 
 with it. 
 
 It is worthy of note that, although every' coast state had either 
 laws or constitutional provisions or both against the foreign slave 
 trade, not one otthem was repealed. Not a single state legislature 
 went so far as to pass resolutions demanding the repeal of the 
 Federal laws against it. In Mississippi, where, with the exceptions 
 
 108 J. J. Pettigru, Roger A. Pryor, H. W. Milliard, in DeBow's Revitw, XXV, 
 289 ff.; XXIV, 582, 592. 
 
 1<a lbid., XXIV, 582. Russell formed a different impression. In Charleston 
 he overheard a conversation on reopening the slave trade. "One made the remark 
 that the South now paid little regard to what England might think of the 
 matter ... I was somewhat mortified to find how little impression all that 
 has been said and written about slavery has had on those whose pecuniary in- 
 terests are interwoven with the institution." North America, 162. 
 
 110 Yancey in the Montgomery Convention, DeBow's Review, XXIV, 585. 
 
 ni Wm. Ballard Preston's reply to Yancey, ibid., XXIV, 595. 
 
225] FACTORS WHICH TENDED TO ALLAY DISCONTENT 225 
 
 of Louisiana and Texas, the movement was strongest, the Demo- 
 cratic party was afraid to take it up as a new political issue. 112 In 
 South Carolina, after two years of agitation, only in the Charleston 
 district was it made an issue in the political campaign of 1858. 113 
 South Carolina leaders who found the agitation prejudicial to the 
 cause of disunion by dividing the South were able to silence the 
 agitation in all but two of the newspapers of the state. Sectional 
 politics was no doubt largely responsible for the origin of the 
 agitation. Once begun, however, it is questionable whether con- 
 siderations of sectional politics did not operate more strongly 
 against the movement than for it. A fair conclusion perhaps would 
 be that only in two or three Southwestern slave states was the 
 movement strong enough to have insured legalizing the reopening 
 of the trade had not Federal laws imposed an obstacle. And the 
 strength of the movement there can be attributed chiefly to 
 economic causes; agriculture was expanding rapidly; thousands 
 of slaves were being bought for the plantations at prices so high 
 as to absorb a large share of the profits. 
 
 The comparative prosperity of Southern agriculture during the 
 decade before the War was reflected to a degree in other industries. 
 In 1850 there were 2,004.37 miles of railroads in the Southern 
 states, constructed at a cost of $42,181,665. In 1860 the mileage 
 was 8,946.9, representing a cost for construction of #237,376,O97. 114 
 Unlike the railroads of the West they had not been built entirely 
 with capital borrowed in the East or abroad. 115 Southern pro- 
 moters experienced difficulty in selling their bonds in the North 
 or in England. Public opinion demanded that the roads be built, 
 and every expedient was resorted to to sell the stock at home. 
 Because of the difficulty of raising capital, Southern railroads had 
 been economically built, and, too often, cheaply constructed and 
 poorly equipped. Traffic had proved light and dividends generally 
 small, and the mileage had been extended beyond the immediate 
 requirements, although by 1860 there was promise of better con- 
 ditions in the industry. 
 
 112 Henry S. Foote, Scylla and Charybdis, 254-56. 
 
 DeBow's Review, XXVII, 364, remarks of Mr. Farrow, of S. C. 
 
 114 Ringwalt, Development of Transportation Systems in the U. S., 151. 
 
 ^Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XLII, 315; Kettell, Southern Wealth and 
 Northern Profits, 50, 88; Powell, Notes on Southern Wealth and Northern Profits; 
 Cong. Globe, 32 Cong., i Sess., Appx., 1056. 
 
226 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [226 
 
 The rapid extension of agriculture, under the influence of higher 
 prices, naturally absorbed most of the capital accumulated from 
 the profits of the industry. The building of the railroads likewise 
 constituted a heavy drain upon the capital of the South. Notwith- 
 standing, noteworthy extensions were being made in several lines 
 of industry, and plants already established were prospering. 
 
 The railroads brought in with them machine shops and repair 
 shops. Several rolling mills had been established before 1860. The 
 value of the bar, sheet, and railroad iron made in the South in- 
 creased from $1,504,443 in 1850 to $2,458,119 in 1860, or 63 per 
 cent. 116 Railroad cars were made in a few shops; the Tredegar 
 Locomotive works at Richmond made 19 of the 470 locomotives 
 made in the United States in 1860. Stationary engines were being 
 constructed in many places. The production of coal had nearly 
 trebled, although the aggregate was still small, about one-ninth of 
 the total production of the United States. The iron industry had 
 not yet been greatly affected by the coming of the railroads; in 
 the production of pig iron there was a decline between 1850 and 
 1860. 
 
 During the years just before the war the cotton factories, after 
 several years of great difficulty, were again prosperous. In 1855 
 the Georgia factories were reported in thriving condition. A year 
 or two later similar reports came from northern Alabama and 
 western Tennessee. 117 Occasionally the building of a new factory 
 was reported. The attention of the North was attracted to the re- 
 vival. 118 General Charles T. James, of Rhode Island, again put 
 his services at the disposal of any company proposing to establish 
 new factories. 113 During the decade 1850-1860 the number of 
 cotton factories in Georgia grew from 29 to 33, the number of 
 hands employed from 2,107 to 2,813, and the value of the product 
 from $1,395,056 to $2,371,207, or 69.97 per cent. These gains made 
 Georgia the leading cotton manufacturing state of the South, and, 
 
 ""All the statistics given in the next few pages are taken from the reports 
 of the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth censuses unless otherwise specified. The term 
 "the South" is used to include only the eleven states which seceded. The census 
 reports include mining and lumbering with manufacturing; and there would be 
 no point in making a distinction here. 
 
 ^Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXXVII, ill; XXIX, 755- 
 
 ""Charleston Mercury, May 25, 1858. 
 
 DeBow's Review, XXVIII, 244. 
 
227] FACTORS WHICH TENDED TO ALLAY DISCONTENT 227 
 
 in part, justified her reputation as the "Massachusetts of the 
 South." Considerable gains were made also in Alabama and 
 Tennessee. Virginia and North Carolina made no progress in this 
 industry. South Carolina showed a decline. The revival in the 
 cotton manufacturing industry came too late to greatly improve 
 the showing the South as a whole made in 1860. The progress in 
 the South had been smaller proportionally than in the country 
 at large, and the product of Southern factories was only one- 
 fourteenth of the total for the United States. 
 
 The value of the product of Southern woolen manufactures in- 
 creased 143.55 P er cent between 1850 and 1860; the increase for 
 the country at large was 42.14 per cent. During the same period 
 the value of men's clothing produced in the South increased 65.96 
 per cent; in the United States, 51.55 per cent. For boots and 
 shoes, the percentages of increase were 89.9 and 70.27. The pro- 
 duction of paper was increased almost threefold, and of printing 
 over sevenfold. But in the case of each of the items named the 
 Southern states produced only three or four per cent of the total 
 output for the United States, a quantity entirely inadequate to 
 meet the home demand. A respectable beginning had been made 
 in the manufacture of carriages and coaches, wagons and carts, 
 saddlery and harness, nails and spikes, sashes, doors, and blinds, 
 and in cooperage. In the manufacture of agricultural implements 
 progress had been much slower than in the United States as a 
 whole; the South produced less than six per cent of the total. Of 
 the manufacture of one article, however, the South had almost a 
 monopoly; of 57 cotton gin factories in the United States, 54 were 
 in the Southern states, notably Alabama. The value of the ships 
 and boats built in the South in 1860 was $789,870, which sum may 
 be compared with $11,667,661 for the United States. Of the 631 
 articles listed by the census as manufactures of the United States 
 in 1860, 398 were not made in the South in any quantity whatever, 
 and many others were made only in insignificant quantities. In 
 these two classes fell such common and necessary articles as hats 
 and caps, men's furnishings, women's clothing, millinery, carpets 
 and rugs, furniture and cabinet ware, earthenware, glassware, 
 hardware and cutlery, tools, and stoves and ranges. Packed meats 
 may also be mentioned. 
 
228 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-l86l [228 
 
 The Southern states made the best showing, both as regards 
 aggregate value of product and percentages of increase, in types 
 of manufacture which were closely related to agriculture, or 
 which were comparatively simple in their processes. Thus the 
 value of the flour and meal ground increased from $16,581,597 to 
 $37,996,470, or 129 per cent, between 1850 and 1860; and in the 
 latter year was equal to nearly one-fourth the total value of all 
 Southern manufactures. The value of lumber, planed and sawed, 
 was $19,696,863 in 1860, an increase of 133 per cent over 1850, 
 and was one-eighth the value of all Southern manufactures. The 
 value of the tobacco manufactured was $14,612,442 in 1860, 125 
 per cent more than in 1850. A fourth big item was turpentine, 
 crude and distilled, valued at $7,409,745. These four items to- 
 gether accounted for one-half the total value of the product of all 
 Southern manufactures; and the capital invested in their manu- 
 facture was nearly one-half the capital invested in all the manu- 
 factures of the South. 
 
 The capital invested in manufactures in the South was 13.6 
 per cent of the capital so invested in the entire country in i84O, 120 
 10.4 per cent in 1850, and 9.5 per cent in 1860. The increase in 
 capital so invested in the South was 51.5 per cent between 1840 
 and 1850 and 73.6 per cent the following decade; for the entire 
 United States the percentages were 95.5 and 91.3. Southern manu- 
 factures employed 88,390 hands in 1850 and 110,721 in 1860, an 
 increase of 25.3 per cent. In the same period the population of the 
 eleven Southern states had grown 23.9 per cent. The number of 
 hands employed in all the manufactures of the United States in 
 1850 was 957,059, in 1860 the number was 1,311,246, or 37 percent 
 more. The population of the United States was 35.4 per cent 
 greater in 1860 than in 1850. 
 
 Statistics are not available for a full comparison of the progress 
 of manufactures and agriculture, but comparison in a few respects 
 may suffice. Between 1850 and 1860 the value of Southern manu- 
 factures increased 96.5 per cent. During the same period the value 
 of the cotton crop increased 102.7 P er cent; the tobacco crop, 119 
 per cent; the sugar product, 80.3 per cent; and the live stock in 
 the South, 96.4 per cent. As we have seen, the progress in other 
 branches of agriculture was not great. 
 
 "The statistics for 1840 are meager and can rarely be used for comparisons. 
 
229] FACTORS WHICH TENDED TO ALLAY DISCONTENT 229 
 
 Southern cities had not established direct trade, nor had they 
 become industrial centers. Among the cities of the United States 
 in 1860, New Orleans, Charleston, Richmond, Mobile, Memphis, 
 Savannah, and Petersburg ranked in size 6, 22, 25, 27, 28, 41, and 
 50 respectively. In value of manufactures they ranked 17, 85, 13, 
 79, 74, 65, and 49 respectively. Thus Richmond and Petersburg 
 only could be considered industrial towns. However, as com- 
 mercial centers the towns of the South reflected accurately the 
 prosperity of the section. 
 
 The South was not in the throes of an industrial revolution at 
 the outbreak of the Civil War, and there seems to be little evi- 
 dence that she was upon the verge of such a revolution. However, 
 there were factors in the situation which pointed to a more rapid 
 development of varied industry in the future. Capital which might 
 be so employed was accumulating. Southern banks had never been 
 in a stronger condition. The railroads must soon have justified 
 their construction by giving isolated regions access to market, in- 
 creasing intercourse, and creating new wants. They were break- 
 ing down those frontier conditions which, because of the great 
 extent of the section, the sparse population, and the natural diffi- 
 culties of forests and rough lands, still lingered in much of the 
 South. The attention of Southern men had been directed to the 
 varied resources of the land. Geographical surveys had revealed 
 the coal and iron fields of Alabama and Tennessee, lying in close 
 proximity. Railroads were ready to penetrate them, and the pro- 
 cesses were being developed which would make possible their 
 utilization. Stock had been taken of the water power, and the 
 people were beginning to realize what a wealth lay in the forests. 
 Small industrial towns were springing up here and there. North- 
 ern men with experience in various branches of industry were 
 filtering in; Northern capitalists who theretofore had found suffi- 
 cient fields for investment in the North and West were beginning 
 to show an interest in the possibilities offered by the South, as were 
 also, to some extent, English and French capitalists. It is con- 
 ceivable that a temporary depression in the price of cotton at the 
 time might have given a decided impetus to the cotton manu- 
 facturing industry, just as it had promised to do twelve or fifteen 
 years earlier. 
 
23O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [230 
 
 These facts were not unappreciated in the South. The New 
 Orleans Picayune, in the autumn of 1858, said the South had been 
 making progress, slow but positive. "Like a bow in the heavens 
 after the storm clouds have swept by, we may now see, in look- 
 ing upon the results of the sectional agitations of the immediate 
 past, indications of the commencement of a new era for the South 
 an era singularly marked with home progress." 121 
 
 So there were factors which operated on the eve of the Civil 
 War to make the people of the South better content with their 
 economic system and position. These may be briefly summarized: 
 (i) The comparative prosperity of Southern agriculture. (2) A 
 measure of prosperity and progress in other lines of industry. (3) 
 Confidence that the possession of and the ability to control a large 
 agricultural surplus for export constituted an element of great 
 political power. (4) A growing consciousness among slaveholders 
 that any considerable diversification of industry was incompatible 
 with the security of slavery. The first two of these would have a 
 tendency to allay sectional feeling. However, the comparative 
 prosperity of agriculture was largely the cause of the movement 
 in behalf of reviving the foreign slave trade, and it had decidely 
 the opposite effect. 
 
 'Quoted in DeBow's Review, XXV, 590. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE SECESSION OF THE 
 COTTON STATES, 1860-1861 
 
 After the election of November, 1860, the cotton states made 
 haste to put into execution their threats of secession in case of the 
 election of a Republican president. In South Carolina the opposi- 
 tion to secession was very weak and ineffectual. The Legislature 
 met in special session, November 5. The members were almost 
 unanimously for immediate, separate secession. A few voices were 
 raised in favor of cooperation with other Southern states. 1 The 
 Legislature called a state convention to meet December 17. With 
 few exceptions only immediate secessionists were elected to it. On 
 the fourth day that body unanimously adopted an ordinance of 
 secession. In taking this speedy action South Carolina was not 
 taking a leap in the dark. Her leaders were confident that other 
 states would soon follow. They had been assured by disunion 
 leaders elsewhere that bold action would strengthen the disunion 
 movements in other states. 2 If a conflict with the Federal govern- 
 ment should ensue, there could be no doubt of the decision of the 
 cotton states, at least, upon the issue, as it would then be, of 
 sustaining a sister state against coercion. 
 
 Meanwhile vigorous contests were being waged in the other 
 cotton states between those for immediate and separate secession 
 on the one hand and coalitions of unconditional unionists, coopera- 
 tionists, and temporizers on the other. The governors, with one ex- 
 ception, were secessionists, and the legislatures were controlled by 
 secessionists. Conventions were called in all the states. Brief 
 campaigns ensued to influence the election of delegates and the 
 action of the conventions. These campaigns were conducted 
 amidst great excitement. Governors and legislatures anticipated 
 the action of the conventions by seizing forts, arsenals, and other 
 United States property, and by taking measures to put their 
 respective states on a military footing. Congressmen sent inflam- 
 matory messages from Washington, where Senate and House were 
 
 'Proceedings and debates in the South Carolina Legislature, New York 
 Herald, Nov. 9-14, 1860. 
 
 'Speech of Mr. Elmore, Commissioner from Alabama, before the South 
 Carolina Convention, in ibid., Dec. 22, 1860. 
 
 231 
 
232 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l840-l86l [232 
 
 vainly attempting to patch up another compromise to save the 
 Union. Commissioners from one state to another lent their in- 
 fluence to the secession cause. 
 
 Considering the tactical advantages of the immediate secession- 
 ists, their opponents showed unexpected strength in three states. 
 In Alabama they elected 46 of 100 delegates, and claimed to have 
 cast a clear majority of the votes in the election. In the Conven- 
 tion they united upon a substitute proposal for a convention of all 
 the Southern states at Nashville, and waged a bitter fight in its 
 behalf. The bitterness of the struggle was intensified because the 
 alignment was the old sectional one between northern (Unionist 
 in this case) and southern Alabama. The struggle did not cease 
 when the convention adopted a secession ordinance. 3 In Georgia 
 the opposition cast 42 per cent of the popular vote. 4 In the Con- 
 vention their substitute proposal for a convention of all the slave 
 holding states was defeated by the narrow margin of 164-133; 
 and this, notwithstanding the fact that Georgia was already as- 
 sured the cooperation of four states if she should secede. In 
 Louisiana also the contest was hot, and the popular vote close, al- 
 though in the Convention the immediate secessionists prevailed by 
 a large majority. In Texas the tactical advantages lay with the 
 opponents of secession; for Governor Houston was opposed to it 
 and refused to call the Legislature in special session. However, a 
 self-constituted committee of citizens called an election for 
 delegates to a convention. Their action forced Governor Hous- 
 ton to assemble the Legislature, which approved the action of the 
 committee. The Convention met and passed an ordinance of seces- 
 sion; the people approved its action. After their defeat in the 
 several states the cooperationist and Unionist leaders, with excep- 
 tions, expressed a determination to support the course determined 
 upon by the majority. To conciliate them and their following, the 
 secessionist majority admitted them to positions of power and 
 trust in numbers proportionate to, if not in excess of, their 
 strength. 
 
 'Remarks of W. R. Smith in the Alabama Convention. Smith, History and 
 Debates of the Convention of the People of Alabama, 67 f.; Hodgson, Cradle of 
 the Confederacy, 502 ff.; letter of T. R. R. Cobb to his wife, Feb. 4, 1861, in So. 
 Hist. Assoc., Publ., IX 274. 
 
 *Avery, History of Georgia, 149. 
 
233] SECESSION OF THE COTTON STATES 233 
 
 On February 4, delegates from six states, soon joined by dele- 
 gates from a seventh, met at Montgomery. A provisional consti- 
 tution for the Confederate States of America was adopted. A pro- 
 visional government was organized. Commissioners were sent to 
 Washington and to Europe. Measures were taken to provide 
 revenue and to organize an army and navy. A permanent consti- 
 tution was drafted by the Provisional Congress and submitted to 
 the states for ratification. 
 
 Meanwhile the secession movement in other slaveholding states 
 had received decided checks, although aggressive fights had been 
 waged by the secessionists in several. In North Carolina the Legis- 
 lature, after much debate, provided for an election for delegates 
 to a convention and the submission to the people, at the same 
 time, (January 28), of the question whether or not a convention 
 should be held. The people elected 82 Unionists and 38 secession- 
 ists, and decided against the convention by a small majority. 5 In 
 Tennessee the question of holding a convention was submitted to 
 the electorate and decided adversely by a large majority. In 
 Arkansas the electorate approved the assembling of a convention, 
 but elected delegates a small majority of whom were opposed to 
 immediate secession. The action of Virginia was expected greatly 
 to influence that of the other border slave states. The Legislature 
 met in special session at Governor Letcher's call, and provided for 
 a delegate convention. At the convention election, February 4, the 
 people returned a distinct majority against immediate secession. 
 Although the secessionists waged a hard fight in the Convention, 
 all efforts to pass an ordinance of secession were foiled until after 
 Sumter. In Maryland and Delaware no conventions met, in the 
 former because Governor Hicks refused to call a special session of 
 the Legislature. Governor Magoffm, of Kentucky, recommended 
 the call of a convention, but the Legislature refused. In Missouri 
 a Legislature dominated by State Rights Democrats called a con- 
 vention, but the electorate returned an overwhelming majority of 
 Union delegates. 
 
 As long as any hope remained that Congress or the Peace Con- 
 ference would agree upon a settlement which would restore the 
 Union, the people of the border states gave unmistakable evidence 
 of their desire to remain in the Union. Even after it became clear 
 that no such settlement was possible, and when the question be- 
 
 'dppleton's Annual Cyclopedia, I, 538. 
 
234 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [234 
 
 came one of choosing between the United States and the Confed- 
 erate States, they seem to have preferred the Union. However, 
 notice was early given (by North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, 
 and Arkansas) that continued adherence to the Union was con- 
 tingent upon no attempt being made by the Federal government 
 to coerce the seceded states. When, after Sumter, President Lin- 
 coln issued his call for 'troops, these states seceded, and united 
 their fortunes with the Confederacy. The other border states were 
 saved for the Union. 
 
 With a view to determine whether or not they reveal any evi- 
 dences of economic motives for Southern sectionalism, it is pro- 
 posed to analyze (i) the arguments advanced for and against 
 secession after the election of Lincoln; (2) the alignment of the 
 people upon the secession issue; (3) the official statements of 
 causes of secession which were published; (4) contemporary un- 
 official essays at interpreting events; and (5) the formulation of 
 the early economic policies of the seceded states and of the Con- 
 federacy. The considerations determining the action of the border 
 states were manifestly so different from those determining the 
 action of the cotton states that they require a separate treatment. 
 This chapter will deal with the first four points mentioned with 
 special reference to the cotton states. The succeeding chapters 
 will deal with the early economic policies of the seceded states and 
 of the Confederacy and with the peculiar economic considerations 
 affecting the decision of the border slave states. 
 
 There can be no doubt that the arguments for and against se- 
 cession in the cotton states used after Lincoln's election related 
 chiefly to the dangers besetting slavery and how the institution 
 could best be defended. The leading arguments of the secession- 
 ists may be summarized: (i) The election had resulted in the 
 triumph of a party which was founded upon and held together by 
 hostility to slavery, which proposed to exclude it from the com- 
 mon territories, in spite of a decision of the Supreme Court, which 
 opposed the acquisition of additional slave territory, which looked 
 to the ultimate extinction of slavery, and whose candidate had 
 declared the Union could not exist half slave and half free. If the 
 South should acquiesce in Black Republican rule, slavery would 
 be doomed, and the destruction of slavery would ruin the South. 
 (2) The triumph of a sectional party established a sectional des- 
 
235] SECESSION OF THE COTTON STATES 235 
 
 potism of the stronger section over the weaker. Just now slavery 
 was the interest in gravest danger; but sectional power might be 
 wielded to the detriment of all the interests of the South. The 
 Constitution would not protect the weaker section because in the 
 North the true view of the Union as a federation of sovereign 
 states had been lost, and the old Federalist idea of a consolidated 
 government had prevailed. (3) The Constitution was a compact 
 between equal sovereign states. The Personal Liberty laws of 
 Northern states were violations of the compact. A violation of 
 the compact by some of the parties to it released the others from 
 their obligations under it. (4) The quarrel between the sections 
 had become so venomous as to subvert one of the purposes for 
 which the Constitution had been formed, namely, to insure do- 
 mestic tranquility. The constant denunciation of the South and 
 slavery by politicians, press, pulpit, platform, and teachers of the 
 North was a constant insult to the South, and no longer to be 
 borne. (5) Secession was a constitutional remedy. (6) It would, 
 in all probability, be peaceful. One party in the North believed in 
 the constitutional right of secession. Prominent leaders of the 
 other had declared against coercion. Northern industry would be 
 paralyzed by the interruption of commerce with the South which 
 war would entail, and the North would be unable to fight. The 
 threat of coercion would unite the South, and the Northern people 
 would perceive the folly of waging war against a united South. (7) 
 The Southern states, even the cotton states, together possessed 
 population and resources sufficient to enable them to take their 
 place among the nations of the earth. 
 
 The opponents of immediate and separate secession agreed with 
 the secessionists that the crisis must not be allowed to pass with- 
 out some action being taken. They did not consider separate and 
 immediate secession the proper action, however, for the following 
 reasons: (i) The election of Lincoln was not a just cause for 
 secession. He had been elected in a constitutional manner. The 
 politicians of the South were partly responsible for his election. 
 The border states would not sustain the cotton states on such an 
 issue; it was doubtful if the people of the cotton states could be 
 united upon it. It would be better to wait for some overt act 
 against the rights of the South on the part of the Lincoln govern- 
 ment; that would unite the South. (2) Lincoln would be a minor- 
 
236 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [236 
 
 ity president. Both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court 
 would be controlled by the Democrats. Lincoln could not even 
 choose a cabinet without consent of the Senate; the interests of 
 the South were in no immediate danger. (3) The Personal Liberty 
 laws were unconstitutional and unfriendly; but the South had 
 never made a united effort for their repeal. This should be done. 
 If appeals failed, retaliatory legislation might be tried. (4) While 
 anti-slavery sentiment had become fanatical with many, much of 
 the anti-slavery agitation was due to politicians, North and South, 
 who had used the slavery question to inflame the passions of the 
 people. A revolution in the attitude toward slavery was even then 
 in progress in the North and in England. The South had many 
 friends in the North; they should not be deserted. (5) Peaceful 
 secession was an absurdity unless, possibly, the entire South 
 could be united. The South was not prepared for war. The masses, 
 who must fight it, were not convinced of the necessity for seces- 
 sion. (6) Delay would unite the South. Let all the slave states 
 get together in convention and deliver an ultimatum. If that were 
 rejected, all would go out together. The cotton states had no right 
 to attempt to dictate to the other slaveholding states. (7) The 
 cotton states alone would make a contemptible, obscure, little 
 republic whose rights no foreign nation would respect. Wars 
 and strife would be its lot. (8) The dissolution of the Union 
 would be hailed in Europe as the failure of free government. It 
 was a duty to mankind to attempt to preserve it. 
 
 These, it is believed, were the arguments most frequently used 
 in the cotton states during the few weeks which elapsed between 
 the election of Lincoln and secession. 6 Their use, however, can 
 easily be made to prove too much. The election of 1860 turned 
 ostensibly upon the slavery issue. The election of a Republican 
 president had for several years been discussed and announced 
 as. the proper occasion, or a sufficient cause, for the secession of the 
 Southern states. An effort had been made during the campaign 
 to commit as many as possible to secession in case of Lincoln's 
 election. After the event, conditional disunionists, notwithstanding 
 the fact that often they attributed the result to the folly or wicked- 
 
 The sources upon which this summary is based are too many to enumerate 
 here. Special mention might be made of Candler, The Confederate Records of 
 the State of Georgia, Vol. I, and Smith, op. cit. 
 
237] SECESSION OF THE COTTON STATES 237 
 
 ness of Southern leaders, could, now that it was a fait accompli, 
 with justification and good conscience see in it a necessity for 
 secession. Secession per se sentiment in the South had been a 
 growth of thirty years. It was a known and dependable quantity. 
 It could not be increased over night. Unconditional secessionists 
 would naturally adapt their arguments to fit the occasion. The 
 occasion required that advantage be taken of the excitement of 
 the public mind as a result of Lincoln's election. Such considera- 
 tions as these must be kept in mind in any study of secession. 
 
 However, the secession per se arguments were not altogether 
 neglected during the canvass. Very few advocates of secession 
 spoke for it without expressing the view that the Union had been 
 unequal in its material benefits. Scarcely one advocated secession 
 who did not express the belief that secession would be fol- 
 lowed by prosperity. Said Yancey at the close of an argument 
 based upon Northern violations of Southern rights: "While 
 ever loyal to a constitutional Union, I have been satisfied that 
 if Alabama, even, reassumed her full power and sovereignty 
 it would be attended by a glorious prosperity." 7 Most of Alex- 
 ander H. Stephens's famous Union speech before the Georgia 
 Legislature, November 14, 1860, was devoted to proving that in the 
 Union the South as well as the North had "grown great, prosper- 
 ous, and happy," and was in refutation of one by Robert Toombs, 
 who had presented a contrary view. 8 DeBow's Review continued 
 to give the unconditional disunionist arguments. 9 The New York 
 papers commented upon the "commercial view" of the Union 
 which was being taken at the South. 10 The existence of disunion- 
 ists per se was assumed at every point of the contests to control 
 the conventions which were to decide the question of secession. 
 Union orators often prefaced their remarks by saying that their 
 arguments were not addressed to unconditional disunionists but 
 only to those who preferred a "constitutional Union" i.e., one in 
 which the rights of the South would be respected. 11 Secessionists 
 
 7 Letter of Nov. 15, 1860, in New York Herald, Nov. 26. 
 
 6 Candler, Confederate Records of the State of Georgia, I, 183 ff.; New York 
 Herald, Nov. 22. 
 
 "See especially XXX, 93-101. See also, ibid., 42-53, 114-16. 
 
 "I have used the New York Herald and the New York Times. 
 
 "For example, Benj. H. Hill in speech at Milledgeville, Ga., Nov. 15, 1860. 
 Hill, Senator Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia, His Life Speeches and Writings, 238. 
 
238 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [238 
 
 frequently denied being of the per se type; it may have been con- 
 sidered good tactics to do so. 
 
 It is impossible to determine with any degree of accuracy how 
 many in the cotton states had by 1860 arrived at the conclusion 
 that the true interests of the South lay in separate nationality ir- 
 respective of the outcome of the pending presidential election. 
 There were no test votes on the question. During the presidential 
 campaign supporters of Bell and of Douglas charged the Breckin- 
 ridge men with having broken up the Democratic party with the 
 design of making possible the election of a Black Republican presi- 
 dent and consequent dissolutions of the Union; they appealed to 
 the voters to "rebuke" the secessionists. The statement has some- 
 times been made that the vote for Breckinridge and the combined 
 vote for Bell and Douglas indicate fairly accurately the relative 
 strength of the secessionists and Unionists respectively. 12 The state- 
 ment is inaccurate. An analysis of the result of the election shows 
 that many voted against Breckinridge to rebuke the secessionists, 
 and many were attracted to Breckinridge by the secessionist ten- 
 dencies of his following, but in the main the people divided ac- 
 cording to their old party affiliations. In Georgia, for example, 
 fourteen counties which elected Union delegates to the State Con- 
 vention in December went for Breckinridge in November; and 
 fifteen counties which gave majorities for Bell and Douglas elected 
 secession delegates. 13 Northern Alabama gave a majority for 
 Breckinridge (although somewhat less than the normal Demo- 
 cratic majority) but was strongly against secession. The secession- 
 ists from principle had steadily grown in numbers. Their leaders 
 were able and determined. They had become strong enough to 
 gain control of the Democratic party organization in several 
 states. But there is no reason to believe they were in a major- 
 ity except in South Carolina. L. Q. C. Lamar, describing the state 
 of public opinion in the South shortly after Lincoln's election, 
 said: "There is a fourth class of energetic, resolute, and high 
 spirited men who consider the Federal Government a failure, the 
 connection of Northern and Southern States as unnatural, and the 
 independence of the latter a supreme good. These are for im- 
 
 "See Avery, History of Georgia, 135; Thomas, "Southern Non-slaveholders 
 in the Election of 1860," Pol. Sci. Quar., XXVI, 227. 
 "See Phillips, Georgia and State Rights, 205-210. 
 
239] SECESSION OF THE COTTON STATES 239 
 
 mediate, unconditional, and even abrupt secession . . . This class 
 is dominant in one State, commands perhaps a majority in an- 
 other, and is influential in all." 14 The statement was substantially 
 correct. 
 
 After Lincoln's election this class was joined by those who had 
 not desired secession but believed it necessary under the circum- 
 stances in order to preserve slavery. The classes which came over 
 to secession were chiefly Whigs of the black belts and, it would 
 seem, the propertied, mercantile, and financial elements of the cities 
 and towns. These classes had been conservative. They had long 
 protested against useless agitation, believing that the best policy 
 was one of conciliation and avoidance of contest. Those who persist- 
 ed in their opposition to secession to the last were chiefly the people 
 of the farming districts and the back country, where the slave 
 population bore a relatively smaller proportion to the whites. 
 They were Democrats of the Jackson type or Whigs of the Clay 
 type. They had never accepted the teachings of the secessionists. 
 They were not hostile to slavery; but they did not have the same 
 interest in its preservation which the planting class had. Party 
 lines largely gave way during the contests for control of the 
 state conventions; but in two states at least, Whigs showed them- 
 selves more favorable to the preservation of the Union than 
 Democrats of the same districts. The decision in a few localities 
 was influenced by considerations peculiar to each. These general 
 statements may be illustrated by a brief analysis of the alignment 
 upon the secession issue in each of the more populous of the cot- 
 ton states. 
 
 In South Carolina the Unionists of 1851 were with some diminu- 
 tion of numbers the Unionists of 1860. The only locality in which 
 there was a pronounced Union sentiment was the up-country 
 farming district about Greenville. B. F. Perry was the leader 
 there, as he had been in 1851. Hopes that the commercial interests 
 of Charleston would be adverse to secession proved ill-founded. 
 The cooperationists of 1851 did not insist upon waiting for co- 
 operation in 1860; they were confident it would come. 
 
 The secessionists of Georgia in 1861 were the Southern Rights 
 party of 1850 with accretions. About the only prominent leader 
 
 "Letter to P. F. Liddell, Dec. 10, 1860, in Mayes, L. Q. C. Lamar: His Life, 
 Times and Speeches, 633 ff. 
 
24O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [240 
 
 who had favored secession in 1850 but opposed it in 1861 was 
 Herschel V. Johnson. Robert Toombs, Howell Cobb, and E. A. 
 Nesbit were the most prominent of the large number who coun- 
 selled acquiescence in 1850 and secession a decade later. Georgia 
 was not divided into sections as were several other Southern 
 states. The only large compact group of counties which elected 
 Union delegates to the State Convention lay along the Northern 
 border. In these counties the white population greatly out- 
 numbered the black. They had long returned Democratic major- 
 ities. They had been Unionist in 1850. It is significant that every 
 county which had a city or considerable town elected secession 
 delegates, notwithstanding the white population preponderated 
 in most of them, and most of them could be classified as Whig 
 counties. The general tendency of the districts in which the 
 whites constituted a majority to favor maintenance of the Union 
 and of the black belts to go for secession is illustrated by the ac- 
 companying table. Counties having a population more than 50 
 per cent slave are classified as black; others, white. Counties are 
 classified as Whig which gave Whig majorities at a majority of 
 the presidential elections between 1844 and 1860; others, Demo- 
 cratic. Counties are classified as Union, secession, or divided ac- 
 cording as their delegations in the State Convention voted upon 
 H. V. Johnson's substitute for the ordinance of secession, which 
 was the test question. 15 
 
 Secession Union Divided Totals 16 
 
 Black counties 25 13 5 43 
 
 White counties 45 39 5 89 
 
 Whig counties 25 23 4 52 
 
 Democratic counties 45 29 6 80 
 
 Whig, black counties 14 12 3 29 
 
 Democratic, black counties 1 1 I 2 14 
 
 Whig, white counties n II I 23 
 
 Democratic, white counties 34 28 4 66 
 
 Totals 70 52 10 132 
 
 1! 'Journal of the . . . Convention of . . . Georgia, 1861, p. 32. 
 
 M If the counties in which the negroes comprised from 40 per cent to 50 per 
 cent of the total population be classified as black, the number of such counties 
 would be increased by 28, of which 20 elected secession, 7, Union delegates, and 
 one, a divided delegation. Of the 20, 14 were Democratic, 6 Whig. Of the 7, 5 
 were Whig, 2 Democratic. 
 
241] SECESSION OF THE COTTON STATES 24! 
 
 Of 29 counties which elected secession delegates to the Conven- 
 tion of Alabama, 28 lay in a compact group in the southern part of 
 the state. Of the 23 Union counties, 22 formed a compact group 
 in the northern part of the state. This division corresponded 
 roughly with the division between the black belt and the white 
 counties; only a few counties in the northern half of the state had 
 large slave populations, and but few more in the southern half 
 could be classed as white. The alignment also coincided with an 
 old sectional alignment which had characterized the state politics 
 of Alabama. 17 The basis of this long standing sectionalism lay 
 in part in the social differences between the planting region and 
 the farming section, in part in geography. The people of southern 
 Alabama found an outlet for their productions through Mobile. 
 The people of a large part of northern Alabama were cut off by 
 mountains from seeking the same outlet; the chief outlets for 
 their productions were the Tennessee river, and, for a few years 
 before 1860, the Memphis and Charleston and other railroads. All 
 of these routes led into or through Tennessee. The people of 
 northern Alabama felt that it would be ruinous to their section 
 of the state to secede unless Tennessee should also secede. Threats 
 were made that, in case Tennessee should not secede, north Ala- 
 bama would separate from the remainder of the state and ask for 
 union with her. 18 The Whigs of southern Alabama, where they 
 were in the majority, generally went over to the secessionists. 
 Such Whig leaders as H. W. Milliard, T. H. Watts, and T. J. 
 Judge now took their stand with Yancey, whom they had hitherto 
 opposed. The Democrats of northern Alabama, where they were 
 in a large majority, had always been of the Jackson rather than 
 the Calhoun wing of the party. 19 Mobile and Montgomery, the 
 one in a white county, the other a black, both went for secession. 
 The accompanying table, with items defined as were those of a 
 similar table for Georgia, may serve to illustrate certain tendencies 
 to division in Alabama. It does not illustrate the sectional division, 
 and it does not accurately indicate the position of the Whig party. 
 
 "Jack, Sectionalism in Alabama. 
 
 "Smith, History and Debates of the Convention of Alabama, passim, es- 
 pecially remarks of Mr. Clark, of Laurence, pp. 81-90; New York Times, Jan. 
 1 8, 1861; Journal of the Convention . . . of South Carolina, 1860, 1861, and 
 1862, pp. 233-234, report of A. P. Calhoun, Commissioner to Alabama. 
 
 "Cf. Hodgson, Cradle of the Confederacy, 475. 
 
242 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [242 
 
 Secession Union Totals 
 
 Black counties 18 2 20 
 
 White counties n 21 32 
 
 Whig counties 15 3 18 
 
 Democratic counties 14 20 34 
 
 Whig, black counties 10 o 10 
 
 Democratic, black counties 8 2 10 
 
 Whig, white counties 5 3 8 
 
 Democratic, white counties 6 18 24 
 
 Totals 29 23 52 
 
 The opposition to secession in Mississippi centered chiefly in a 
 few Democratic counties situated in the extreme northern part of 
 the state and having relatively small slave populations, and in sev- 
 eral Whig counties with large black populations and lying along the 
 Mississippi river. The counties in which Vicksburg, Natchez, and 
 Jackson, the only considerable towns of the state, were located, all 
 gave majorities against immediate and separate secession. It 
 would seem that, except in a few northern counties mentioned, the 
 opponents of secession were chiefly Whigs. In the Convention the 
 opponents of immediate and separate action were led by Yerger, 
 a Whig. The continued Whig opposition to secession counter- 
 balanced in this state the tendency to division between districts 
 having large and districts having small slave populations. This 
 fact is illustrated in the following table: 
 
 Secession Union Divided Totals 
 
 Black counties 21 7 2 30 
 
 White counties 23 5 2 30 
 
 Whig counties 7 7 2 16 
 
 Democratic counties 37 5 2 44 
 
 Whig, black counties 7 5 2 14 
 
 Democratic, black counties 14 2 o 16 
 
 Whig, white counties o 2 o 2 
 
 Democratic, white counties 23 3 2 28 
 
 Totals 44 12 4 60 
 
 The contest in Louisiana presented no remarkable features. Old 
 party divisions were swept away. In general the parishes with the 
 largest slave populations went for secession; there were exceptions. 
 There were few parishes which could not be considered as belong- 
 ing to the black belt. There were no marked sectional divisions 
 
243] SECESSION OF THE COTTON STATES 243 
 
 in the state. A group of Democratic parishes in the north-central 
 part of the state and another of Whig parishes near the Missis- 
 sippi in the southeast corner of the state elected delegates opposed 
 to immediate secession. New Orleans, which had always been con- 
 sidered a Union stronghold because of its large foreign and 
 Northern population and its commerce with states of the upper 
 Mississippi valley, elected 20 secession and 4 Union delegates. The 
 city had given a majority for the Bell electors in November; the 
 population was overwhelmingly white. The result in New Orleans 
 may be attributed in part to the prevalent excitement and the fail- 
 ure of the conservative Creole population to poll its full voting 
 strength in the convention election. 
 
 Several of the secession conventions, following the example of 
 the Second Continental Congress, adopted declarations of the 
 causes for secession. These documents were drawn up, no doubt, 
 with less regard to historical accuracy than to the effect they might 
 have upon public opinion at home, in the border states, in the 
 North, and even in Europe. They all rest the cause of the South 
 primarily upon the necessity of protecting slavery against North- 
 ern assaults. 
 
 The South Carolina Convention published two statements of 
 causes. One, "The Address of the People of South Carolina . . . 
 to the People of the Slaveholding States . . . ," 20 was presented 
 by a committee of which R. B. Rhett was chairman; 21 the other, 
 "A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify 
 the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union," 22 was 
 brought in by a committee of which C. G. Memminger was chair- 
 man. 23 In all probability the chairmen of the respective com- 
 mittees wrote the reports. 24 Rhett's committee represented seces- 
 sionists of long standing of the more extreme sort. They were of 
 the faction which had advocated separate action in 1851-1852. 
 Memminger represented the more moderate element which had 
 constituted the cooperationist party in 1851-1852. The Rhett follow- 
 ing seems to have wished to play up the establishment of a free 
 
 10 'Journal, of the Convention of South Carolina, 467-76; McPherson, History 
 of the Rebellion, 12-15; DeBow's Review, XXX, 352-57. 
 21 Journal, 21. 
 
 **Ibid., 461-466; McPherson, op. cit. 15 ff. 
 ** Journal, 31, 39. 
 **Capers, Life and Times of C. G. Memminger, 289-95. 
 
244 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [244 
 
 trade republic for the purpose of enlisting European support. The 
 group of which Memminger was a member considered it of first 
 importance to unite the South. It would seem that the two com- 
 mittees were appointed in order that both factions might express 
 their views. The Convention showed a disposition to divide along 
 these lines on several questions. 
 
 Of the two documents the "Address" was much the abler and 
 more worthy of a great cause. The entire substance of it may be 
 found in Calhoun's last great speech in the Senate, March 4, 
 1 850," the address of the Nashville Convention, 26 and Rhett's 
 speech in the United States Senate in which he avowed himself a 
 disunionist. 27 It justified secession by "the accumulated wrongs of 
 half a century." The great wrong was represented to be the over- 
 throw of the Constitution and the transformation of the federal 
 republic into a consolidated democracy, in which a sectional major- 
 ity in the North could rule over the minority in the South and 
 carry out its measures of "ambition, encroachment, and aggrand- 
 izement." A parallel was drawn between the relation of the Thir- 
 teen Colonies to Great Britain and the relation of the South to the 
 North. The South had been taxed for Northern benefit; her cities 
 made "mere suburbs of Northern cities;" her foreign trade "al- 
 most annihilated." The much employed economic interpretation 
 of the anti-slavery movement was given: hostility to slavery had 
 been made the criterion of parties in the North in order to con- 
 solidate the power of the section to rule the South in the interest 
 of the former. The address further portrayed the dangers to which 
 slavery was exposed in a consolidated republic, argued the consti- 
 tutional right of secession, and appealed to the slaveholding states 
 to form a slaveholding confederacy. 
 
 Memminger's "Declaration of Immediate Causes" was a brief 
 constitutional argument. It stated the compact theory of the Con- 
 stitution, and contended that the Northern states had violated the 
 letter of the compact by their Personal Liberty laws, and the spirit 
 of it by the anti-slavery agitation and the election to the presi- 
 dency of the candidate of a sectional party. The declaration was 
 attacked by Maxcy Gregg, L. W. Spratt, and others on the ground 
 
 "Works, IV, 542-73- 
 
 ^National Intelligencer, July 13, 1850. 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 32 Cong., i Sess., Appx., 42-48. See above, p. 83. 
 
245] SECESSION OF THE COTTON STATES 245 
 
 of incompleteness. It set forth only some of the causes; it omitted 
 the tariff altogether, and laid emphasis on "an incomparably un- 
 important point." The reply was made that Southern congress- 
 men voted for the existing tariff; the Whig party had always fa- 
 vored the tariff; the tariff argument would not appeal to Missouri, 
 Kentucky, and Louisiana; the issue should not be raised now. 
 Memminger thought it expedient to put their action before all 
 the world upon the simple matter of wrongs on the question of 
 slavery, and that question turned upon the fugutive slave law. 28 
 
 The declarations of causes adopted by the Georgia, Mississippi, 
 and Texas conventions bore greater resemblance to Memminger's 
 "Declaration of Causes" than to Rhett's "Address." Robert 
 Toombs wrote the Georgia statement of causes. 29 He told how the 
 North had outgrown the South in material prosperity, and at- 
 tributed the disparity to bounties, tariffs, subsidies, and other 
 protective legislation. He charged that the anti-slavery agitation 
 had been fomented in the East for the purposes of winning over 
 the West from her Southern alliance and uniting East and West 
 to wield the power of the government to promote sectional inter- 
 ests. The chief theme of the document, however, was the rise of 
 the anti-slavery party, the history of aggression upon aggression, 
 and their culmination in the victory of a sectional party, which 
 left no protection for the South but the Constitution. No confi- 
 dence was placed in Republican promises to respect the Constitu- 
 tion: "They [the Southern people] know the value of parchment 
 rights, in treacherous hands, and therefore, they refuse to commit 
 their own to the rulers whom the North offers us." The Mississippi 
 declaration is fairly epitomized in two sentences: "Our position is 
 thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery the greatest 
 material interest of the world. . . . Utter subjugation awaits us 
 in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it." 30 The 
 Texas declaration added little to this except the assertion that 
 
 "Debate in National Intelligencer, Dec. 27, 29; McPherson, op. cit., 16 ff. 
 
 " 'Journal of the Convention of Georgia, 1861, pp. 104-113. Mr. Nesbit, 
 chairman of the committee to report an ordinance of secession, said the state- 
 ment was written by Toombs. Journal, 104. 
 
 ^Journal of the State Convention [of Mississippi], 86-88. 
 
246 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840 1 86 1 [246 
 
 the Federal government had failed to protect life and property 
 upon the frontier. 31 
 
 President Davis devoted a large part of his first message to the 
 Confederate Congress, April 29, 1861, to a discussion of the causes 
 of secession. The Constitution of the United States provided for a 
 jederal government, he said; but that had not prevented the rise of 
 a "political school which has persistently claimed that the Govern- 
 ment thus formed was not a compact between States, but was in 
 effect a National Government, set up above and over the States." 
 This doctrine gained the more ready assent in the North because, 
 as that section gained preponderance in Congress, self-interest 
 tempted her representatives to use their power to promote 
 Northern interests at the expense of the South. "Long and angry 
 controversies grew out of these attempts, often successful, to bene- 
 fit one section of the country at the expense of the other." In addi- 
 tion there had existed for nearly half a century another subject of 
 discord, slavery, which involved interests of such "transcendent 
 magnitude" that the permanence of the Union had long been en- 
 dangered. With slavery as the issue there had developed in the 
 North a sectional party, which had finally gained control of the 
 government. Meanwhile, great interests had developed in the 
 South. "With interests of such overwhelming magnitude imper- 
 illed," the people of the South could not consent to live under a 
 sectional government. 32 
 
 Some people in the North believed that President Davis had 
 emphasized the unequal operation of the government upon the 
 economic interests of the sections and minimized the slavery ques- 
 tion for the purpose of influencing opinion abroad. They were dis- 
 posed to take, as a more accurate interpretation of the causes of 
 secession, a speech of Vice-President Stephens in which he spoke 
 of slavery as the corner stone of the new republic. The speech 
 accorded well with Stephens's earlier utterances. He, it should be 
 said, was one of the more conservative leaders of the South; he 
 had never shown sympathy with the unconditional disunionists; 
 he had taken little interest in those progressive Southern move- 
 ments which have been described; he opposed secession to the 
 
 "Texas Library, and Historical Commission, Journal of the Secession Con- 
 vention of Texas, 1861, pp. 61 ff. 
 Annual Cyclopedia, I, 614 ff. 
 
247] SECESSION OF THE COTTON STATES 247 
 
 last. Moreover, his "Corner Stone" speech should be read in its 
 entirety. He did not fail to pay his respects to a protective tariff 
 and appropriations for internal improvement. "This old thorn of 
 the tariff, which was the cause of so much irritation in the old 
 body politic, is removed forever from the new. . . . The true prin- 
 ciple is to subject the commerce of every locality to whatever 
 burdens may be necessary to facilitate it." The people of the 
 North, he said, wanted to preserve the Union because "they are 
 disinclined to give up the benefits they derive from slave labor." 
 According to the reporter, "Mr. Stephens reviewed at some length 
 the extravagance and profligacy of appropriations by the Congress 
 of the United States for several years past, . . ," 33 
 
 Unofficial Southern essays at interpreting events after their oc- 
 currence also fail to show general agreement. Of them, too, it 
 must be said that they were not made to facilitate the task of the 
 student. The Charleston Mercury, speaking of the Confederate 
 Constitution, said: "The system of partial legislation in the im- 
 position of taxes which has been the prime cause of all the cor- 
 ruption and sectionalism which have finally overthrown the Union 
 of the United States is repudiated by this constitution." 34 Ac- 
 cording to J. D. B. DeBow: "At bottom, the quarrel between the 
 North and South is, Shall the North support itself, or, by means 
 of Government action and machinery, be supported by the South? 
 It is the old quarrel of nullification continued under a new 
 name." 35 A report submitted for the consideration of the 
 Merchants' and Planters' Convention, at Macon, Georgia, October, 
 1 86 1, expressed the thought that the "chief of the causes of our 
 separation must be found in questions affecting our selling the 
 products of the soil and the purchase of our supplies from others." 36 
 Governor Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, who was already defend- 
 ing state rights against the encroachments of the Confederate 
 government, in his annual message, November, 1861, followed a 
 chain of reasoning quite like that of President Davis in the mes- 
 sage already referred to. The people of the North had become 
 consolidationists because they had found that tariff laws, naviga- 
 
 "Moore, Rebellion Record, I, Doc. pp. 44-49. 
 
 "Mar. 15, 1861. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXXI, 2. See articles in ibid., XXXI, 13-17, 69-77. 
 
 "Ibid., XXXI, 333. 
 
248 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [248 
 
 tion acts, fishing laws, etc. had fostered their interests. "By the 
 instrumentality of these laws, the government of the United 
 States has poured the wealth of the productive South into the lap 
 of the bleak and sterile North, . . ." The slavery question had 
 been used to excite the masses. The Southern people had tried to 
 maintain state rights. In the same message, with a different bear- 
 ing (the capacity of the South for self-government), he praised 
 slavery as conducive to the perpetuity of republican institutions. 37 
 
 Others put the emphasis on other causes. L. W. Spratt, the in- 
 defatigible advocate of reopening the African slave trade, believed 
 that the South had seceded, or should have seceded, for the pur- 
 pose of perpetuating slave institutions; by the provision of the 
 Confederate Constitution prohibiting the foreign slave trade, the 
 mission of the South had been betrayed. 38 The Reverend Dr. J. 
 H. Thornwell, some time editor of the Southern Quarterly Review, 
 sought to put the Southern cause upon the highest possible plane. 
 The Southern states had seceded because of "the profound convic- 
 tion that the Constitution, in its relations to slavery, has been vir- 
 tually repealed." He repudiated the suggestion "that all this fer- 
 ment is nothing but the result of a mercernary spirit on the part 
 of the cotton-growing states, fed by Utopian dreams of aggrandize- 
 ment and wealth, to be realized under the auspices of free-trade, in 
 a separate confederacy of their own." Considerations of such char- 
 acter had been advanced in the South not to justify secession, but 
 to reconcile her to the necessity of it. Neither had secession been 
 desired to make possible the reopening of the African slave trade; 
 the agitation of that question had only been the natural reaction 
 of irresponsible Southern hot-heads to Garrisonian abolition in 
 the North. 39 
 
 Numerous incidents and miscellaneous comments illustrate how 
 firmly grounded were the opinions relative to the economic effects 
 of disunion, which had been inculcated by years of disunionist 
 propaganda. Mayor McBeth, of Charleston, notified agents of 
 Northern steamship lines that he would not permit the landing of 
 
 "Candler, Confederate Records of the State of Georgia, II, 77-125. 
 
 '"Letter to Hon. John Perkins, of Louisiana, in Moore, Rebellion Record, II, 
 
 357-65- 
 
 "The State of the Country: An Article Republished from the Southern 
 Presbyterian Review (pamphlet, New York, 1861), pp. 6 ff. 
 
249] SECESSION OF THE COTTON STATES 249 
 
 steerage passengers unless it was guaranteed that they would not 
 become public charges. He expected that paupers, fearing destitu- 
 tion in the North as a result of the loss of Southern trade, would 
 flock South. 40 Eli T. Shorter, of Alabama, wrote to a friend in 
 Missouri saying that the people of the South greatly sympathized 
 with the conservatives of the North and would gladly preserve 
 them, if possible, from the general bankruptcy which awaited New 
 York City. 41 It seems to have been expected that Northern ship- 
 ping and Northern capital would be transferred to the South, and 
 from time to time during the winter of 1860-1861 reports came of 
 such transfers which had been or were about to be made. 42 Evi- 
 dence will be given later of the disposition shown at an early date 
 to take advantage of secession to promote schemes for direct 
 trade; it was said to be desirable to get "started right." As late 
 as July, 1861, DeBow wrote: "That magic word, Secession, has 
 transferred thousands of millions of wealth from the North to the 
 South. The North is bankrupt. Her people must migrate to the 
 West or starve. . . . They cannot produce their own food and 
 clothing, and will have nothing wherewith to purchase it. ... 
 Their local wealth, derived from houses, factories, cities, railroads, 
 etc., ceased to exist the instant secession became an accomplished 
 fact." 43 
 
 In the border slave states, where the majority did not believe 
 that the election of Lincoln justified precipitate abandonment of 
 the Union, frequent expression was given by opponents of seces- 
 sion of a belief that fears for slavery did not constitute the chief 
 cause for the action of the cotton states, but were largely a pretext. 
 A notable example is found in Governor Letcher's message to the 
 
 "New York Herald, Nov. 15, 1860-. Also ibid., Nov. 20, quoting the New 
 Orleans Courier and Bee on effects of secession upon North and South; ibid., Dec. 
 n, on a threatened exodus to the South. 
 
 "Quoted in New York Times, Jan. 12, 1861. 
 
 "Ibid, Feb. 25, 1861; New York Herald, Nov. 19, Dec. 20, 1861; G. B. 
 Lamar to Howell Cobb, Mar. 25, 1861, Toombs, Stephens, Cobb Correspondence. 
 
 "De Bow's Review, XXXI, 5. Many others wrote and spoke in a similar 
 strain, for example, Vice-President Stephens, speech at Augusta, July n, 1861, 
 in Moore, Rebellion Record, II, Doc. p. 276 ff.; Secretary of State Toombs, 
 instructions to Yancey, Rost, and Mann, commissioners to Great Britain, 
 France, etc., Mar. 16, 1861, in Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Confed- 
 eracy, II, 7. 
 
250 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [250 
 
 General Assembly of Virginia, January 7, 1861. The cotton states 
 in seceding without attempting to secure cooperation of all the 
 slaveholding states were consulting their own interests, he said. 
 Why should not Virginia consider her own? He criticized the 
 tendency of Virginians to ignore the just complaints of their own 
 state against the North and to unite in the complaints of the 
 cotton states. "The complaints of those states are rather against 
 the financial and commercial policy of the Federal Government, 
 than any action or want of action on the subject of slavery." 44 
 
 John A. Gilmer, of North Carolina, said secession had been an 
 object in South Carolina for thirty or forty years. The secession- 
 ists had desired Lincoln's election. They did not want guarantees 
 for slavery. 45 Governor Hicks, of Maryland, took a similar view. 48 
 The National Intelligencer put a desire to reopen the slave trade 
 as the foremost cause of secession. 47 John P. Kennedy, of Mary- 
 land, a former secretary of the navy, told the history of disunion 
 sentiment in South Carolina. As causes of secession he mentioned 
 a disposition of Southern leaders to undervalue the strength and 
 beneficence of the Union; the belief that the planting states paid 
 all the taxes; visions of a great Southern confederacy including 
 Cuba, San Domingo, Mexico, and perhaps Central America, with 
 free trade, powerful alliances, and peopled by "swarms of reen- 
 forcements from the shores of Africa." He did not overlook the 
 fact, however, that the slavery quarrel had become "venomous." 48 
 John Bell, of Tennessee, said the disunion movement was led by 
 men of distinguished ability with whom the expediency of seces- 
 sion was a foregone conclusion, and who only waited a plausible 
 pretext "men whose imaginations have been taken possession of, 
 and their judgments led captive, by the dazzling, but, as I think, 
 delusive vision of a new, great, and glorious republican empire, 
 stretching far into the South." 49 Andrew Johnson and W. G. 
 Brownlow, of Tennessee, attributed secession to the machinations 
 
 "Virginia, Senate Journal and Documents, Extra Session, 1 86 1, pp. 9-49, es- 
 pecially, 13-21. 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 36 Cong, 2 Sess., 580 ff. 
 
 "Annual Cyclopedia, I, 443. 
 
 "Editorials of Nov. 29, Dec. 29, 1860. 
 
 "The Border States, Their Power and Duty in the Present Disordered Con- 
 dition of the Country. (Pamphlet, 46 pp.) 
 
 "Letter to A. Burwell, Dec. 6, 1860, in New York Herald, Dec. 12. 
 
25l] SECESSION OF THE COTTON STATES 25! 
 
 of disappointed politicians, and emphasized the long standing 
 hatred of the Union in South Carolina. 00 
 
 "A Kentuckian," in an able pamphlet, South Carolina, Disunion, 
 and a Mississippi Valley Confederacy, seemed to be well acquaint- 
 ed with South Carolina history for thirty years, and ascribed to 
 her the leadership in the disunion movement. "Having made up 
 her mind to disunion for the sake of re-opening the African Slave 
 Trade, or for the sake of some other supposed local advantage of 
 her own, or for the sake of vengeance in her gratification of her 
 hate to the Union and the nation, her policy was to precipitate as 
 many of the other Cotton States as she could into disunion also." 
 Among other objects he mentioned the "cherished policy of free 
 trade, direct taxation, and no tariff," and disappointed political 
 aspirations. 51 Union men in Missouri tried to account for the 
 secession movement by other causes than fears for slavery in a 
 Union with the free states. General John B. Henderson, Demo- 
 crat of the Benton wing, said: "They never left this confederacy 
 ... on account of any fear whatever as to their rights in negro 
 property. It is a false idea of commercial greatness. They have, 
 since 1832, inculcated a doctrine that a tariff upon imports is a 
 mere burden upon exports; that their cities have languished under 
 the revenue laws of the Government; that their fields have become 
 barren under the oppressions and actions of an unjust govern- 
 ment. The merchant of Charleston today, candidly and sincerely 
 believes, in case his government can be established, that South 
 Carolina can be separated from the Federal Union, Charleston 
 in the course of ten years will become a New York. The merchants 
 of Savannah have the same opinion, the merchants of Mobile and 
 the merchants of New Orleans have the same opinion, and unfor- 
 tunately I must say that this delusion of the day is entertained 
 by some of the merchants of the West." Another cause for seces- 
 sion was the desire to filibuster for Cuba and Central America. 
 
 ""Speech of Andrew Johnson in the Senate, Feb. 5, 1861, in Cong. Globe, 
 36 Cong., 2 Sess., 744 ff.; W. G. Brownlow, Sketches of the Rise, Progress, and 
 Decline of Secession; etc., 1 10 and passim. 
 
 'Pp. 4, 8. 
 
252 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [252 
 
 But the excuse which had been given for secession was the one 
 which found sympathy among the people of Missouri. 52 
 
 In the North also there was from the first a large class who 
 professed to believe that the cotton states had seceded chiefly for 
 other reasons than fears for slavery and a belief that constitution- 
 al rights had been disregarded. This class reposed no confidence 
 in compromises and concessions as Union savers or restorers; no 
 doubt most of them would have been opposed to compromise or 
 concession upon the slavery issue in any case. They advanced 
 various explanations of secession. William H. Seward, in a 
 speech of which the Union savers had expected much, credited dis- 
 union chiefly to the defeat of Southern politicians and their loss of 
 power to govern the country. But he did not overlook the influence 
 of the unconditional disunionists: "More than thirty years there 
 has existed a considerable though not heretofore a formidable 
 mass of citizens in certain States situate near or around the delta 
 of the Mississippi, who believe that the Union is less conducive 
 to the welfare and greatness of those States than a smaller con- 
 federacy, embracing only slave States, would be." 53 Senators 
 Wade, of Ohio, Wilson, of Massachusetts, Cameron, of Pennsyl- 
 vania, Chandler, of Michigan, and Trumbull, of Illinois, inclined 
 to take the view that secession was the outcome of a "rule or 
 ruin" policy on the part of Southern leaders. 54 Senator Simmons, 
 of Rhode Island, engaged in a colloquy with Thomas L. Clingman 
 relative to the effect of secession upon revenues North and South 
 and upon the imports of the respective sections. "I know," he 
 said, "part of this scheme has been to make Charleston the great 
 commercial emporium of the South." 53 A select committee of the 
 House of Representatives reported that "the difficulties growing 
 out of the existence of slavery, however viewed by the common 
 people, are so far as the leaders are concerned, but a mere pre- 
 tense, their real object being to overthrow the Government, 
 
 ^Journal and Proceedings of the Missouri State Convention . . . 1861, Pro- 
 ceedings, p. 86. See also majority report of the Committee on the Commissbner 
 from Georgia, ibid., Journal, p. 50 ff. 
 
 "Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., 343, speech in the Senate, Jan. 12, 1861. 
 
 "Ibid., 102, 1088 ff., 494., 1370, 1380 (in order). 
 
 K Ibid., 1476. 
 
253] SECESSION OF THE COTTON STATES 253 
 
 that a Southern Confederacy, of a military character may 
 arise. . . ." 56 
 
 The New York Times consistently sought other motives for se- 
 cession. An editorial of January 4, 1861, gave the desire to reopen 
 the African slave trade a prominent place among the motives for 
 secession. A week later "the expectations of great advantages" 
 which seaboard cities were to derive from a free trade policy were 
 canvassed. 57 Another editorial of the same issue considered the 
 long taught belief in the South that, "they supported the Union 
 that they contributed far more than the Northern States to the 
 support of the Government that the industry of the North was 
 entirely dependent upon their staples and that if these should 
 be withdrawn universal bankruptcy, beggary, and ruin would 
 instantly overtake the people of the North." Another editorial re- 
 viewed a disunion per se article by Major W. H. Chase, of Flor- 
 ida, in DeBow's Review; 58 another was headed, "Proportion of 
 the Burdens of Government Borne by the South;" 59 another dealt 
 with schemes to form "a grand Slave Empire to embrace the 
 islands of the Gulf of Mexico and the territories facing it." 60 A 
 number of articles of this character from the Times were published 
 as a pamphlet under the caption, The Effect of Secession upon the 
 Commercial Relations between the North and the South, appar- 
 ently intended to influence opinion in the border states. It asserted 
 that "the leading motive or inducement to Secession has undoubt- 
 edly been the anticipated material advantages that were to 
 result." 61 
 
 Another able pamphlet, The Five Cotton States and New York, 
 etc., took up and refuted in order the Southern views that (i) 
 "the commercial policy of the United States is injurious to South- 
 ern interests;" (2) "the present course of business in the United 
 States is extremely unfavorable, if not unjust, to the South, espec- 
 
 K Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., 1294. 
 
 "Jan. 12. 
 
 M Jan. 15, "The Ideas on which Secession is Based." 
 
 B 'Jan. 17. 
 
 60 Feb. 5. 
 
 "P. 3. Daniel Lord was the author. 
 
254 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [254 
 
 ially, the five cotton states . .' .;" (3) cotton is king. 62 Another 
 pamphleteer, Samuel Powell, in Notes on "Southern Wealth and 
 Northern Profits," Kettell, thought Kettell's thesis, namely, that 
 the South had supplied the capital which had accumulated at the 
 North, was the keynote of secession. He refuted Kettell's state- 
 ments seriatim. Even the New York Herald, for which no conces- 
 sions or guarantees to slavery were too great, occasionally as- 
 cribed to secessionists other motives (similar to those already 
 mentioned) than a desire to force concessions from the North, or 
 to protect the institution of slavery. 68 
 
 It is believed that such expressions as those quoted above were 
 representative of the professed opinions of a considerable class 
 in the Northern and border states, and that these opinions had 
 some basis in fact. The majority of the people of the North and 
 of the Unionists in the border states, however, seem, clearly, to 
 have been of the opinion that the cotton states had seceded 
 chiefly because of a justifiable or mistaken belief that slavery was 
 endangered, and that constitutional rights had been violated in 
 the Union. In the opinion of many, perhaps most of this class, 
 at least before the organization of the Provisional Confederate 
 government, the Southern states, with the exception of South 
 Carolina, could be saved to the Union by concessions and guar- 
 antees relative to slavery. After the organization of the Confeder- 
 acy the primary object of the compromisers was to save the border 
 states. 
 
 "Stephen Colwell, The Five Cotton States and New York, or Remarks upon 
 the Social and Economic Aspects of the Southern Political Crisis, Jan. 1861, 
 64 pp. See also J. F. Clarke, Session, Concession, or Self-Possession. Which? 
 (Pamphlet, Boston, 1861, 48 pp.) pp. 7-11. 
 
 Tor example, Nov. 19, 1860, Financial and Commercial; Dec. 8, Feb. 19, 
 1861, editorials. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 EARLY ECONOMIC POLICIES OF THE CON- 
 FEDERATE STATES, 1861-1862 
 
 As soon as secession was assured in the cotton states, indica- 
 tions were given of an intention to take advantage of political sep- 
 aration from the North to promote industrial and commercial in- 
 dependence. In studying these indications, however, it must be 
 remembered that from the very first individual seceded states and 
 the Confederate government were not free to formulate economic 
 policies with reference solely to their economic effects. In the 
 brief period before Sumter the policies were determined largely 
 by the necessity of winning over the border slave states, the desire 
 to avoid war with the North, which leaders feared, if they did not 
 expect, and the need for gaining friends in Europe. After Sumter 
 everything else had to be subordinated to the conduct of the war. 
 
 An ordinance was adopted by the Georgia Convention, Janu- 
 ary 29, 1 86 1, declaring it to be "the fixed policy of Georgia to pro- 
 tect all investments already made, or which may be hereafter 
 made by citizens of other states, in mines or manufacturing in this 
 state, and capital invested in any other permanent improvement." 1 
 A resolution was introduced in the Louisiana Convention to in- 
 struct the committee on commerce to report on the expediency of 
 exempting from taxation all capital and property employed in 
 manufacturing within the state for a term of five years. 2 In the 
 Texas Convention a resolution was introduced recommending that 
 the Legislature give adequate protection to the manufacturing in- 
 terests and enterprises of the state. 3 From South Carolina and 
 elsewhere, before Sumter, came reports of efforts of the people 
 to make themselves independent of the North industrially as well 
 as politically. Arguments in favor of home industry appeared. 
 Southern manufacturers and merchants appealed for patronage 
 on the ground that the South must be independent in all respects. 4 
 
 Secession gave an impetus to projects for establishing direct 
 
 1 Journal . . . of the Convention . . . of Georgia, 1861, p. 117. 
 ^Official Journal . . . of the Convention . . . of Louisiana, 34. 
 journal of the Secession Convention of Texas, 1861, p. 41. 
 'DeBow's Review, XXX, 371; New York Herald, Mar. 26, 1861, quoting 
 a number of such appeals; editorial commenting thereon, ibid., Mar. 27. 
 
 255 
 
256 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [256 
 
 trade with Europe. Governor Gist, of South Carolina, asked the 
 Legislature to guarantee the interest of 5 per cent per annum upon 
 the capital invested in a line of steamers to Liverpool, which pri- 
 vate parties proposed to establish. 5 In February, following, a 
 public meeting was held in Charleston to consider a well advanced 
 project for establishing a line of three screw propellers between 
 Charleston and England. A committee was appointed to solicit 
 subscriptions. 6 The Legislature of Alabama chartered a "Direct 
 Trade and Exchange Company." 7 The Committee on Commerce, 
 Revenue, and Navigation of the Louisiana Convention was in- 
 structed to report upon the propriety of state aid for direct com- 
 munication by steam between New Orleans and Europe. 8 
 
 Governor Brown, of Georgia, discussed the subject of direct 
 trade in his message to the Legislature, December 8, 1860. He 
 asked authority to send a commissioner to Europe to investigate 
 a company which had offered to establish a line of five steamers 
 to made weekly trips between Savannah and a European port if 
 the state of Georgia would guarantee a 5 per cent return upon the 
 investment. 9 The Legislature chartered the "Belgian American 
 Company." 10 Thomas Butler King was sent to Europe to promote 
 direct trade and to represent the state of Georgia in England, 
 France, and Belgium. He was instructed "to not fail to present a 
 clear view of the effect which our Federal connection with the 
 Northern States has had in attracting, or forcing our commercial 
 exchanges with Europe, coast-wise through the port and City of 
 New York . . ." He was to show further that the result of seces- 
 sion "must necessarily be to establish direct commercial and diplo- 
 matic intercourse with all the world." Northern manufacturers 
 also, who had been protected by a tariff, must now compete on 
 equal terms with European manufacturers. 11 When the Legisla- 
 ture met again in November, 1861, it had at least three direct 
 trade projects to consider. Two had resulted from King's mission; 
 the third was that of an association of Georgians who would 
 
 "New York Herald, Dec. I, 1860. 
 
 'Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XLIV, 524-5; New York Herald, Mar. 4, 22. 
 
 ^De Bow's Review, XXX, 381. 
 
 "Official Journal . . . of the Convention . . . of Louisiana, 36. 
 
 "Candler, Confederate Records of the State of Georgia, II, 6, 7. 
 
 10 Ibid., II, 116; Avery, History of Georgia, 131. 
 
 "Candler, op. cit. II, 20 ff. 
 
257] EARLY ECONOMIC POLICIES OF CONFEDERATE STATES 257 
 
 establish a line of steamers as soon as the blockade should be 
 raised if the Legislature would subsidize their enterprise. 12 In 
 urging the matter of direct trade, Governor Brown said: "But our 
 deliverance from political bondage will be of little advantage if we 
 remain in a state of commercial dependence." 13 
 
 In March, 1861, a committee of the Provisional Congress of the 
 Confederacy was formed to organize an excursion trip from Sa- 
 vannah to Antwerp via Havre for the purpose of affording South- 
 ern merchants an opportunity to make arrangements for direct 
 importations. 14 Up to the time of his departure for England as 
 a commissioner of the Confederate States, Colonel A. Dudley 
 Mann pursued his plans for establishing direct trade. 15 A conven- 
 tion of merchants, bankers, and others met in Macon, in October, 
 1 86 1, to devise a plan to establish credits between the Confederacy 
 and Europe. DeBow's Review commended the purpose of the con- 
 vention, saying, "It is necessary to start right on the removal of 
 the blockade, in order that our former vassalage to the North may 
 not be renewed." 16 
 
 Immediately South Carolina had seceded from the Union, her 
 Convention and Legislature were confronted by the problem of 
 framing tariff and navigation laws. Each of the other states 
 which seceded before the organization of the Confederacy had to 
 solve the same problem. When the Provisional government was 
 formed the task devolved upon it. The development of the tariff 
 and navigation policies of the Confederacy was watched with con- 
 siderable interest at home, in the border states, in the North, 
 and in Europe, and throws some light upon the motives of 
 Southern leaders. 
 
 When South Carolina seceded, hot heads in the Convention 
 wished to throw the ports open to the commerce of the world at 
 once. The Convention rejected the proposal by a large majority, 
 and provided instead that the revenue and navigation laws of the 
 United States should be continued in effect, but no duties should 
 
 "Candler, op. cit., II, 115-17, 322-24, messages of Gov. Brown, Nov. 6, 1861, 
 and Nov. 18, 1862; ibid., II, 324, report of a special committee of the Georgia 
 House of Representatives. 
 
 "Ibid., II, 115. 
 
 "New York Herald, Mar. 19, 1861. 
 
 "Ibid., Mar. 19, 23, 1861. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXXI, 325. Also ibid., XXXI, 333-47. 
 
258 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [258 
 
 be collected upon imports from states of the late Federal Union, 
 and no tonnage duties should be collected upon vessels from the 
 said states. Vessels owned to one-third part by citizens of South 
 Carolina or of other slaveholding states might be registered as 
 South Carolina vessels. 17 The action upon the tariff was de- 
 termined by a number of considerations. Revenue was needed. 
 The members of the Convention were divided upon the relative 
 merits of direct taxation and a tariff for revenue only. The ma- 
 jority was not ready to risk a clash with the Federal government 
 by attempting to collect duties upon goods from other states or 
 by admitting foreign goods free of duty. The Georgia Convention 
 adopted an ordinance similar to that of South Carolina by a small 
 majority, the minority wishing to allow the duties to be paid into 
 the Federal treasury. 18 In other seceding states similar action 
 was taken. 19 
 
 The states in the Mississippi valley were much concerned about 
 the navigation of the Mississippi river. They wished to continue 
 their trade with the West, and they did not wish to antagonize 
 states of the upper valley. Senator Slidell, of Louisiana, while yet 
 in the United States Senate, promised free navigation of the Mis- 
 sissippi. 20 An ordinance recognizing the right of the free naviga- 
 tion of the Mississippi by all friendly nations bordering upon it 
 was reported to the Louisiana Convention along with the ordin- 
 ance of secession, and was adopted unanimously. 21 The Missis- 
 sippi Convention adopted a resolution similar to the Louisiana 
 ordinance, also by a unanimous vote. 22 The Alabama Convention 
 
 "Proceedings in Journal of the Convention of South Carolina, 45-47, 67, 
 83-88, 93-105; debate in New York Herald, Dec. 21, 25, 1860; National Intelli- 
 gencer, Dec. 25. 
 
 "Journal of the Convention of Georgia, 1861, pp. 57, 83, 92, 123. The vote 
 was 130-119. 
 
 "Ordinances and Constitution of the State of Alabama . . . 1861, p. 18, 
 ordinance of Jan. 23, 1861; Journal of the Proceedings of the Convention of the 
 People of Florida . . . 1861, p. 99; ordinance of Jan. 15, Official Journal . . . 
 of the Convention . . . of Louisiana, 105, 106, 235, ordinances of Jan. 29. Missis- 
 sippi, having no seaports, took no action. The Texas Convention took no action 
 because it was expected that the Southern Convention at Montgomery would 
 take the matter in hand in a few days. 
 
 *"Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., 137, 720. 
 
 "Official Journal of the Convention of Louisiana, 10, 18, 235. 
 
 "Journal of the State Convention [of Mississippi], 24, 68. 
 
259] EARLY ECONOMIC POLICIES OF CONFEDERATE STATES 259 
 
 also declared that the navigation of the Mississippi should not 
 be restricted. 23 
 
 It was not an easy matter for the Provisional government of 
 the Confederacy to fix upon a tariff and navigation policy. The 
 commercial interests of the seceded states desired and expected 
 free trade or an approximation thereto. Free trade, it was thought, 
 would mean direct trade. 24 It would tend, too, to conciliate the 
 North and make peaceful separation more possible. As early 
 as December 5, 1860, Senator Iverson told the United States 
 Senate that, if the Northern states would let the South go in 
 peace, the new confederacy would treat them as a favored nation 
 in the making of commercial treaties. 25 Free trade would make 
 easier the settlement of the navigation of the Mississippi. It 
 might also win sympathy for the Southern cause in England and 
 France. 26 On the other hand the new government must be sup- 
 ported; the people were accustomed to indirect taxes, and the 
 leaders hesitated to test their patriotism at the very start by a 
 resort to direct taxation. 27 There were those who wanted a ju- 
 dicious tariff, because it would encourage manufactures. There 
 were localities with interests to protect; Louisiana sugar interests 
 demanded a tariff. Others wished to take advantage of the op- 
 portunity afforded to render the South independent of the North. 
 When, in the Alabama Convention, W. R. Smith proposed that the 
 South should continue free trade with states of the old Union, 
 Yancey said that would reconstruct the "most material elements 
 of the late Union into a Commercial Union." 28 The attitude of the 
 border states was very important. One of the influences under- 
 stood to be deterring Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and 
 other border states from secession was the fear that manufactur- 
 
 2 'Smith, History and Debates of the Convention of the People of Alabama, 
 1861, p. 184 f.; Ordinances and Constitution of the State of Alabama, 33, resolu- 
 tion of Jan. 25. 
 
 "William Porcher Miles to Howell Cobb, Jan, 14, 1861, G. B. Lamar to 
 Cobb, Mar. 25. Toombs, Stephens, Cobb Correspondence; National Intelligencer, 
 Dec. 20, quoting the Charleston Mercury. 
 
 K Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., 12. 
 
 *G. B. Lamar to Howell Cobb, Feb. 9, 22, Mar. 9, 25, 1861, Toombs, 
 Stephens, Cobb Correspondence; DeBozu's Review, XXX, 93 ff. 
 
 "Junius Hillyer to Howell Cobb, Jan. 30, Feb. 9, 1861, Toombs, Stephens, 
 Cobb Correspondence. 
 
 M Smith, History and Debates of the Convention of Alabama, 1861, p. 188. 
 
260 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840-1861 [260 
 
 ing, mining, and other interests there would be sacrificed to the 
 free trade principles of the cotton states, and the people subjected 
 to direct taxation. 29 
 
 In various quarters duties upon exports were suggested. In his 
 message of November 7, 1860, Governor Brown, of Georgia, sug- 
 gested that the power to levy an export duty upon cotton would 
 be a powerful support to the diplomacy of a Southern confed- 
 eracy. 30 It would permit the Confederacy to raise ample revenue, 
 and at the same time make her import duties so much lower than 
 those of the North that either direct trade would be established, 
 or the North would have to adopt free trade. 31 The possibilities 
 of export duties as a protection to home industries were not over- 
 looked. The chief consideration, however, in favor of export 
 duties was the need of revenue. A small tax on cotton, for 
 example, could be easily collected and would net a considerable 
 sum. 32 In the border states the suggestion of export duties was 
 welcomed because it relieved apprehension of direct taxation. 83 
 
 The committee of the Montgomery Convention on a provision- 
 al constitution for the Confederate States reported a clause which 
 forbade protective tariffs and prohibited duties in excess of 15 per 
 cent, with the proviso that such import and export dudes might be 
 imposed "as may be expedient to induce friendly political rela- 
 tions" with nations pursuing unfriendly policies. The clause was 
 rejected. 34 The Provisional Constitution as adopted contained a 
 clause almost identical with the corresponding clause of the 
 United States Constitution. 35 Export duties, however, were not 
 prohibited. On February 9, 1861, the Provisional Congress passed 
 
 "Junius Hillyer to Howell Cobb, Jan. 30, Feb. 9, 1861, Toombs, Stephens 
 Cobb Correspondence; DeBow's Review, XXX, 165; National Intelligencer, Nov. 
 27, 1860. 
 
 s Candler, Confederate Records of the State of Georgia, I, 52. Also Howell 
 Cobb in the Provisional Congress, Annual Cyclopedia, I, 157; DeBow's Review, 
 XXX, 564. See also Correspondence of T. R. R. Cobb (So. Hist. Assoc., Publ, 
 XI), letter to his wife, Feb. 21, 1861. 
 
 "DeBow's Review, XXX, 551-67. 
 
 *lbid., XXX, 565; Charleston Courier, Mar. 25, 1861. 
 
 "Richmond Correspondence, New York Herald, Feb. 3, 1861. 
 
 "Senate Documents, 58 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 234, Vol. I, Journal of the 
 Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America, p. 35. 
 
 "Constitution for the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of 
 America, Art. I, 6, I. 
 
26l] EARLY ECONOMIC POLICIES OF CONFEDERATE STATES 26l 
 
 a bill continuing United States laws in force November i, 1860, 
 which were not inconsistent with the Provisional Constitution; 36 
 thus the United States tariff and navigation laws were adopted. 
 February 18, Congress modified the tariff law to admit free of 
 duty breadstuff's, provisions, agricultural products, living animals, 
 and munitions. 37 By an act of February 28, an export tax of one- 
 eighth cent a pound was levied on cotton. 38 On February 22, 
 Congress unanimously passed a law establishing the free naviga- 
 tion of the Mississippi. 39 By an act of February 26, the United 
 States navigation laws were virtually repealed, and the coastwise 
 commerce of the Confederate states thrown open to the ships of 
 all nations. 40 Another act, of March 15, authorized the transit of 
 foreign merchandise through the Confederate States to points 
 beyond their borders free of duties. 41 Regulations were at once 
 made to put this act into effect. 42 Thus the Confederate govern- 
 ment slowly took steps in the general direction of free trade. 
 
 Meanwhile, the Provisional government was engaged in draft- 
 ing a permanent constitution for the Confederacy. On March 4 
 the clause relating to taxes was taken up. As reported from com- 
 mittee, it was almost identical with the corresponding clause of 
 the United States Constitution. R. B. Rhett moved to add the 
 proviso: "but no bounties shall be granted from the treasury; nor 
 shall any duties or taxes on importations from foreign nations be 
 laid to promote or foster any branch of industry." This amend- 
 ment was adopted. Georgia, which had a small manufacturing in- 
 terest, and Louisiana, which had the sugar industry to protect, 
 voting in the negative. 43 The following day a clause was adopted 
 which gave congress the power by a two-thirds majority to lay 
 duties on exports. 44 Upon motion of Rhett, congress was denied 
 
 "Statutes at Large of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States 
 of America, p. 27. 
 
 '"Ibid., 28. 
 
 "Ibid., 42, Sect. 5. 
 
 ""Approved, Feb. 25, ibid., 36; Annual Cyclopedia, I, 157. 
 
 "Statutes at Large of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States 
 of America, 38. 
 
 "Ibid., 70. 
 
 42 New York Herald, Mar. 19, 21; President Davis's Message of April 29, 
 1861, Annual Cyclopedia, I, 131, 618. 
 
 "Journal of the Provisional Congress, 853, 864, 865. 
 
 "Ibid., 869. Art. I, 9, 6. 
 
262 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [262 
 
 power to appropriate money in aid of internal improvements in- 
 tended to facilitate commerce. The Texas delegation voted against 
 this provision, and the Louisiana delegation was divided. 45 Texas 
 was especially interested in the Pacific railroad, and Louisiana in 
 the improvement of the navigation of the Mississippi. The Per- 
 manent Constitution was hailed generally in the South as the end 
 of protectionism and special privilege of all kinds. Vice-President 
 Stephens so described it.* 6 The Charleston Mercury termed it, 
 "the first acknowledgment in the fundamental law of any people, 
 of the principle of just and equal taxation." It must be rightfully 
 administered, however. 47 DeBow's Review, said, "The protective 
 system receives its quietus thus: . . ," 48 South Carolina free traders, 
 however, feared the new Constitution left a loophole for protec- 
 tion, because it placed no maximum limit upon the duties congress 
 might impose. This was one of the grounds upon which a number 
 in the South Carolina Convention opposed ratification of the 
 Constitution; 49 the Convention, however, ratified the Constitu- 
 tion by a large majority. The provision giving congress the power 
 to lay duties on exports likewise did not give universal satisfac- 
 tion. 30 In the North, too, a few were inclined to charge that the 
 South had abandoned free trade principles. The South had 
 claimed separate nationality, said one, "and it has proclaimed, not 
 free trade, but a system of virtual, though covert, protection . . . 
 What shall we say of their Chinese duty upon exports?" 51 
 
 The early action of the Provisional Congress in continuing in 
 force the United States tariff law, that is, the Tariff of 1857, was 
 not generally satisfactory. The Augusta Chronicle, for example, 
 thought Congress had done well in ignoring the fallacy of free 
 trade (Augusta was a manufacturing town); 52 and the action 
 seemed to have a good effect in the border states. 53 But many 
 
 "Journal of the Provisional Congress, 892. The provision made certain ex- 
 ceptions, Art. I, 9, 6. 
 
 **"Corner stone" speech. Moore, Rebellion Record, I, Doc. pp. 44-45. 
 
 **Mar. 5, 1861, quoted in New York Herald, Mar. 19. 
 
 "XXX, 484- 
 
 * Journal of the Convention of South Carolina, 207, 214, 253-60. 
 
 "Ibid., 253; DeBow's Review, XXXI, 206, 305-13; G. B. Lamar to Howell 
 Cobb, Feb. 9, 1861, Toombs, Stephens, Cobb Correspondence. 
 
 "Powell, Notes on "Southern Wealth and Northern Profits," 29. 
 
 "Quoted in New York Times, Feb. 16. 
 
 "Report of H. P. Bell, Georgia commissioner to Tennessee, Journal of the 
 Convention of Georgia, 369. 
 
263] EARLY ECONOMIC POLICIES OF CONFEDERATE STATES 263 
 
 feared that it was not calculated to promote direct trade or win 
 friends in Great Britain and France or conciliate the North and 
 West. March 2 Mr. Harris, of Mississippi, moved to instruct the 
 Committee on Finance of the Provisional Congress to enter upon 
 a revision of the tariff with a view to a reduction of the duties and 
 an enlargement of the free list. In explanation he said that when 
 the tariff had been adopted, upon his motion an early revision had 
 been promised "with a view to the future adoption of that policy 
 which was to invite the great Northwest to other and cheaper 
 markets than those to be found in Boston and New York, and 
 also enable the merchants of the Confederate States to obtain their 
 goods at lower rates than those purchased by the merchants of 
 the United States, and consequently be enabled to undersell the 
 latter. This policy would throw the evils of illicit traffic upon the 
 shoulders of the Northern States, and put the crown of commercial 
 supremacy upon the Confederate States in other words, achieve 
 one of the great positive advantages arising from our separation 
 from the unfriendly States of North America to wit: commercial 
 independence." 84 William Porcher Miles, of Charleston, favored 
 the resolution. He had always supposed the South was desirous 
 of approaching as near free trade as possible. Judge Withers, 
 of South Carolina, wanted to hold out free trade to Europe as an 
 inducement to recognition of the South. A resolution was intro- 
 duced in the Louisiana Convention, March 26, declaring for entire 
 free trade with the Western states, both slave and free. 65 On May 
 17 a new tariff bill was passed in Congress over considerable op- 
 position, chiefly from those who desired a measure calculated to 
 produce more revenue. 56 The duties averaged about 5 per cent 
 lower than those of the Tariff of 1857. Most manufactured goods 
 bore duties of 15 per cent; most important raw materials bore 
 duties of 10 per cent; the free list included provisions, breadstuffs, 
 living animals, munitions and munitions materials, and ships. The 
 bill was to go into effect August 31." Plainly the measure repre- 
 
 w Journal of the Provisional Congress, 97; New York Herald, Mar. 9, debate 
 on Harris's motion. 
 
 " 'Annual Cyclopedia, I, 431; New York Herald, Mar. 27. 
 
 50 Journal of the Provisional Congress, 242, act approved May 21. 
 
 "Statutes at Large of the Provisional Government, 127-35. The act was 
 amended in minor particulars by act of Aug. 3. Ibid., 171. 
 
264 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [264 
 
 sented a compromise between the various views of a proper tariff 
 policy. 
 
 Meanwhile the Congress of the United States had taken action 
 highly satisfactory to the Confederacy when it enacted the 
 Morrill tariff, approved March 2, 1861. The bill fixed mod- 
 erately high duties to become effective April i. The opposi- 
 tion press of the North represented the Morrill act as a 
 stupendous piece of folly which would result in direct trade 
 for the South, make it difficult to retain the border states in 
 the Union, and alienate the sympathies of Great Britain and 
 France. 88 The New York Times, a Republican paper, ob- 
 posed it. The London Times represented it as a blunder on the 
 part of the North. 59 In the South it was hoped the difference in 
 the two tariffs would promote direct trade. Southern journals and 
 representatives seized the opportunity afforded by the Morrill 
 bill to play up, for the benefit of foreign opinion, the tariff as a 
 cause of secession, and to present to foreign nations the view that 
 it was to their interests to recognize the independence of a people 
 which would continue to maintain as nearly free trade as its 
 necessities would allow. 60 President Davis and Vice-President 
 Stephens both announced that as near free trade as possible would 
 be the policy of the government. 61 Secretary of State Toombs in- 
 structed Yancey, Rost, and Mann, commissioners to Europe, to 
 point out the differing views of the North and South upon com- 
 mercial policy, avoid discussion of slavery, and to assure European 
 governments that the policy of the Confederacy would be an ap- 
 proximation of free trade. 62 Later in the year, Secretary Hunter 
 in his instructions to J. M. Mason stated very forcibly the interest 
 the British people had in the establishment of a free trade republic 
 in America. He neglected, however, to emphasize differences over 
 
 M New York Herald, Feb. i, 8, 18, 27, 28, Mar. 4, 15, 19, 23, 29; Carpen- 
 ter, Logic of History, 146 f., quoting a number of Northern papers. There was 
 little debate upon the tariff in Congress. 
 
 "Quoted in Carpenter, op. cit., 147; to same effect in New York Herald, 
 Mar. 23, 29, Apr. 6. 
 
 m DeBow's. Review, XXXI, 69-77; Savannah Republican, May 22, in Moore, 
 Rebellion Record, I, Diary p. 5. 
 
 w 'Annual Cyclopedia, I, 613; Moore, Rebellion Record, I, Doc. p. 48. 
 
 "Mar. 16, 1861. Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, II, 
 
265] EARLY ECONOMIC POLICIES OF CONFEDERATE STATES 265 
 
 commercial policy as a cause of separation; the Southern states 
 had seceded when the government of the Union had threatened 
 to "destroy their social system." 63 Yancey, Rost, and Mann pre- 
 sented with force and effect the advantages to European nations 
 of an independent Southern confederacy dedicated to free trade. 64 
 
 From the first there was a group in the Confederacy which 
 wanted to make a bold bid for the support of Great Britain and 
 France by granting them valuable commercial advantages for a 
 long period of years, and this group was strengthened by the out- 
 break of the war. President Davis, however, believed the proper 
 Southern policy to be to conciliate the North, if possible. In his 
 inaugural address he said: "An agricultural people, . . . our true 
 policy is peace, and the freest trade which our necessities will 
 permit . . . There can be but little rivalry between ours and any 
 manufacturing or navigating community, such as the northeastern 
 States of the American Union." 65 Even after the war began Presi- 
 dent Davis promised the North treaties of amity and commerce 
 if it would abandon coercion. 66 He relied upon their dependence 
 upon the South for cotton to secure the good will, even aid, of 
 European countries. Though, as we have seen, the commissioners 
 to Great Britain and France had been instructed to represent that 
 approximate free trade would be the policy of the Confederate 
 government, they were not authorized to attempt any high 
 diplomacy. 67 
 
 On May 13, 1861, R. B. Rhett, chairman of the Committee on 
 Foreign Relations, offered resolutions in Congress advising the 
 negotiation of treaties guaranteeing a low maximum of duties for 
 a long period of years. Mr. Cobb moved to amend by stipulating 
 that such treaties should not extend beyond five years. The 
 amendment was adopted; whereupon, on Mr. Rhett's motion the 
 
 63 Sept. 23. Richardson, op. cit., II, 84 ff. 
 
 "Letters to Secretary Toombs, in ibid., II, 34, 42, 60. See also letter to 
 the London Times, by John Lothrop Motley, in Moore, Rebellion Record, I, Doc. 
 pp. 209-218; Callahan, Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy, 8l, 
 109 ff. 
 
 "Annual Cyclopedia, I, 613. 
 
 "Ibid., I, 619, 139- 
 
 "Yancey, Rost, and Mann to Secretary of State, Toombs, Aug. 7, 1861, 
 asking for new instructions, Richardson, op. cit., II, 56-59; DuBose, Yancey, 
 596. 
 
266 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [266 
 
 whole matter was laid upon the table. 68 Congress acted upon the 
 belief that the war would be short; there were perhaps still hopes 
 that the North would abandon the war if assured that the Con- 
 federacy would not adopt a hostile commercial policy. The neces- 
 sities of the South were not yet felt to be great; the Confederacy 
 should hold herself free to adopt any commercial policy she might 
 see fit. Twenty years of free trade with England would destroy 
 the manufactures of the South. Secretary of State Toombs seems 
 to have agreed with Mr. Rhett; but President Davis was in accord 
 with the majority. 69 The representatives in Europe were given no 
 new instructions. As the year wore on and the blockade of 
 Southern ports tightened, the Administration showed a disposition 
 to rely upon a shortage of cotton for the factories of England to 
 bring about the intervention of that country. The exportation of 
 cotton was forbidden except through Southern ports, 70 and 
 Yancey, Rost, and Mann wrote Earl Russell that, "To be obtained 
 it must be sought for in the Atlantic and Gulf ports of those 
 States." 71 
 
 From time to time through 1861 and the early part of 1862, ef- 
 forts were made in Congress to admit all goods free of duty for a 
 limited period except from the United States. 72 A bill to that 
 effect passed the House April 3, 1862, by a large majority but was 
 not acted upon in the Senate. 73 A convention of merchants and 
 planters at Macon in October, 1861, had unanimously recom- 
 mended the suspension of all duties and the adoption of free trade 
 with all nations at peace with the Confederacy; 74 and sentiment 
 favorable to the course was manifested elsewhere. 75 But in general 
 public opinion supported the policy of the government. Confidence 
 was still felt in the "cotton is king" argument. 76 Those who wished 
 
 M Journal of the Provisional Congress, 214, 253; Charleston Mercury, June 
 20, quoted in Moore, Rebellion Record, II, Diary p. 13; DuBose, Yancey, 
 598-602. 
 
 "Ibid., 600-602. 
 
 '"Act of May 21, Statutes at Large o{ the Provisional Government, 152. 
 
 "Richardson, op. cit., II, 70. 
 
 ""Journal of the Provisional Congress, 277, 290, 489, 547, 743, 820. 
 
 "Schwab, Confederate States of America, 246. 
 
 "Ibid., 245- 
 
 78 Gov. Brown, of Ga. Candler, Confederate Records of Ga., II, 115; De- 
 Bow's Review, XXXI, 536 ff. 
 
 "Ibid., XXXI, 400-404; 412 if. 
 
267] EARLY ECONOMIC POLICIES OF CONFEDERATE STATES 267 
 
 to make the South industrially independent of the North were 
 disposed, 1861, to look upon the war and the blockade as a bless- 
 ing in disguise. DeBow's Review reflected this disposition. In 
 July, when the people were confident of an early peace, DeBow 
 wrote : "Secession, disunion, will avail us nothing if we continue to 
 
 have intercourse with the North and to trade with her there is 
 
 danger, grave danger, that in making peace with the North we 
 shall restore the old Union in all save the name." 77 In September, 
 DeBow wrote: "The blockade will make us very independent at 
 the South, and thank God for it. Every branch of manufactures is 
 springing up. Our people need but this spur." 78 President Davis 
 gave countenance to such an idea in his message of November 
 18, 1861: "If they [people] should be forced to forego many of 
 the luxuries and some of the comforts of life, they will at least 
 have the consolation of knowing that they are daily becoming 
 more and more independent of the rest of the world." 79 As the war 
 progressed the sentiment in favor of restrictions on imports and 
 exports grew. 80 This was due chiefly, no doubt, to a desire to 
 coerce foreign governments to recognize the Confederacy and raise 
 the blockade; but in part it was the manifestation of a genuine 
 protectionist sentiment. 
 
 The early tariff and navigation policies of the Confederacy, then, 
 were determined mainly by the exigencies of the political situa- 
 tion; but there are sufficient indications that, could they have 
 been worked out in peace and independence, they would have been 
 adopted with expectations of great economic benefits to result there- 
 from. As to what the proper policies were, similar divisions would 
 have occurred as among the secessionists per se before secession. 
 The free traders would have won, at least temporarily; but the 
 sentiment for protective measures would have been much stronger 
 than the previous attitude of the Southern people on the tariff and 
 navigation policies of the United States alone would have led one 
 to expect. 
 
 When the cotton states seceded there was considerable discus- 
 sion there as to what states would ultimately join the Confederacy, 
 
 "XXXI, 12. See also XXXI, 396. 
 
 ^DeBow's Review, XXXI, 329, 518. 
 
 Annual Cyclopedia, I, 624 
 
 This subject is discussed in Schwab, Confederate States, 246-50. 
 
and as to what states it was desirable should join. There was by 
 no means a general desire that all the slaveholding states be in- 
 cluded in the new confederation or that only slaveholding states 
 be admitted to it. Consideration of other things than the best 
 method of preserving slave institutions affected judgments upon 
 the proper limits of the Confederacy. 
 
 There were many in the cotton states who preferred that the 
 border states remain with the old Union; and the number would 
 have been greater had there been assurance of peaceful secession. 81 
 Extreme advocates of reopening the slave trade, such as L. W. 
 Spratt, preferred giving up the border states to abandoning their 
 favorite project. 82 Extreme free traders and some of those who 
 believed the best chance of winning independence to lie in enlist- 
 ing the aid of Great Britain and France by commercial alliances, 
 feared the protectionist propensities of the people of the border 
 states. 83 Others believed that if the border states remained in the 
 Union their influence woujd preserve the peace between the Con- 
 federacy and the Union. 84 The party in favor of leaving out the 
 border states was quite strong in South Carolina. The great 
 majority in the cotton states, however, considered it highly im- 
 portant to win the border states. In addition to a feeling of kin- 
 ship and homogeneity of interests, there was a conviction on their 
 part that the best chance for peaceful secession lay in forming 
 a confederacy so strong that attack by the North would be hope- 
 less of success. 85 
 
 While many would have been glad to restrict the Confederacy 
 to the cotton states alone, a considerably larger number would 
 have welcomed accessions from the free states of the upper Mis- 
 
 81 Jones, Rebel War Clerk's Diary, I, 41; New York Herald, Nov. 20, 1860, 
 Washington Correspondence; Mar. 10, quoting Charleston Mercury, Mar. 6; ibid., 
 Mar. 26. 
 
 8J L. W. Spratt's letter to Hon. John Perkins, Moore, Rebellion Record, II, 
 Doc. pp. 357-65- 
 
 "G. B. Lamar to Howell Cobb, Mar. 25, 1861, Toombs, Stephens, Cobb Cor- 
 respondence. 
 
 * 4 The reference is to permanent policies. A greater number considered it good 
 policy for the border states to remain in the Union and hold out a hope of re- 
 construction for the purpose of warding off conflict with the Federal government 
 until the Confederate government should be firmly established. 
 
 "Address of Fulton Anderson, Mississippi commissioner, before the Virginia 
 Convention, in Journal of the State Convention [of Mississippi], 219. 
 
269] EARLY ECONOMIC POLICIES OF CONFEDERATE STATES 269 
 
 sissippi valley. The desire to strengthen the Confederacy against 
 its enemies lent support to the hope of Western accessions, as did 
 the wish to continue commercial relations with the Northwest 
 without the obstacles of customs lines. The commerce between 
 the West and South, it may be remarked again, was not considered 
 indicative of "colonial vassalage" as was that between the East and 
 South. There was yet surviving also an aspiration on the part of 
 Southern seaports to supplant Eastern cities in exporting and im- 
 porting for the upper Mississippi valley. The hope that Western 
 states would sooner or later find it to their advantage to join the 
 Confederacy was based chiefly upon an exaggerated idea of the 
 dependence of those states upon the Mississippi river as an outlet 
 for their commerce and of the value to the Western people of their 
 Southern trade. The Southerners did not feel the degree of hostil- 
 ity toward the people of the West that they felt for the Yankees; 
 and they believed the people of the West less strongly opposed to 
 slavery than the people of the East. The opposition to seeking or 
 accepting, should they be offered, accessions from the West was 
 based upon the conviction that it had been and should be the 
 object to establish a slaveholding confederacy; there should be no 
 continuance of the discord between slave states and free states. 
 In the Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas conventions ordinances 
 were introduced which looked to the formation of a confederacy 
 of slaveholding states only; but they were not adopted. 86 The 
 Permanent Constitution of the Confederate States gave congress 
 the power to admit new states by a two-thirds vote; it did not 
 prohibit the admission of free states. 87 Serious objections to this 
 clause were raised in the South Carolina Convention. President 
 Davis, in his inaugural address, called attention to the clause; 
 but he thought it to be the will of the people not to admit states 
 which did not have interests homogeneous with theirs. Vice-Pres- 
 ident Stephens expressed a similar idea in his "Corner Stone" 
 speech. 88 
 
 * 'Journal of the Convention of Georgia, 68; Journal of the Secession Conven- 
 tion of Texas, 1861, p. 53; Journal of the State Convention [of Mississippi], 33. 
 
 ""Stephens, Toombs, and Davis all favored leaving the door open. See Hull, 
 "The Making of the Confederate Constitution," So. Hist. Assoc., Publications, 
 IX, 284-85, letter of T. R. R. Cobb to his wife, Mar. 6, 1861; 290, Cobb's notes. 
 
 '"The Constitution contained a "three-fifths clause" also. When the matter 
 was being considered by the Provisional Congress, the three-fifths clause was 
 
2/O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [2/0 
 
 Without doubt the opinion was quite extensively held in the 
 border states and in the North at the time of the secession of the 
 cotton states that a chief object of secession was to reopen the 
 African slave trade. The opinion was perhaps justified by 
 knowledge of the agitation for renewal during the years 1856-1859. 
 There are strong reasons, however, for believing that the im- 
 portance of a desire to reopen the slave trade as a motive of 
 secession was considerably exaggerated, perhaps purposely so. 
 
 The discussion of reopening the slave trade of a few years 
 previous had made very clear that the people of the cotton states 
 were badly divided upon the question. Disunionists had tried, 
 and in a measure had succeeded, to silence the agitation because 
 they found that it weakened the disunion movement. The discus- 
 sion of those years had made it very clear, too, that the border 
 states were very strongly opposed to reopening the slave trade. 
 Disunionists understood also that the sentiment of European na- 
 tions was against it. Cogent arguments had been presented before 
 the election of 1860 to show the futility of expecting a Southern 
 confederacy to reopen it. The prospect of reopening the trade 
 was not held out to the electors as an inducement to go for seces- 
 sion during the brief campaign which preceded the election of 
 delegates to the secession conventions. On the contrary, leaders 
 early gave the assurance that it was not intended. 89 
 
 The conventions of the three most populous cotton states adopt- 
 ed resolutions against reopening by great majorities and without 
 hesitation. The Alabama Convention adopted, with only three 
 dissenting votes, a resolution declaring the people of Alabama op- 
 posed to the reopening of the African slave trade on grounds of 
 "public policy." The debate made it very clear that one of the 
 chief grounds of "public policy" was a desire to win the border 
 states. 90 The Mississippi Convention by a vote of 66 to 13 adopted 
 a resolution declaring it not to be the purpose or policy of the 
 
 dropped upon the motion of Keith, of South Carolina. South Carolina, Florida, 
 Mississippi, and Louisiana voted for the motion; Georgia, Alabama, and Texas 
 against. Upon motion of A. H. Stephens the vote was reconsidered, and Missis- 
 sippi reversed her vote. The states supporting the three-fifths provision, it may 
 be said, were those having the largest white population in proportion to black. 
 See Journal of the Provisional Congress, 861, 862, 889. 
 
 ""Southern Literary Messenger, XXXII, 73. 
 
 ""Smith, op. cit., 194-211; 228-265. 
 
271] EARLY ECONOMIC POLICIES OF CONFEDERATE STATES 2/1 
 
 people of Mississippi to reopen the slave trade. 91 The Georgia 
 Convention unanimously adopted an ordinance prohibiting the 
 African slave trade, and Georgia's commissioners to other states 
 gave the assurance that the people of their state had no design 
 to reopen it. 92 The Louisiana Convention, however, seemed to be 
 in favor of reopening the trade. A resolution declaring the people 
 of Louisiana opposed to reopening was rejected, 59 to 49; and 
 another instructing the delegates to Montgomery to resist any and 
 every attempt to reopen the slave trade and to secure a constitu- 
 tional provision prohibiting it, was rejected, 83 to 28. 93 An analysis 
 of these votes does not show that secessionists voted against them 
 in greater proportion than opponents of secession. The conven- 
 tions of South Carolina, Florida, and Texas seem to have taken 
 no action on the matter. 
 
 The Provisional Congress put a prohibition of the foreign slave 
 trade, except from the slaveholding states of the United States, 
 in both the Provisional and the Permanent Constitution, only 
 the South Carolina delegation voted, in each case, for a substitute 
 giving Congress the power to prohibit the trade. 94 There was 
 strong opposition in South Carolina to the prohibition. It was 
 strongly criticized in the South Carolina Convention. The 
 Charleston Mercury protested against the interdiction. 95 L. W. 
 Spratt was irreconcilable. Much of the South Carolina opposition 
 to the prohibitory clause, however, was made because it seemed to 
 admit that slavery was in itself an evil; many of those opposed 
 claimed not to favor the actual reopening of the foreign slave 
 trade. 96 The Louisiana Convention refused to specifically approve 
 the action of the Provisional Congress relative to the slave trade, 97 
 although it ratified both the Provisional and the Permanent Con- 
 stitution of the Confederate states. Outside these two states there 
 
 91 Journal of the State Convention [of Mississippi], 78, 84. 
 ^Journal of the Convention of Georgia, 59, 363, 369. 
 ^Official Journal of the Convention of Louisiana, 28, 29. 
 94 Journal of the Provisional Congress, 35, 868. 
 ""Mar. 15, 1861, quoted in New York Herald, Mar. 19. 
 9 'W. H. Russell, letter of April 30, 1861, on "The State of South Carolina," 
 in Moore, Rebellion Record, I, Doc. p. 314 ff. 
 
 * Official Journal of the Convention of Louisiana, 60, 61. 
 
272 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 8401861 
 
 seems to have been little dissatisfaction with the action of 
 Congress. Surely if a desire to reopen the foreign slave trade had 
 been a chief motive of secession, a constitutional prohibition of it 
 would not have been acquiesced in so readily. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 ECONOMIC CONSIDERATIONS AFFECTING THE 
 DECISION OF THE BORDER STATES 
 
 In the border states after the election of Lincoln, secessionists 
 tried to show that the election of Lincoln, the Personal Liberty laws 
 of Northern States, and the abolition agitation generally, justified 
 secession; and the opponents of secession refuted their arguments. 
 There were those who wished to make continuance in the Union 
 contingent upon securing further guarantees for slavery; there 
 were others who thought such guarantees unnecessary. The dis- 
 cussion of these points differed in no essential respect from the 
 debate of similar propositions in the cotton states. Also, secession- 
 ists per se and unconditional Unionists advanced arguments to 
 show that secession would affect advantageously or detrimentally 
 the material interests (other than slavery) of their respective 
 states. But it was understood from the start that the majority of 
 the people of the border states preferred to remain in the Union 
 if it could be saved intact; the initiation of secession must come 
 from the cotton states. Ardent secessionists, therefore, devoted 
 their first efforts after Lincoln's election to persuading the cotton 
 states to take the initiative. Within the border states secessionists 
 devoted their arguments chiefly to prove that it would be to the 
 interest or honor of their respective states to join a Southern 
 confederacy should one be formed or, after the event, that it was 
 to their interest or honor to join the Confederacy. 
 
 One alleged economic advantage of the secession of the border 
 states, especially those east of the mountains, was that it would 
 give an impetus to manufacturing. The moderate revenue duties 
 imposed by the Confederate government would amply protect 
 their manufacturing interests against Northern competition. In 
 a Southern confederacy the Northern slave states would take the 
 place of New England in manufacturing for the states farther 
 south. Thomas L. Clingman described the manufactures of North 
 Carolina, and said: "The result of only ten per cent duties in ex- 
 cluding products from abroad, would give life and impetus to 
 mechanical and manufacturing industry throughout the entire 
 South." 1 Senator Hunter, the author of the Tariff of 1857, 
 
 'Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., 4. 
 
 273 
 
2/4 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [274 
 
 promised the border states, especially Virginia, that in a Southern 
 confederacy they would take the place of New England and other 
 non-slaveholding states in manufacturing for the South. "Under 
 the incidental protection afforded by a tariff, laid without other 
 views than those for revenue purposes, there would be an un- 
 exampled development of her vast capacity for mining, manu- 
 facturing, agricultural and commercial production." 2 Randolph 
 Tucker, Attorney General of Virginia, advanced a similar argu- 
 ment. 3 The Georgia commissioners to Maryland, Delaware, and 
 North Carolina urged in behalf of secession that the cotton states 
 were agricultural, and the states named could manufacture foi 
 them; Said Mr. Hall, commissioner to North Carolina: "All 
 your material interests must be promoted by your speedy union 
 with us in the new government. The princely treasures which have 
 been hitherto lavished with a generous hand upon ungrateful New 
 England, will be poured into your lap."* 
 
 In the border states the free trade proclivities of the people of 
 the cotton states were feared, and Unionists played upon this fear. 
 They showed how free trade would injure manufacturing interests 
 in the South, and how the tariff would be an apple of discord in 
 a new confederacy as it had been in the old. Sherrard Clemens, 
 of western Virginia, said: "It would be for the interest of the coast 
 States to have free trade in manufactured goods; but how would 
 that operate on the mechanical and manufacturing industry of 
 Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware?" 5 Union- 
 ists also showed that free trade would mean direct taxation. The 
 Confederate Congress took cognizance of these speculations in 
 border states when framing their early tariff legislation and the 
 Provisional and the Permanent Constitution. 6 Their action was 
 not entirely reassuring, however, since it included placing a pro- 
 
 J Letter on the Crisis, Nov. 24, 1860, New York Herald, Dec. 6; De Bow's Re- 
 view, XXX, 115. 
 
 "In article, "The Great Issue: Our Relation to It," So. Lit. Mes., XXXII, 187. 
 
 4 Journal of the Convention of Georgia, 325, 330, 364. 
 
 'Speech in the House of Representatives, Jan. 22, 1861, in Moore, Rebellion 
 Record, I, Doc. p. 25. See also Kennedy, The Border States, their Power and 
 Duty, 23. 
 
 "H. P. Bell, Georgia Commissioner to Tennessee, reported that the adoption 
 of the policy of raising revenue by duties on imports had strengthened the seces- 
 sion movement in that state. Journal of the Convention of Georgia, 369. 
 
275] THE DECISION OF THE BORDER STATES 2/5 
 
 hibition of protective tariffs in the Permanent Constitution. John 
 P. Kennedy, of Maryland, referred to the belief of some that dis- 
 criminatory duties would be laid on Northern goods with a view to 
 the establishment of large manufacturing interests in the South. 
 The Constitution, he said, had already put a veto upon protec- 
 tion. Once peace should be established, the South would become 
 friends of the North, and would revert to free trade. Northern 
 manufacturers could compete with the world in free trade, but 
 Maryland's could not. 7 
 
 Much was said of the commercial advantages which would 
 accrue to cities of border states, particularly Norfolk, Richmond, 
 and Baltimore, from their inclusion in a Southern confederacy. 
 North Carolina had no seaport with prospects of becoming a New 
 York under the stimulus of free trade and direct trade; it was un- 
 derstood that the trade of the old North State would have to con- 
 tribute to the upbuilding of Charleston, Richmond, and Norfolk. 8 
 In Virginia, however, the commercial benefits of disunion were 
 well canvassed. They were being discussed at Norfolk and Rich- 
 mond shortly after Lincoln's election. 9 In the Union, said Tucker, 
 Norfolk and Richmond would still be dependencies of New York. 
 "With the command of the Southern trade, with her extended 
 Southern connections, with her commercial facilities, Virginia 
 would be the great commercial, manufacturing, and navigation 
 State of the South. Her bottoms would replace those of New Eng- 
 land her merchants and factors those of New York her factories 
 those of the free States." 10 The efforts being made in Virginia to 
 develop an extensive foreign trade by building railroads and canals 
 and making arrangements in Europe, were represented as "utterly 
 vain so long as our federal system continues." 11 Visions of com- 
 mercial grandeur in a Southern confederacy explain in a measure 
 the sympathy with secession manifested in Baltimore. Opponents 
 of secession, however, were able to show the baselessness of these 
 
 "'An Appeal to Maryland," Moore, Rebellion Record, I, Doc. pp. 368-74. 
 See also Journal and Proceedings of the Missouri Convention, Journal, 35, report 
 of the Committee on Federal Relations. 
 
 "Clingman in the Senate, Cong. Globe, 37 Cong., Exec. Sess. of Sen., 1476. 
 
 "Norfolk and Richmond Correspondence, New York Herald, Nov. 28, Dec. 
 22, 1860. 
 
 10 J. Randolph Tucker in article cited above. 
 
 "Willoughby Newton, National Intelligencer, Nov. 24, 1860. 
 
276 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [276 
 
 expectations. Even should Southern independence change the 
 course of Southern trade, which was highly problematical, what 
 had Baltimore to hope from the change? they asked. "Will she 
 import for the South, from the head of the Chesapeake, whilst 
 Norfolk lies on the margin of the sea at its mouth . . . ?" 12 Even 
 merchants of St. Louis were led to believe that, somehow, separa- 
 tion from the North would be conducive to her prosperity and 
 make her the metropolis of the valley. 13 
 
 But it was generally recognized that secession offered few or no 
 positive advantages to the western border states. "Disunion on 
 the slave line," said one, "carries such obvious and inevitable 
 destructive results to Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, that 
 no Utopian projector of a Southern Confederacy has ever yet had 
 the ingenuity to suggest even the plausible semblance of any 
 compensating benefit to those three States." 14 As far as material 
 interests other than slavery were concerned, the choice, in case of 
 a disruption of the Union, between going with the South and 
 remaining with the North was a choice between two evils. And in 
 each of the border states the decision was affected more powerfully 
 by considerations of which alternative would cause less disturbance 
 and injury to established relations of trade and intercourse than 
 it was by expectations of positive advantages to result from join- 
 ing a Southern confederacy. 
 
 North Carolina was very slow to secede. Her people were con- 
 servative. (The state was often referred to as the Rip Van Winkle 
 of the South.) Leaders of the secession movement had perfect 
 confidence, however, that North Carolina would go out if Virginia 
 did so; for, aside from questions of defense, the chief routes of 
 trade and travel lay across the boundaries of Virginia and South 
 Carolina. That portion of Virginia which lay between the moun- 
 tains and the Chesapeake had important commercial connections 
 with both the North and the South, but the routes of trade upon 
 which Virginia cities depended for their prosperity were to the 
 South and Southwest. The most important railroad, the Virginia 
 
 M John P. Kennedy, "An Appeal to Maryland," cited in note 7. 
 
 "Journal and Proceedings of the Missouri Convention, Proceedings, p. 86; 
 New York Herald, Dec. 17, 1860, remarks of Mr. Grow in a meeting of the 
 St. Louis Chamber of Commerce. 
 
 "South Carolina, Disunion, and a Mississippi Valley Confederacy, p. 6. 
 
277] THE DECISION OF THE BORDER STATES 277 
 
 and Tennessee, ran via the southwest corner of the state in the 
 direction of Chattanooga, whence connection was had with Nash- 
 ville, Memphis, and New Orleans. Another important road, the 
 Petersburg and Weldon, ran south, and conected with North and 
 South Carolina roads. The Shenandoah valley, however, and 
 much of Northern Virginia had been made commercially tributary 
 to Baltimore. 
 
 The commercial interests of Baltimore were an important 
 factor in the decision of Maryland. Baltimore was the commercial 
 center for central Maryland, much of northern Virginia, and to a 
 limited extent for the Susquehanna valley, in Pennsylvania. But 
 the most important connection was the Baltimore and Ohio rail- 
 road, which ran up the Potomac river to Cumberland and thence 
 to Wheeling, with a branch across western Virginia to Parkers- 
 burg. At Wheeling and Parkersburg connections were made with 
 the network of railroads in the old Northwest. The possession of 
 this western connection promoted Union sentiment in Baltimore, 
 especially because western Maryland and northwestern Virginia 
 showed strong Union tendencies. John P. Kennedy, of Maryland, 
 referred to the unfriendliness of eastern Virginia to Maryland's 
 internal improvement policy and the friendliness of the western 
 counties. "The true friends and allies of our policy are in the 
 West. At this moment that region is making its protest against 
 secession. It is a matter of deepest moment that we should wisely 
 appreciate this fact." 15 
 
 One explanation of the strong union sentiment of western Vir- 
 ginia was the identity of economic interests with neighboring por- 
 tions of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Maryland rather than 
 with eastern Virginia. The trade of western Virginia went not 
 across the mountains to Richmond and Norfolk but to Cincinnati, 
 Pittsburgh, and other cities on the Ohio river, and by the Bal- 
 timore and Ohio railroad to Baltimore. Governor Pierpont said 
 secession would be fatal to the material interests of West Virginia. 
 "Secession and annexation to the South would cut off every outlet 
 for our productions." 16 It is quite possible that the failure to com- 
 plete the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad and the James River and 
 
 "Moore, Rebellion Record, I, Doc. p. 373. 
 
 "Ibid., II, Doc. p. 158. Also Virginia Senate Journal and Documents, Extra 
 Session, 1861, p. 20, message of Governor Letcher. 
 
278 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [278 
 
 Kanawha canal before the Civil War was a deciding factor in the 
 division of Virginia on the secession issue. 17 A desire to unify the 
 state had been one of the motives of those who zealously sup- 
 ported these projects. It is possible, too, that, could the 
 Chesapeake and Ohio railroad have been completed and success- 
 fully operated before 1861, the ties which bound Virginia to the 
 Union would have been more difficult to break. It is not without 
 significance that the leading and most persistent advocate of a 
 Western connection, Joseph Segar, although a resident of the tide- 
 water region, declined to go with his state in secession, and became 
 an exile during the War. 18 
 
 In the case of Tennessee, going South would without doubt cause 
 the least disturbance and injury to established relationships of trade 
 and intercourse. 19 Most of the cotton of Tennessee went via Mem- 
 phis to New Orleans. A comparatively small amount went by rail to 
 Charleston and Savannah. Still less, perhaps, went up the Mis- 
 sissippi and by other routes to the factories of the Ohio valley. 
 Tennessee tobacco found an outlet chiefly by way of New Orleans. 
 Mules, hogs, grain, and whiskey from the farming districts were 
 sold to the planters of the cotton belt. With the opening of the 
 Virginia and Tennessee railroad, the export of grain by way of 
 Virginia began. Imports into Tennessee, however, came from all 
 directions from New Orleans, from Charleston and Savannah, 
 to some extent from Virginia, and largely, from Cincinnati, Louis- 
 ville, and St. Louis by rivers and railroads. It is noteworthy that 
 while east Tennessee was about as firmly bound to the South by 
 economic ties as any other part, yet no district in the South had a 
 population more loyal to the Union. The explanation lies else- 
 where than in such economic considerations as are here stated. 
 
 What has been said of the economic ties of Tennessee was true 
 in greater degree of Arkansas. There were no railroads. Arkansas 
 
 "A Richmond correspondent wrote, in New York Herald, Nov. 22, 1860: 
 ''The facilities of intercommunication between Western and Eastern Virginia, and 
 the frequent intercourses which result therefrom have procured a unity of sen- 
 timent between the people of both sections which no one could have anticipated 
 ten years ago .... They are breaking up the associations of the people of the 
 West with those of the border free states which were heretofore a necessity of 
 trade." 
 
 " 'Letter of Hon. Joseph Segar to a Friend in Virginia, etc. (pamphlet, 1862). 
 
 ie Cf. Fertig, Secession and Reconstruction in Tennessee, 13, 22. 
 
279] THE DECISION OF THE BORDER STATES 279 
 
 products found an outlet chiefly by river routes. Memphis and 
 New Orleans were the commercial centers. Governor Rector 
 stated the situation concisely. Arkansas was disposed to be con- 
 servative as were Maryland, Virginia, Missouri, Kentucky, and 
 Tennessee. But Arkansas was the natural ally of the cotton states. 
 She was bound to them by the institution of slavery. Missouri 
 might rid herself of it; Arkansas could not. "With the mart and 
 channel of Southern commerce in the possession and control of the 
 States of Louisiana and Mississippi, what would be the condition 
 of Arkansas should she determine to adhere to the Union?" 20 
 
 In Kentucky and Missouri it was generally recognized that as 
 far as economic interests other than slavery were concerned, the 
 states had much to lose and little to gain by seceding. Mr. Gamble, 
 later governor of Missouri, put the matter tersely in the Missouri 
 Convention: "Our interests as a State are bound up inseparably 
 with the maintenance of the Union; our sympathies, our personal 
 sympathies, in a large measure, are with the people of the South." 21 
 Most of the trade and intercourse of these states was with or by 
 way of the free states of the North. They were dependent upon 
 about the same markets as southern Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. 
 "It is true," wrote a pamphleteer, "that much the larger amount 
 of the trade of the Northwest tends to the East, and not to the 
 South, and if weighed in merely commercial scales the question 
 of connection, as between the two, would preponderate in favor 
 of the East." 22 The east and west railroads, built during the last 
 decade or so, had reversed the outlet and outlook of these and 
 other Western states; and of this the people were well aware. A 
 correspondent of John J. Crittenden wrote him: "General Scott's 
 plan would have worked twenty years ago. . . . but since rail- 
 roads have intervened there can be no division between the people 
 of the Mississippi valley north of Kentucky (including that state) 
 and all East and Northeast the 'railroad' tells the story." 23 Dele- 
 gates in the Missouri Convention said St. Louis owed her greatness 
 
 "Message to the Legislature, New York Herald, Dec. 29, 1860. 
 
 "Journal and Proceedings of the Missouri Convention, Proceedings, p. 67. 
 See also the Address of the Border State Convention to the people of the United 
 States, Moore, Rebellion Record, I, Doc. p. 352. ' 
 
 "South Carolina, Disunion, and a Mississippi Valley Confederacy, 14. 
 
 "C. J. Davis to J. J. Crittenden, Jan. I, 1861, /. /. Crittenden MSS. 
 
28O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [280 
 
 to the Union, and nothing should be done to blast her progress. 2 * 
 They also gave consideration to the prospect that the route of the 
 Pacific railroad would lie across the state. "And Missouri stands 
 in the pathway of nations; over her soil this pathway must run, 
 just as inevitably as fate." 25 
 
 But if economic and commercial ties made it almost a necessity 
 that Kentucky and Missouri remain with the North, their com- 
 mercial relations with the South were so valuable that the destruc- 
 tion of the Union would be a great blow to their prosperity. St. 
 Louis and Louisville each had a large Southern trade. Hemp and 
 tobacco were sent South. Mules and horses, bacon, pork, and 
 corn were shipped down the Mississippi or over the Louisville and 
 Nashville railroad or by other routes to the cotton and sugar 
 plantations. The people of the interior states, not only Kentucky 
 and Missouri but Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, etc. as well, whose pros- 
 perity depended so largely upon the internal trade with the South 
 and upon unimpeded access to the sea, felt that they had a greater 
 interest in the maintenance of the Union than the people of any 
 other section. Promises of the free navigation of the Mississippi 
 and transit of foreign imports and exports across Southern terri- 
 tory free of duty were too insecure and inadequate to reconcile 
 them to the establishment of a foreign power between them and 
 the Gulf. 26 Governor MaGomn, of Kentucky, who strongly sym- 
 pathized with the secessionists, said that the "mouth and sources 
 of the Mississippi river cannot be separated without the horrors of 
 Civil War." 21 Such facts as these help to explain why the people 
 of Kentucky and Missouri were so anxious for a compromise to 
 save the Union. 
 
 But considerations of benefits or injuries to economic interests 
 were by no means the only considerations determining the de- 
 cision of border states. Others may be briefly summarized. 
 
 The question of the relation of slavery to secession in the border 
 states presents several aspects peculiar to them. The people of 
 those states were almost unanimously opposed to reopening the 
 
 "Journal and Proceedings of the Missouri Convention, Proceedings, 14, 86. 
 
 x lbid., Proceedings, 122. 
 
 Annual Cyclopedia, I, 396. 
 
 "Great Debates in American History, V, 276. See also Coulter, E. M., "Ef- 
 fects of Secession upon the Commerce of the Mississippi Valley," Miss. Fal. 
 Hist. Rev., Ill, 276-300. 
 
28 1 ] THE DECISION OF THE BORDER STATES 28 1 
 
 African slave trade. Until it had been prohibited by the Consti- 
 tution of the Confederate States, the fear that it might be re- 
 opened had been one of the chief influences retarding the secession 
 movement. 28 
 
 The Constitution of the Confederate States gave congress the 
 power to prohibit the importation of slaves from the slaveholding 
 states of the United States. The provision was designed to bring 
 pressure to bear upon them to join the Confederacy; 29 and, al- 
 though as a coercive measure it was resented in the border states, 
 it undoubtedly served the purpose for which it was intended. This 
 was especially true in the case of Virginia, where it was feared the 
 slave population would soon become redundant if the outlet for 
 the surplus should be cut off. 30 
 
 Secessionists asserted that with seven slaveholding states out of 
 the Union the remaining would be in a hopeless minority. Con- 
 stitutional guarantees would no longer suffice to protect slavery 
 therein, for the free states, then being three-fourths of all the 
 states, could amend the Constitution as they might see fit, even to 
 abolish slavery altogether. "If we do not go with the cotton states," 
 said J. Randolph Tucker, "our $250,000,000 of slave property 
 would perish." The North would not tolerate it, and the South 
 would not buy. 31 Opponents, on the other hand, professed to 
 believe that secession would be destructive of slavery in the border 
 states. There would be no fugitive slave law; a fugitive who es- 
 caped across the line would be as surely beyond recovery as he 
 would be in Canada. In case of war the border states would be 
 invaded, and the slaves run off. Slave owners, in case of seces- 
 
 S8 Washington correspondence, New York Herald, Nov. 22, 1860; Raleigh cor- 
 respondence, Jan. 12, 1861; National Intelligencer, Nov. 27, 29, Dec. 29, 1860, 
 Feb. 19, 1861; So. Lit. Mes., XXXI, 472; XXXII, 73; Journal of the Convention 
 of Virginia, 67; speech of Sherrard Clemens, of Virginia, Moore, Rebellion Rec- 
 ord, I, Doc. p. 24; South Carolina, Disunion, and a Mississippi Valley Confed- 
 eracy, 4; Smith, History and Debates of the Convention of Alabama, 198, 
 208, 210, 251, 259; and see above, pp. 27072. 
 
 "Smith, History and Debates of the Convention of Alabama, 236, 252, 258. 
 Yancey would have prohibited by constitutional proviaion the importation of 
 slaves from slaveholding states which did not join the Confederacy. P. 252. 
 
 "Willoughby Newton, National Intelligencer, Nov. 24, 1860. 
 
 "So. Lit. Mes., XXXII, 187. 
 
282 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [282 
 
 sion, would sell or carry their slaves South. 32 The dangers were 
 particularly great in the case of Missouri, said Missourians, for 
 the state was almost surrounded by free states. 33 
 
 Among the most powerful arguments against secession in some 
 of the border states were the difficulties of defending them against 
 the North in case of war. The utter impossibility of defending 
 the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia against a power 
 which could control the sea and the Chesapeake was pointed out. 34 
 Central Maryland would either be at once overrun by Northern 
 troops, or would become a battle ground of the war. 35 The de- 
 fenseless position of the trans-Alleghany portion of Virginia was 
 a deterrent influence in that state; 36 and Unionists portrayed the 
 destruction war would bring to eastern Virginia, perhaps with little 
 effect. Kentuckians took account of the three free states which 
 lay on her long northern boundary. 37 Missouri Unionists said 
 secession could only lead to the military conquest of the state; for 
 it was surrounded on three sides by free states which must have a 
 highway across it. 38 Unionists demonstrated the folly of surrender- 
 ing a position in the heart of a vast nation for one upon the 
 frontier between two nations, which might find causes for frequent 
 conflicts. 39 To these arguments the secessionists could only reply, 
 before Sumter, that if all the slaveholding states would go out to- 
 
 ** Journal and Proceedings of the Missouri Convention, Journal, p. 35; Pro- 
 ceedings, p. 88; Joseph Holt's "Letter on the Pending Revolution," in Moore, 
 Rebellion Record, I, Doc. p. 290; Annual Cyclopedia, I, 442; So. Lit. Mess., 
 XXXII, 73, quoting M. F. Maury; Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., 139, speech 
 of Andrew Johnson. 
 
 "Journal and Proceedings of the Missouri Convention, Journal, 56, report of 
 the Committee on the Commissioner from Georgia; Proceedings, 88. 
 
 3< W. H. Collins, Third Address to the People oj Maryland. 
 
 ""Speech of Reverdy Johnson at Frederick, Md., National Intelligencer, May 
 II, 1861; message of Gov. Hicks, Moore, Rebellion Record, I, Doc. p. 159 ff. 
 
 "The Central Committee's address to the people of northwestern Virginia. 
 ibid., I, Doc. p. 328. 
 
 "Ibid., I, Doc. p. 354, 73, 75. 
 
 ^Journal and Proceedings of the Missouri Convention, Journal, 35, 52; Pro- 
 ceedings, 89. 
 
 "Moore, Rebellion Record, I, Doc. p. 289, 354; Collins, Third Address, etc.; 
 South Carolina, Disunion, and a Mississippi V alley Confederacy, 13. 
 
283] THE DECISION OF THE BORDER STATES 283 
 
 gether there would be no war; they would form a confederacy so 
 powerful that the North would not dare attack it. 40 
 
 Perhaps more effectual than the appeals to the fears of the peo- 
 ple of the border states were the appeals to their sympathies, pre- 
 judices, and kinship. They were urged not to stand by and permit, 
 or assist in, the subjugation of sister Southern states. The deter- 
 mination of the Federal government to maintain the Union by force 
 of arms furnished the occasion for the secession of four states. In 
 the cases of Virginia and Tennessee it is quite doubtful that seces- 
 sion would have occurred had the seceded states been permitted to 
 depart in peace. 41 This was the view taken by an element in the 
 South which wished to precipitate a conflict with the Federal gov- 
 ernment in order to insure the secession of the border states. 
 Resistance to coercion was the issue which won over conservative 
 Tennessee Whigs such as Bell, E. H. Ewing, Neil S. Brown, and 
 John Callander. 42 It was the issue upon which the secessionists 
 made their last stand in Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. 
 
 It is as difficult to identify the secessionists in the border states 
 as it was the secessionists in the cotton states. In three, the people 
 were given no opportunity to vote upon the issue until after the 
 outbreak of war. It is impossible to state just what the issue was 
 when the elections were held in the other five. It is certain that 
 in no state did the majority favor secession if the Union could be 
 preserved or reconstructed without war. In general, it would 
 seem, about the same classes came, sooner or later, to favor seces- 
 
 "So. Lit. Mess., XXXII, 182 ff.; Annual Cyclopedia, I, 730, quoting address 
 of ten Virginia congressmen; Letter of Hon. Joseph Segar to a Friend in Vir- 
 ginia, 28. 
 
 "Cf. Fertig, Secession and Reconstruction in Tennessee, 20 ff; Rhodes, His- 
 tory of the U. S., Ill, 344, 378, 383; Beverly Munford, Virginians Attitude toward 
 Slavery and Secession; J. M. Botts, The Great Rebellion, 205 ff. I do not name 
 North Carolina in this connection. A large vote was cast for secession in Jan- 
 uary, when it was still believed a reconciliation could be effected. The House of 
 Commons unanimously resolved in February that North Carolina would go with 
 the South if reconciliation failed. Annual Cyclopedia, I, 538. This was the opin- 
 ion of men in the cotton states. Report of Jacob Thompson, Commissioner from 
 Mississippi to North Carolina, Journal of the State Convention [of Mississippi], 
 185. But see J. G. de Roulhac Hamilton, Reconstruction in North Carolina, 21 ff.; 
 Wm. K. Boyd, "North Carolina on the Eve of Secession," Am. Hist. Assoc., Rept., 
 1910, p. 177. 
 
 "Moore, Rebellion Record, I, Doc. pp. 72, 137. 
 
284 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [284 
 
 sion which had supported the secession movements in the cotton 
 states, namely, the people of the planting sections and of the cities 
 and towns closely identified in interests with them. As in the cot- 
 ton states, also, the opposition centered in districts in which the 
 slave population was small in proportion to the white and in 
 which farming rather than planting was the chief occupation of 
 the people. Whigs, in general, were more adverse to secession 
 than Democrats of the same districts. 
 
 In North Carolina a convention election of January 28 resulted 
 in the choice of 85 constitutional Unionists and 35 secessionists. 
 The opinion seems to have been quite prevalent at the time that 
 the Union could yet be peacefully reconstructed; the issue, then, 
 was neither strictly Union versus disunion, nor remaining with the 
 North versus going with the South. Of 47 counties in the eastern 
 part of the state, where the slave population was a high per- 
 centage of the total in most localities, 17 chose secession delegates, 
 30 Union delegates. Of the counties which went for secession 4 
 were normally Whig, 13 Democratic; of the counties which re- 
 turned Union delegates 21 could be classed as Whig, 9 as Demo- 
 cratic. The secessionist counties were grouped pretty well in the 
 southeast corner of the state. Of 38 counties in the western part 
 of the state, in few of which the slaves constituted more than 25 
 per cent of the population, n selected secession, 27 Union dele- 
 gates. Of the secession counties 6 were normally Whig, 5 normally 
 Democratic; of the counties returning Union majorities, 23 were 
 W'hig, 4 Democratic. The counties which chose secession delegates 
 were well grouped along the South Carolina border. Wilmington 
 was strongly Democratic and secessionist; Wake county, in which 
 Raleigh was located, was normally Democratic but strongly 
 Unionist. 43 
 
 In the Tennessee convention election of February 9, 91.803 
 votes were cast for Union, 24,749 f r secession delegates. Virtually 
 all of the secession votes were cast in west and middle Tennessee, 
 but the majority in every section of the state was for Union. 44 
 At this time the people of Tennessee seem to have believed the 
 
 "I have used the classification of delegates made by H. M. Wagstaff, State 
 Rights and Political Parties in North Carolina, 134. 
 
 "Annual Cyclopedia, I, 677; New York Times, Feb. 15, 1861. 
 
285] THE DECISION OF THE BORDER STATES 285 
 
 Union could be peacefully reconstructed. 45 On June 8 the action of 
 the Tennessee Legislature declaring the state independent and 
 ratifying the Constitution of the Confederate States was submitted 
 to the people for their ratification. Overwhelming majorities in 
 west and middle Tennessee approved, but in east Tennessee the 
 vote was almost as strongly adverse. 46 The slave population of the 
 latter section was very small in comparison with the white. 
 
 An election was held in Virginia, February 4, to choose delegates 
 to a state convention. The result was considered a Union victory, 
 although the delegates could not be classified accurately as Union- 
 ists and secessionists. About 25 or 30 were considered uncondi- 
 tional secessionists. 47 No test vote was held in the Convention 
 upon a straight-out secession resolution until April 4, when such a 
 resolution was defeated by a vote of 90-45 , 48 This was long after 
 it had become apparent that the Union could not be reconstructed 
 by agreement, but before it became certain that coercion was the 
 policy of the government. All but 3 of the 45 votes for secession 
 were cast by delegates from counties now in Virginia; all but 14 by 
 delegates from east of the Blue Ridge. All of the counties with 
 large slave population lay in the eastern section; it was the plant- 
 ing section. Of the 45 votes in favor of secession, 15 were cast by 
 delegates from counties normally Whig; 30 by delegates from 
 counties normally Democratic. The delegates from Richmond and 
 Petersburg, but not the delegate from Norfolk, voted for secession. 
 After Sumter the convention decided for secession by a vote of 
 79 to 64. 49 The delegates from northwestern Virginia, now West 
 Virginia, voted almost solidly against secession; those from east 
 of the Blue Ridge voted almost as solidly for it; those from the 
 intervening region were divided. This division in the Convention 
 reflected quite accurately the divisions among the people, as shown 
 
 "Report of H. P. Bell, Georgia Commissioner to Tennessee, Journal of the 
 Convention of Georgia, 369; Fertig, Secession and Reconstruction in Tenn., 21. 
 
 "Moore, Rebellion Record, II, Doc. p. 169. 
 
 "Rhodes, History of the U. S., Ill, 309; Tyler, Letters and Times of the 
 Tylers, II, 621; Annual Cyclopedia, 1, 730. 
 
 48 'Journal of the Committee of the Whole [of the Convention of Virginia], 31. 
 
 "This is the test vote, not the vote upon the adoption of the ordinance of 
 secession. Journal of the Secret Session, p. 8. 
 
286 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [286 
 
 by the popular vote on the ordinance of secession of May 23 and 
 by the subsequent division of the state. 50 
 
 Maryland and Kentucky declared, finally, for the Union, but 
 there was strong sympathy in each with the secession movement. 
 In Maryland the East Shore and the western part were strongly 
 Unionist. Secession sentiment developed chiefly in the planting 
 region of central Maryland, and was reflected in Baltimore. In 
 Kentucky it was strongest in the Blue Grass region of the central 
 part and the tobacco counties of the southwest. The delegates in 
 the Missouri Convention who wished to resist coercion of the 
 seceded states by the Federal government represented, with a few 
 exceptions, counties along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. 51 
 There were the districts which had a considerable slave popula- 
 tion; there tobacco and hemp were grown. 
 
 The opposition of the non-slaveholding districts of the border 
 states to secession did not, in general, signify hostility to slavery. 
 It signified, however, a degree of indifference to the preservation 
 of slavery and a disposition to remember that slavery was not the 
 only important interest to be considered. This disposition found 
 frequent expression. For example, Mr. Brodhead, in the Missouri 
 Convention, said negro slavery was not the only great interest in 
 Missouri. Slaves comprised less than one-ninth of the taxable 
 property of the state. The white population was increasing four 
 times as rapidly as the slave. The slaves were engaged in raising 
 hemp and tobacco principally. There were mining, manufacturing, 
 and commercial interests, to carry on which white labor was re- 
 quired. If Missouri seceded, the white laborers would not come, 
 "when they know that, so far as our political power is concerned, 
 we shall be subjected to the cotton lords of South Carolina and 
 Louisiana." 52 Only in a few localities, such as St. Louis, which had 
 a large German and Northern population, was there an active hos- 
 tility to slavery. The Unionists of the border states entered the 
 war with the understanding that it was a war to preserve the 
 Union, not to destroy slavery. 
 
 Annual Cyclopedia, 737 ff., 743; Rhodes, III, 387. 
 B1 An analysis of several divisions of the Convention. 
 
 83 'Journal and Proceedings of Missouri Convention, Proceedings, 122. See also 
 ibid., Journal, 35; Moore, Rebellion Record, I, 374. 
 
28/J THE DECISION OF THE BORDER STATES 287 
 
 In two, at least, of the border states, Tennessee and Virginia, the 
 divisions of the people on the secession issue corresponded rather 
 closely to long standing sectional divisions. Tennessee sectionalism 
 was based largely upon social differences between the people of 
 the east and those of the middle and west. The people of east 
 Tennessee resented the political domination of the state by the 
 planting society. While they did not hate slavery, they believed 
 that the South should be a white man's country, and that one man 
 was as good as another. They were not disposed to fight in sup- 
 port of a movement which they conceived to have been inaugur- 
 ated to perpetuate and establish more firmly an aristocratic social 
 system. Andrew Johnson was a typical representative of east Ten- 
 nessee. "We find ..." said he, "that the whole idea is to es- 
 tablish a republic based upon slavery exclusively, in which the great 
 mass of the people are not to participate." And again, "We hold 
 [in east Tennessee] that it is upon the intelligent free white 
 people of the country that all governments should rest, and by 
 them all governments should be controlled." 53 The old sectional 
 division in Virginia had grown in part out of social differences 
 similar to those in Tennessee, in part from separation by geo- 
 graphical barriers. Politically it had found expression in disputes 
 over legislative apportionment, appropriations for and location of 
 state aided internal improvements, and the apportionment of tax- 
 ation. It is significant that the Virginia Convention submitted to 
 the people of the state along with the secession ordinance, an 
 amendment to the constitution providing that "Taxation shall be 
 equal and uniform throughout the commonwealth, and all prop- 
 erty shall be taxed in proportion to its value, . . . " 54 The pur- 
 pose of the amendment was, of course, to insure the taxation of 
 slaves at the same rate as other property; its proposal was a be- 
 lated effort of the East to conciliate the West. The sectionalism 
 of North Carolina was not so pronounced, but was not without 
 bearing upon the alignment upon the secession issue. In North 
 Carolina, too, the ad valorem issue was agitating the state upon 
 the eve of secession. It is not possible within the limits of this 
 
 "Speech in the Senate, July 21, 1861, Moore, Rebellion Record, II, Doc. p. 
 425-6. See also speech of Dec. 19, 1860, Cong. Globe, 36 Cong., 2 Sess., 140 ff. 
 
 "Journal of the Convention of Virginia, 106, 134, 150; Ordinances Adopted by 
 the Convention of Virginia in Secret Session, p. 21. 
 
288 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 184O-1 86 1 [288 
 
 study to develop the subject of the relation of long standing sec- 
 tional divisions within several Southern states to the divisions of 
 the people upon the question of secession; but no study of the 
 reasons for the attitude taken by the people in the largely non- 
 slaveholding districts would be complete which does not take them 
 into account. 
 
 The decision of the border states was slowly and carefully made. 
 It was determined largely by fears for slavery, feelings of sym- 
 pathy and kinship with the people of the cotton states, and con- 
 siderations of their position in case of war; but the people of the 
 border states were also powerfully influenced in their decision by 
 their judgments as to the probable effect of secession upon the 
 economic interests, slavery aside, of the localities involved. From 
 this viewpoint, going with the South or remaining with the Union 
 appeared as the choice of two evils. Only in eastern Virginia and 
 in North Carolina did the people of the border states share to any 
 considerable extent the expectations of great material benefits to 
 follow secession and the formation of a Southern confederacy 
 which the people of the cotton states entertained. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 
 
 In this study we have considered some of the economic aspects 
 of Southern sectionalism during about twenty years prior to the 
 Civil War. This period does not by any means include the begin- 
 ning of such sectionalism. 
 
 During this period the people of the South, generally, were 
 aware of a disparity between the North and South to the advan- 
 tage of the former in material development population, wealth, 
 commerce, industry, financial strength, distribution of the comforts 
 and conveniences of life. Although at intervals the Southern 
 people were inclined to be satisfied with their degree of prosperity, 
 their economic organization and methods, and the progress of their 
 section, in general they felt that they did not enjoy the prosperity 
 and were not making the material progress that the South's nat- 
 ural resources and their own efforts entitled them to expect. 
 This dissatisfaction was not uniformly distributed throughout the 
 South. It was greatest in the older states. It developed in the 
 newer states only as conditions there approximated those of the 
 older. It was greater in the planting than in the farming regions. 
 It was greatly augmented because a political struggle between the 
 sections, over slavery especially, called sharp attention to the 
 relationship between material progress and political power. 
 
 The "decline" of the South was attributed to various causes by 
 those who perceived it. One group persistently emphasized the 
 alleged unequal operation of the Federal government upon the 
 economic development of the sections. Somewhat earlier than the 
 period of this study, Southern leaders, particularly of the planting 
 regions, had come to hold widely different views from their col- 
 leagues in other sections as to the proper revenue, expenditure, 
 and commercial policies to be followed by the Federal government. 
 They opposed high tariffs, heavy governmental expenditures, aid 
 to private enterprises, bounties, and special favors of all kinds, 
 because they thought their section was not equally benefited 
 thereby. As years went by, and they were not always able to 
 make their views prevail, they, of the Calhoun school, came to at- 
 tribute the decline of the South to policies which they had opposed. 
 This group was strong in the cotton states. 
 
 289 
 
290 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM,l84O-l86l 
 
 Others attached comparatively little significance to governmental 
 reactions upon economic development; they attributed Southern 
 "decline" chiefly to a too exclusive devotion to undiversified agri- 
 culture attended, as it was, by industrial, commercial, and financial 
 dependence upon the North and Europe, and by unsatisfactory 
 methods of marketing and buying. These conditions had come 
 about in a natural way; but because of them the Southern people 
 produced wealth while others enjoyed it. Men of this class would 
 have diversified agriculture; they pleaded for the introduction of 
 cotton manufactures; they proposed plans for securing direct trade 
 with Europe; they dreamed of railroad connections with the 
 Northwest and with the Pacific which would rehabilitate Southern 
 cities; they advocated various measures of a protective character 
 on the part of state and local governments; they asked that sec- 
 tional patriotism and pride take the form of developing the 
 economic resources of the South. 
 
 These classes, generally, agreed that slavery was not the cause 
 of the lagging prosperity of the section. They agreed, slaveholders 
 and non-slaveholders, that slavery, the plantation system, and the 
 production of great staples must remain fundamental features of 
 the South's economic system. Some of them, to be sure, were 
 aware that slavery had off-setting disadvantages in that it re- 
 stricted the opportunities of white labor, deprived it of leadership, 
 and, consequently, deprived the South of its full services, and 
 acted as a bar to immigration. There was a class, also, in the 
 South which opposed slavery, namely, non-slaveholders of the 
 laboring class who came into competition with slave labor; but 
 the class was only beginning to be numerous and vocal. 
 
 Not economic reasons only explain the determination of the 
 great majority to maintain the institution of slavery. Aside from 
 the fact that it constituted a vast vested interest, that it was es- 
 tablished in the social organization, and social prestige attached 
 to the owners of big plantations, was the firm conviction that a 
 superior and an inferior race could not live side by side (the 
 negroes were here to stay) without the greatest social disorders 
 unless the inferior race were in bondage. Some of the staunchest 
 defenders of the institution refused to support plans for the 
 economic regeneration of the South, because they feared that, if 
 successful, they would prove incompatible with the continued se- 
 
291] SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 2QI 
 
 curity of slavery. The majority, however, were either unaware of 
 the incompatibility or unafraid. Like their fellow Americans in 
 the other sections, most Southerners were not seeking a static 
 society. They were willing to adapt themselves to changing cir- 
 cumstances. And, while progress and change may have been less 
 rapid in the ante-bellum South than elsewhere in the Union, it is 
 an error to regard Southern society as stationary. 
 
 Those who emphasized the unequal operation of the Federal 
 government as a cause for Southern decline came early to believe 
 that independent nationality would result in great material ad- 
 vantages. Many of those who advanced the various plans for re- 
 generation mentioned above came eventually to believe that they 
 could better be carried into effect in an independent republic. 
 These views presented repeatedly to the Southern people con- 
 vinced the great majority in the cotton states that, while secession 
 might not be attended by any vast positive benefits, it would at 
 least not be attended by any serious disadvantages; thus were 
 they reconciled to a step which they were convinced was neces- 
 sary to preserve slavery and maintain Southern honor. When the 
 auspicious occasion came, the cotton states promptly went out of 
 the Union. The people of the border states hesitated. With them 
 slavery was not such a predominating interest. From an economic 
 point of view they stood to lose whether they went out or stayed 
 in. But confronted by a fait accompli, and war on one side or the 
 other, they went with misgivings, where their sympathies, associa- 
 tions, or interests chiefly lay. 
 
 Now what basis had Southern sectionalism in actual economic 
 facts? There can be no doubt of the divergent economic interests 
 of the sections; one section was growing less rapidly in wealth and 
 numbers, and was economically dependent upon the other. The 
 divergence dated far back, even into colonial times. Fundamental 
 causes lay in geography, climate, soil, and natural resources. Less 
 important were conditions of settlement. The South had received 
 a smaller proportion of thrifty, sturdy, middle class stock than 
 had the North. 
 
 Slavery was both effect and cause. In days when slavery was 
 considered no evil, natural conditions (soil and climate) explain 
 why slavery was established and flourished chiefly below New 
 Jersey. Once established, however, slavery, notwithstanding its 
 
292 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [292 
 
 great services in clearing forests, draining marshes, and growing 
 great crops of staple products, was responsible for or tended to 
 perpetuate some of the evils of the South's economic system. It 
 tended to keep the South exclusively agricultural and to confine 
 agriculture largely to the production of a few great staples, because 
 it was best adopted to such an organization. It was largely re- 
 sponsible for a great mass of undirected, semi-productive white 
 labor in the South. 
 
 But, not too much should be attributed to slavery. The South 
 was vast in area; population spread easily and, perforce, remained 
 sparse. In 1860 the oldest portions of the South still possessed 
 characteristics of a frontier, and their business methods were ap- 
 propriate thereto; they were still in the exploitation stage. The 
 South was farther from Europe than the North. Her harbors were 
 not so good as those of the North. Her mineral resources were 
 less extensive and less accessible. Her soil, except in localities, was 
 less productive than that of the Northwest. Her climate was more 
 enervating than that of other sections. 
 
 The differing views of governmental policies grew out of differ- 
 ent economic conditions. Northern states could be benefited by 
 protective duties; they demanded them and at times secured them. 
 There were more Northern enterprises and projects which were felt 
 to be entitled to government aid; insistent demands were made for 
 such aid and frequently secured. More Federal officials were re- 
 quired in the North; supplies and equipment for government needs 
 could be more readily secured there; consequently most of the 
 governmental expenditures were made in the North. There was 
 justice in the Southern complaint that the South paid more in the 
 form of taxes than she received back in disbursements, and that 
 the difference was a drain upon Southern resources. But in those 
 days Federal taxes were comparatively light, and governmental 
 expenditures comparatively small; the operation of the Federal 
 government would seem to have been of small consequence in de- 
 termining the economic condition of sections as compared with 
 other great economic forces of the time. 
 
 What shall be said of the remedies for Southern "decline?" 
 Much more might have been accomplished than was had the plans 
 advanced by the progressives been earnestly and intelligently car- 
 ried out either by the state and local governments or the cooper- 
 
293] SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 293 
 
 ative efforts of private citizens; for examples, commercial educa- 
 tion, better banking laws, improved methods of marketing cotton. 
 But the remedies lay chiefly in time and the natural order of 
 events. Greater density of population would have come. Slavery 
 or no slavery, capital would have come in or would have ac- 
 cumulated out of the profits of agriculture. White labor must have 
 been put to work, first, perhaps, in cotton culture and later in 
 other industries. Cotton manufactures would have sprung up as 
 they promised to do in the forties, and as they did a few decades 
 later. The Pacific railroad would have been built. The quantity 
 of commerce would have become great enough to warrant direct 
 trade with Europe. The development of the section's forest and 
 mineral resources would have begun. But the South did not wait 
 for time and the natural order of events. It is perhaps idle to 
 speculate in regard to the economic future of the Southern states 
 if they could have become an independent confederacy without 
 war threatening national integrity. There is little likelihood that 
 secession would have proved the magic proponents prophesied; 
 about the same progress would have been made as in the Union. 
 Slavery would have endured somewhat longer. The foreign slave 
 trade would not have been reopened. Some industries might have 
 been artificially stimulated. A measure of financial independence, 
 as far as the actual transaction of business was concerned, would 
 probably have been secured. But the economic advantages would 
 have been off-set by the disadvantages of increased cost of govern- 
 ment and the barriers imposed upon trade with states of the 
 Union, with which trade had formerly been free. 
 
 The conditions were not right and the means not present for 
 the formation among the Southern people of a thorough under- 
 standing of the great economic problems of the section. The press 
 was poor and almost wholly partisan. DeBow's Review, after its 
 founding in 1846, contained almost everything of value written 
 on the economic conditions and problems of the South. The 
 volumes were of very unequal merit; many of the articles were 
 flimsy in character. DeBow himself, while a brilliant journalist, 
 possessed of a vast fund of information, and a man of prodigious 
 industry, was neither a man of broad grasp nor an impartial 
 seeker after truth. Few books of value on economic subjects were 
 published. Much as was said and written on the slavery ques- 
 
294 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840- 1 86 1 [294 
 
 tion, for example, no considerable study of the economics of 
 slavery of any value was produced. Too much that was written 
 was based upon insufficient information and was speculative in 
 character. A few men apparently did the thinking on economic 
 questions for the vocal part of the population. The reading public 
 was small; probably the thinking public also. The platform and 
 the stump could and did contribute little to an understanding of 
 economic problems. The schools had not yet become centers of 
 study and research along economic lines, especially. Men of ex- 
 perience in large business affairs were comparatively too few, and 
 seem to have written and talked too little. Much of the population 
 was volatile and excitable. The bitter sectional quarrel over slav- 
 ery was not conducive to calm thinking. After all, however, the 
 remarkable thing is not how much intelligent consideration the 
 Southern people gave to their economic conditions and problems 
 but how little. Northerners and Englishmen contributed some- 
 thing to an understanding of these matters, but too much that they 
 wrote was unsympathetic in character. 1 
 
 And the Northern people as a whole did not have that sympa- 
 thetic understanding of the complex social and economic problems 
 of the South which was requisite to peace and amity between the 
 sections and the eventual solution of those problems. The problems 
 and interests of the sections were so different that serious conflict 
 could be avoided only by mutual understanding, sympathy, and 
 forbearance. The sections drifted into a war which was not inev- 
 itable. 
 
 Notable for either breadth of understanding or sympathetic treatment or 
 both were: Kettell, Southern Wealth and Northern Profits; Olmsted, A Journey 
 in the Seaboard Slave States; A Journey through Texas; A Journey in the Back 
 Country; The Cotton Kingdom; Weston, The Progress of Slavery in the United 
 States; Russell, North America (English). 
 
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297] 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 TABLE III REGISTERED AND ENROLLED AND LICENSED TONNAGE 
 IN STATES AND DISTRICTS OF THE UNITED STATES, 1793-1860* 
 
 STATE 
 
 1793 
 
 1810 
 
 CITY 
 
 1837 
 
 1850 
 
 1860 
 
 Massachusetts (^ egi f ^ 
 [Enrolled^ 
 
 135,599 
 51,402 
 
 352,806 
 107,260 
 
 Boston . . . 
 
 127,955 
 73,049 
 
 270,510 
 50,177 
 
 411,410 
 
 52,802 
 
 New York... /Registered 
 [Enrolled 
 
 45,355 
 13,986 
 
 188,556 
 83,536 
 
 New York 
 
 191,322 
 219,549 
 
 44i ,336 
 394,230 
 
 838,449 
 625,551 
 
 Pennsylvania /Registered 
 [Enrolled 
 
 60,924 
 
 4,579 
 
 109,628 
 14,255 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 39,156 
 42,592 
 
 64,205 
 142,292 
 
 67,094 
 174,642 
 
 Maryland... /Registered 
 [Enrolled 
 
 26,792 
 9,512 
 
 90,045 
 46,247 
 
 Baltimore . 
 
 34,954 
 32,153 
 
 90,669 
 58,349 
 
 114,185 
 85,923 
 
 Virginia {^f^ 
 [Enrolled 
 
 23,997 
 12,093 
 
 45,339 
 31,284 
 
 Norfolk . . . 
 
 1,864 
 
 10,857 
 
 10,542 
 13,592 
 
 10,452 
 15,934 
 
 No. Carolina. /Registered 
 [Enrolled 
 
 10,167 
 2,764 
 
 26,472 
 10,562 
 
 Wilmington 
 
 6,551 
 
 2,o88 
 
 9,123 
 6,074 
 
 13,372 
 io,335 
 
 So. Carolina.. / R ^tered 
 [Enrolled 
 
 12,998 
 2,058 
 
 43,354 
 9,449 
 
 Charleston 
 
 8,226 
 12,957 
 
 15,377 
 17,915 
 
 38,490 
 26,934 
 
 Georgia.. . /Registered 
 \Enrolled 
 
 1,568 
 283 
 
 12,405 
 3,107 
 
 Savannah . 
 
 6,493 
 6,414 
 
 io,437 
 9,293 
 
 27,560 
 12,280 
 
 Alabama.. . /Registered 
 [Enrolled 
 
 
 
 Mobile . . . 
 
 2,733 
 7,585 
 
 7,403 
 i6,753 
 
 22,442 
 30,314 
 
 Orleans Ty... /Roistered 
 
 [Enrolled 
 
 
 11,386 
 1,326 
 
 New Orleans 
 
 3i,383 
 60,992 
 
 86,668 
 165,040 
 
 132,199 
 96,043 
 
 Timothy Pitkin, Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States, pp. 397 ff. ; Com- 
 merce and Navigation, 1838, p. 308; 1850, Statement No. 15; 1860, p. 658. 
 tEngaged in the foreign trade. 
 {Including licensed. Engaged in the coastwise trade, etc. 
 
'*" te in*, 
 
 iff" i -^ * 
 
 298 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840-1 86 1 [298 
 
 TABLE IV CONSUMPTION OF COTTON IN 
 
 THE UNITED STATES, 1840-1861* 
 
 (Bales of 500 Ibs. each) 
 
 Year 
 
 North, includ- 
 ing Maryland 
 
 South and 
 West 
 
 South, includ- 
 ing Virginia 
 
 West, includ- 
 ing Kentucky 
 
 1839-1840 
 
 286,193 
 
 59,000 
 
 
 " 
 
 1840-1841 
 
 282,288 
 
 70,000 
 
 
 
 1841-1842 
 
 258,850 
 
 64,000 
 
 
 
 1842-1843 
 
 315,782 
 
 70,000 
 
 
 
 1843-1844 
 
 336,057 
 
 71,000 
 
 
 
 1844-1845 
 
 374,5o6 
 
 80,000 
 
 
 
 1845-1846 
 
 411,810 
 
 85,000 
 
 
 
 1846-1847 
 
 417,476 
 
 91,000 
 
 
 
 1847-1848 
 
 523,892 
 
 92,152 
 
 49,652 
 
 42,500 
 
 1848-1849 
 
 503,201 
 
 130,000 
 
 95,000 
 
 35,ooo 
 
 1849-1850 
 
 465,702 
 
 137,012 
 
 109,512 
 
 27,500 
 
 1850-1851 
 
 386,429 
 
 99,185 
 
 87,185 
 
 12,000 
 
 1851-1852 
 
 588,322 
 
 111,281 
 
 95,281 
 
 16,000 
 
 1852-1853 
 
 650,393 
 
 153,332 
 
 123,332 
 
 30,000 
 
 1853-1854 
 
 592,284 
 
 144,952 
 
 106,952 
 
 38,000 
 
 1854-1855 
 
 57i,H7 
 
 135,295 
 
 109,295 
 
 26,000 
 
 1855-1856 
 
 633,027 
 
 137,712 
 
 95,712 
 
 42,000 
 
 1856-1857 
 
 665,718 
 
 154,218 
 
 116,218 
 
 38,000 
 
 1857-1858 
 
 452,185 
 
 H3,377 
 
 104,377 
 
 39,000 
 
 1858-1859 
 
 760,218 
 
 167,433 
 
 122,433 
 
 45,000 
 
 1859-1860 
 
 792,521 
 
 185,522 
 
 136,522 
 
 49,000 
 
 1860-1862 
 
 650,357 
 
 193,383 
 
 141,383 
 
 52,000 
 
 *The table was made from the estimates of the New York Shipping List, as quoted in 
 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, and E. J. Donnell's History of Cotton, and those of C. F. 
 M'Cay, of Georgia, in Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXIII, 601. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 PUBLIC DOCUMENTS: FEDERAL AND CONFEDERATE 
 
 The Sixth Census of the United States: 1840. 
 
 The Seventh Census of the United States: 1850. 
 
 DE Bow, J. D. B. Statistical View of the United States . . . Being a Compendium 
 
 of the Seventh Census . . . Washington, 1854. 
 
 KENNEDY, Jos. C. G. Preliminary Report on the Eighth Census. Washington, 1862. 
 The Eighth Census: 1860. 
 
 The Congressional Globe, 26th Congress to the 36th Congress. 
 Congressional Documents, 26th Congress to the 36th Congress. 
 COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS. Annual Reports, Agriculture, 1849-1861. 
 REGISTER OF THE TREASURY. Reports ... on the Commerce and Navigation of 
 
 the United States . . . , vols. for 1831-1836; 1837-1843; 1845-1847; 1849-1861. 
 
 U. S. Statutes at Large, 26th Congress to the 36th Congress. 
 MATHEWS, JAMES M. The Statutes at Large of the Provisional Government of the 
 
 Confederate States of America, from the Institution of the Government, February 8, 
 
 1861, to its Termination, February 18, 1862. . . . Richmond, 1864. 
 Journal of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America (U. S. 
 
 Senate Documents, 58 Cong., 2 Sess., No. 234, Vol. I). 
 
 PUBLIC DOCUMENTS: STATE AND LOCAL 
 
 "Journal, Acts, and Proceedings of a General Convention of the State of Virginia, 
 Assembled at Richmond . . . 1850 .... Richmond, 1850. 
 
 Journal of the Acts and Proceedings of a General Convention of the State of Virginia, 
 Assembled at Richmond . . . 1861. Richmond, 1861. 
 
 Virginia House Journal and Documents, 1840-1861. Richmond. 
 
 Virginia Senate Journal and Documents, 1840-1861. Richmond. 
 
 Acts of the General Assembly of Virginia (published annually and biennially). 
 Richmond. 
 
 The Convention of the People of North Carolina, Held on the 2Oth Day of May, A. D., 
 
 1861. Raleigh, 1862. 
 
 Journal of the State Convention of South Carolina, together with the Resolutions and 
 
 Ordinances. Columbia, 1852. 
 Journal of the Convention of the People of South Carolina, Held in 1860, 1861, and 
 
 1862, together with Ordinances, Reports, and Resolutions, etc. Columbia, 1862. 
 Report of the Commissioners Appointed at the Last Session of the General Assembly 
 
 to Inquire into the feasibility of improving the Channel of the Bar ... of 
 
 Charleston .... Columbia, 1852. 
 Report: Containing a Review of the Proceedings cf the City Authorities from the 4th 
 
 September, 1837, to the 1st August, 1838. ... By Henry L. Pincknev, Mayor. 
 
 Charleston, 1838. 
 A Digest of the Ordinances of the City of Charleston . . . 1783 to . . . 1844, to 
 
 which are annexed the acts of tht Legislature which relate exclusively to the City of 
 
 Charleston. 
 
 Ordinances of the City of Charleston from . . . August, 1844, to ... Septem- 
 ber, 1851; and the Acts of the General Assembly relating to the City of Charleston. 
 
 1854. 
 
 299 
 
3OO ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [jOO 
 
 Ordinances of the City of Charleston , . . 1854, to the 1st December, 1859, and the 
 
 Acts of the General Assembly . . . compiled by John R. Horsey . . . 1859. 
 Journal of the Georgia Convention held in Milledgeville in 1850. Milledgeville, 1850. 
 Journal of the Public and Secret Proceedings of the Convention of the People of Georgia, 
 
 held in Milledgeville and Savannah in 1861, together with the ordinances adopted. 
 
 Milledgeville, 1861. 
 
 HOTCHKISS, W. A. Codification of the Statute Law of Georgia. Savannah, 1845. 
 CANDLER, A. D. The Confederate Records of the State of Georgia, Vols. I-III. 
 
 Atlanta, 1909-1910. 
 Ordinances and Constitution of the State of Alabama, with the Constitution of the 
 
 Provisional Government and of the Confederate States of Amercia. Montgomery, 
 
 1861. 
 
 Acts of the General Assembly of Alabama, 1843-1860 (published annually and bi- 
 ennially). Tuscaloosa and Montgomery. 
 The Code of Ordinances of the City of Mobile,with the Charter and an Appendix. . . . 
 
 By the Eon, Alexander McKinstry. 1859. 
 Journal of the Convention of the State of Mississippi, and the Act calling the same; 
 
 . . . (1850). Jackson, 1851. 
 Journal of the State Convention and Ordinances and Resolutions adopted in January, 
 
 1861. . . . Jackson, 1861. 
 Proceedings and Debates of the Convention of Louisiana which assembled at . . . 
 
 New Orleans, January 14, 1845. New Orleans, 1 845. 
 Official Journal of the Proceedings of the Convention of the State of Louisiana. New 
 
 Orleans, 1861. 
 
 Acts of the Legislature of Louisiana, 1840-1861 (published annually). New Orleans. 
 Digest of the Ordinances and Resolutions of the Second Municipality and of the General 
 
 Council of the City of New Orleans, applicable thereto, January, 1848. By 
 
 F. R. Southmayd, Sec'y- 
 TEXAS LIBRARY AND HISTORICAL COMMISSION. Journal of the Secession Convention 
 
 of Texas, 1861. Austin, 1912. 
 
 MAGAZINES AND PERIODICALS 
 
 The American Review: a Whig Journal. . . . 16 vols. New York, 1845-1852. 
 
 DeBow's Commercial Review of the South and West. 38 vols. New Orleans, 1846-1870. 
 
 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review. 63 vols. New York, 1 839-1 870. 
 
 Niks' Weekly (National} Register (Vols. L-LXXV). 75 vols. Baltimore and Phila- 
 delphia, 1811-1849. 
 
 The Southern Literary Messenger. 36 vols. Richmond, 1834-1864. 
 
 The Southern Quarterly Review. 26 vols. Charleston, etc., January, 1 842 to January, 
 1856. 
 
 The United States Magazine and Democratic Review. 43 vols. Washington, 1838-1859. 
 
 The Western Journal and Civilian. 13 vols. St. Louis, 1848-1855. 
 
 NEWSPAPERS 
 
 New York Herald, January-June, 1854; July-December, 1857; January-June, 1859; 
 
 July, i86o-June, 1861. 
 New York Times, 1861. 
 Baltimore Sun, July, :852-June, 1853. 
 
3Ol] BIBLIOGRAPHY 3OI 
 
 Daily National Intelligencer (Washington), 1844-1846; 1850-1851; 1856; 1860-1861. 
 
 Richmond Daily Whig, 1851. 
 
 Richmond Daily Enquirer, 1838, 1856, 1857. 
 
 Richmond Semi-Weekly Enquirer, 1850, 1852-1854. 
 
 Raleigh Register, 1839-1840. 
 
 Charleston (S. C.) Daily Courier, July, i837-June, 1839; 1854-1856. 
 
 Charleston Mercury, July-December, 1838; 1858-1859. 
 
 Savannah Daily Republican, January-June, 1837; January-June, 1838; January- 
 
 June, 1839; July-December, 1856. 
 Montgomery Daily Confederation, 1858-1859. 
 New Orleans Picayune, January-June, 1858. 
 New Orleans Commercial Bulletin, January-June, 1855. 
 New Orleans Delta, 1858. 
 New Orleans True Delta, 1859. 
 Memphis Daily Eagle, 1845. 
 Memphis Eagle and Enquirer, 1853. 
 Memphis Daily Appeal, January-June, 1853. 
 Republican Banner and Nashville Whig, July, i856-December, 1857. 
 
 PAMPHLETS 
 
 MALLORY, FRANCIS. Report on the Commercial Condition of the Commonwealth of 
 
 Virginia. Presented to the Commercial Convention convened in Richmond, June 
 
 J3> 1838- Petersburg, 1838. 
 Convention of Merchants and Others for the Promotion of Direct Trade, 1839. Charles- 
 
 ton, 1839. 
 DICKSON, SAMUEL H. Address delivered at the Opening of the New Edifice of the 
 
 Charleston Apprentices' Library Society, January /J, 1841. . . . Charleston, 
 
 1841. 
 Southern State Rights, Free Trade and Anti-Abolition Tract No. I. (Includes Letter 
 
 of Langdon Cheves; Jackson's Letter on Texas; J. Q. Adams's Disunion Letter, 
 
 etc.) Charleston, 1844. 
 A Reply to the Letter of the Hon. Langdon Cheves. By a Southerner. Charleston, 
 
 GREGG, WILLIAM. Essays on Domestic Industry; or an Inquiry into the Expediency of 
 
 Establishing Cotton Manufactures in South Carolina. Charleston, 1845. 
 - Inquiry into the Propriety of Granting Charters to the Manufacturers of 
 
 South Carolina. By One of the People. Charleston, 1 845. 
 Journal of the Proceedings of the Southwestern Convention. . . . Memphis . . . 
 
 I2th November, 1845. Memphis, 1 845. 
 HAMMOND, JAMES H. Letters on Southern Slavery; Addressed to Thomas Clarkson, 
 
 the English Abolitionist. Charleston, 1848 (written in 1845). 
 ABBOTT, LAWRENCE. Letters from the Hon. ... to the Hon. William C. Rives of 
 
 Virginia. Boston, 1846. 
 A Voice from the South: Comprising Letters from Georgia to Massachusetts, and to 
 
 the Southern States. Baltimore, 1847. 
 FISHER, ELLWOOD. Lecture on the North and the South; Delivered before the Young 
 
 Men's Mercantile Library Association of Cincinnati, Ohio, January 16, 1849. 
 
 Cincinnati, 1849. 
 
3O2 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [302 
 
 Proceedings of the National Railroad Convention, which assembled in the City of St. 
 
 Louis, on the fifteenth day of October, 1849. ... St. Louis, 1849. 
 Minutes and Proceedings of the Memphis Convention assembled October 23, 1849. 
 
 Memphis, 1849. 
 National Plan of an Atlantic and Pacific Railroad and Remarks of Albert Pike made 
 
 thereon, at Memphis, November, 1849. Memphis, 1 849. 
 JAMES, CHARLES T. Practical Hints on the Comparative Cost and Productiveness of 
 
 the Culture of Cotton, and the Cost and Productiveness of its Manufacture. Ad- 
 dressed to the Cotton Planters and Capitalists of the South. 1 849. 
 SMITH, HAMILTON. Cannelton, Perry County, Indiana, at the Intersection of the East- 
 ern Margin of the Illinois Coal Basin. . . . Louisville, 1850. 
 Proceedings of the Convention in Favor of a National Road to the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 . . . Philadelphia, April 1st, 2nd and 3rd, 1850. Philadelphia, 1850. 
 TRESCOTT, WILLIAM H. The Position and Course of the South. Charleston, 1850. 
 TOWNSEND, JOHN. The Southern States; Their Present Peril and their Certain 
 
 Remedy. , 1850. 
 
 BRYAN, EDWARD B. The Rightful Remedy. Addressed to the Slaveholders of the 
 
 South. Charleston, 1850. 
 GARNETT, MUSCOE R. H. The Union, Past and Future: How It Works and How to 
 
 Save It. Washington, 1850. 
 DERBY, E. H. Reality versus Fiction; a Review of a Pamphlet . . . entitled, "The 
 
 Union, Past and Future. . . ." Boston, 1850. 
 GRAYSON, W. J. Letter to his Excellency, Whitemarsh B. Seabrook, Governor of . . 
 
 South Carolina, on the Dissolution of the Union. Charleston, 1850. 
 [MAGRATH A. G.] A Letter of Southern Wrongs and Southern Remedies; addressed 
 
 to the Hon. W. J. Gray son, in reply to his Letter to the Governor of South Carolina. 
 
 . . . Charleston, 1850. 
 
 CHEVES, LANGDON. Speech of . . . Delivered before the ... Nashville Conven- 
 tion, . . . November 15, 1850. Columbia, 1850. 
 Southern Rights Association. Barnwell District, South Carolina, Meeting, January 6, 
 
 1851. 1851. 
 
 Proceedings of the Meeting of Delegates from the Southern Rights Associations of South 
 
 Carolina, held at Charleston, May, 185 r. Columbia, 1851. 
 Proceedings of the Great Southern Co-operation and Anti-Secession Meeting, Held in 
 
 Charleston, September 23, 1851. Charleston, 1851. 
 BARNARD, F. A. P. Oration delivered before the Citizens of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 
 
 July 4, 1851. Tuscaloosa, 1851. 
 ELLIOTT, HON. WILLIAM. The Letters of Agricola. Greenville, S. C., 1852. (First 
 
 published, 1851.) 
 Address to the People of the Southern and Western States, and more particularly to 
 
 those of La., Tex., Miss., Ala., Tenn., Ark., Ky., and Mo. (By a committee, in 
 
 behalf of the New Orleans Railroad Convention, 1852). New Orleans, 1851. 
 Proceedings of the Southern and Western Commercial Convention, at Memphis, 
 
 Tennessee, in June, 1853. . . . Memphis, 1854. 
 Graniteville Manufacturing Company. Report of the President and Treasurer for the 
 
 Year 1854. (William Gregg, Pres.) Charleston, 1855. 
 CAREY, HENRY C.| The North and the South. (Reprinted from the New York 
 
 Tribune.) 1854. 
 
303] BIBLIOGRAPHY 303 
 
 Journal of the Proceedings of the Commercial Convention of the Southern and Western 
 States, . . . Charleston . . , Commencing . . . loth April, 1854. Charles- 
 ton, 1854. 
 
 Two Tracts for the Times, the one entitled, "Negro Slavery No Evil" by B. F. String- 
 fellow, of Missouri; the other, "An Answer to the Inquiry, 'Is It Expedient to In- 
 troduce Slavery into Kansas?' " by D. R. Goodloe, of North Carolina. Boston, 1855. 
 
 GREGG, WM. Speech of ... on the Bill . . . to authorize aid to the Blue Ridge Rail- 
 road Company in South Carolina. Columbia, 1857. 
 
 WESTON, GEORGE M. The Poor Whites of the South. Washington, 1856. 
 
 BURWELL, WILLIAM. True Policy of the South, with Suggestions for the Settlement of 
 our Sectional Differences. Washington, 1856. 
 
 Official Report of the Debates and Proceedings of the Southern Commercial Convention 
 assembled at Knoxville, Tennessee, August 10, 1857. Knoxville, 1857. (An ap- 
 pendix contains the proceedings of the session at Savannah, December, 1856.) 
 
 Wealth, Resources and Hopes of Virginia. (From the Daily Southern Argus.) 
 Norfolk, 1857. 
 
 FIELDER, HERBERT. The Disunionist: a Brief Treatise upon the Evils of the Union 
 . . . and the Propriety of a Separation and the Formation of a Southern United 
 States. , 1857. 
 
 HUGHES, HENRY. Report . . . read before the Southern Commercial Convention 
 at Vicksburg, May 10, /<?jp, on the subject of the African Apprentice System. 
 Vicksburg, 1859. 
 
 Third Annual Report of the Merchants' and Mechanics' Exchange of Norfolk, Virginia, 
 January, 1860. 
 
 TOWNSEND, JOHN. The South Alone Should Govern the South. . . . Charleston. 
 1860. 
 
 The Doom of Slavery in the Union: Its Safety out of It. (ad ed.) Charles- 
 ton, 1860. 
 
 ROBB, JAMES. A Southern Confederacy. Letters by . . ., Late a Citizen of New 
 Orleans to an American in Paris and the Honorable Alexander H. Stephens of 
 Georgia. 
 
 THORNWELL, J. H. The State of the Country: An Article republished from the 
 Southern Presbyterian Review. New York, 1861. 
 
 Tracts for the Times in Relation to African Labor, the Future Supply of Cotton and 
 Popular Government in North America (N. Y. Herald reprint). 1861. 
 
 ATKINSON, EDWARD. Cheap Cotton by Free Labor, by a Cotton Manufacturer. Bos- 
 ton, 1861. 
 
 COLWELL, STEPHEN. The Five Cotton States and New York; or Remarks upon the 
 Social and Economic Aspects of the Southern Political Crisis. Philadelphia, 1861. 
 
 LORD, DANIEL. The Effect of Secession upon the Commercial Relations between the 
 North and South and upon each Section (New York Times reprint). 1861. 
 
 POWELL, SAMUEL. Notes on "Southern Wealth and Northern Profits." Philadelphia, 
 1861. 
 
 COLLINS, WILLIAM H. Third Address to the People of Maryland, by ... of Balti- 
 more. Baltimore, 1861. 
 
 Address to the People of Maryland by ... of Baltimore. Baltimore, 
 
 1861. 
 
 HOLT, JOSEPH. Letter from Hon. to J. F. Speed, Esq. 1861. 
 
304 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840-1 86 1 [304 
 
 CLARKE, JAMES FREEMAN. Secession, Concession, or Self-Possession, Which? 
 Boston, 1861. 
 
 KENNEDY, JOHN P. The Border States, their Power and Duty in the Present Disordered 
 Conditions of the Country. , 1860. 
 
 South Carolina, Disunion, and a Mississippi Valley Confederacy [by a Kentuckian]. 
 , 1861. 
 
 SEGAR, JOSEPH. Letter . . . to a Friend in Virginia in Vindication of his Course 
 in Declining to follow his State into Secession. Washington, 1862. 
 
 OWEN, ROBERT DALE. The Future of the Northwest in Connection with the Scheme of 
 Reconstruction without New England. Philadelphia, 1 863. 
 
 TRENHOLM, W. L. The Centennial Address before the Charleston Chamber of Com- 
 merce, nth February, 1884. . . . Charleston, 1884. 
 
 PUBLISHED DIARIES, SPEECHES, AND CONTEMPORARY 
 CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 BROWN, AARON V. Speeches, Congressional and Political, and other Writings. 
 
 Nashville, 1854. 
 CALHOUN, JOHN C. Correspondence of John C. Calhoun. Edited by J. F. Jameson. 
 
 (Amer. Hist. Assoc., Report, 1899, Vol. II.) Washington, 1900. 
 
 Works of John C. Calhoun. Edited by R. K. Cralle. 6 vols. New York, 
 
 1854-1855, 
 
 CAPERS, HENRY D. Life and Times of C. G. Memminger. Richmond, 1893. 
 CHITTENDEN, L. E. A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions 
 
 of the Conference Convention, for proposing Amendments to the Constitution of the 
 
 United States. Held at Washington, D. C. in February, A. D. 1861. New York, 
 
 1864. 
 CLAIBORNE, J. F. H. Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman. 2 vols. New 
 
 York, 1860. 
 
 CLEVELAND, H. Alexander H. Stephens in Public and Private. Philadelphiaj 1866. 
 CLINGMAN, THOMAS L. Speeches and Writings. Raleigh, 1878. 
 COBB, T. R. R. Correspondence of . . . , 1860-1862 (So. History Assoc., Pub/., 
 
 XI, 147-86; 233-61; 308-28.) Richmond, 1907. 
 COLEMAN, MRS. CHAPMAN. The Life oj John J. Crittenden, with Selections from his 
 
 Correspondence and Speeches. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1871. 
 COLTON, CALVIN. Life, Correspondence and Speeches of Henry Clay. 6 vols. New 
 
 York, 1854. 
 FIELDER, H. Life, Times, and Speeches of Joseph E. Brown. Springfield, Mass., 
 
 1883. 
 HAMILTON, J. G. DE R. The Correspondence of Jonathan Worth. 2 vols. Raleigh, 
 
 1909. 
 
 The Papers of Thomas Ruffin; Collected and Edited by . 2 vols. 
 
 Raleigh, 1918. 
 
 HILL, BENJAMIN H., JR. Senator Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia, His Life, Speeches 
 
 and Addresses. Atlanta, 1891. 
 
 HILLIARD, HENRY W. Speeches and Addresses. New York, 1855. 
 HULL, A. L. "The Making of the Confederate Constitution," So. Hist. Assoc., 
 
 Publ., IX, 272-92 (Letters of T. R. R. Cobb). 
 
305] BIBLIOGRAPHY 305 
 
 HUNTER, ROBERT M. T. Correspondence of . . . . Edited by C. H. Ambler. 
 (American Hist. Assoc., Report, 1916, Vol. II.) Washington, 1918. 
 
 JOHNSTON, R. M., and BROWNE, W. H. Life of Alexander H. Stephens. Philadel- 
 phia, 1878. 
 
 JONES, JOHN B. A Rebel War Clerk's "Diary at the Confederate States' Capital. 2 
 vols. Philadelphia, 1866. 
 
 MASON, VIRGINIA. The Public Life and Diplomatic Correspondence of James M. 
 Mason with Some Personal History by . . . his daughter. Roanoke, Va., 1906. 
 
 PHILLIPS, U. B., ed. The Correspondence of Robert Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens 
 andHowell Cobb. (Amer. Hist. Assoc., Report, 1911, Vol. II.) Washington, 1913. 
 
 QUAIFE, M. M. The Diary of James K. Polk. 4 vols. Chicago, 1910. 
 
 ROWLAND, DUNBAR, ed. Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist: his Letters, Papers and 
 Speeches. 10 Vols. Jackson, Miss., 1923. 
 
 SEWARD, WILLIAM H. An Autobiography from 1801-1834; with a Memoir of his Life, 
 etc., 1832-1872, by Frederick W. Seward. 3 vols. New York, 1891. 
 
 SMITH, WILLIAM R. The History and Debates of the Convention of the People of 
 Alabama, begun and held in the City of Montgomery, on the seventh day of January, 
 1861. . . . Montgomery, 1861. 
 
 TYLER, LYON G. Letters and Times of the Tylers. 3 vols. Richmond and Williams- 
 burg, 1884-1896. 
 
 UNPUBLISHED CORRESPONDENCE, DIARIES, AND PAPERS 1 
 
 William Burwell Papers. 
 J. J. Crittenden Papers. 
 J. H. Hammond Papers. 
 M. F. Maury Papers. 
 Edmund Ruffin's Diary. 
 Whitemarsh B. Seabrook Papers. 
 
 MEMOIRS AND REMINISCENCES 
 
 BENTON, THOMAS H. Thirty Years' View, or a History of the Workings of the Ameri- 
 can Government for Thirty Years, from 1820 to 1850. 2 vols. New York, 1854. 
 
 BOTTS, JOHN M. The Great Rebellion: Its Secret History, Rise, Progress, and Dis- 
 astrous Failure. New York, 1866. 
 
 BROWN LOW, W. G. Sketches of the Rise, Progress and Decline of Secession; with a 
 Narrative of Personal Adventures among the Rebels. Philadelphia, 1862. 
 
 BUCHANAN, JAMES. Mr. Buchanan's Administration on the Eve of the Rebellion. 
 New York, 1866. 
 
 CHESNUT, MARY B. A Diary from Dixie ... . New York, 1916. 
 
 CLAIBORNE. J. F. H. Mississippi as a Province, Territory, and State. Jackson, 1880. 
 
 FOOTE, HENRY S. Casket of Remininiscences. Washington, 1874. 
 
 War of the Rebellion; or, Scylla and Charybdis. New York, 1 866. 
 
 GARRETT, WILLIAM. Reminiscences of Public Men in Alabama for Thirty Years. 
 Atlanta, 1872. 
 
 GREEN, DUFF. Facts and Suggestions, Biographical, Historical, Financial and Poli- 
 cal. New York, 1866. 
 
 Preserved in the Library of Congress. 
 
306 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840-1 86 1 [306 
 
 HILLIARD, HENRY W. Politics and Pen Pictures at Home and Abroad. New York, 
 1892. 
 
 HOLDEN, W.W. Memoirs of . . . . Edited by Wm. K. Boyd. (John Lawson Mono- 
 graphs of the Trinity College Hist. Soc.) Durham, N. C., 1911. 
 
 PERRY, B. F. Biographical Sketches of Eminent American Statesmen, with Speeches, 
 Addresses and Letters. Philadelphia, 1887. 
 
 PRYOR, MRS. ROGER A. Reminiscences of Peace and War. New York, 1905. 
 
 SARGENT, NATHAN. Public Men and Events from the Commencement of Mr. Mon- 
 roe's Administration, in 1817, to the close of Mr. Fillmore's Administration, in 
 1853, Vol. II. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1875. 
 
 BOOKS OF TRAVEL OR DESCRIPTION, STATISTICAL WORKS, 
 AND DIRECTORIES 
 
 BANCROFT, JOSEPH. Census of the City of Savannah, together with Statistics relating 
 to the Trade, Commerce, Mechanical Arts, and Health of the same; ... 2d ed. 
 Savannah, 1848. 
 
 BUCKINGHAM, J. S. The Slave States of America. 2 vols. London, 1842. 
 
 CAMPBELL, JOHN P. The Southern Business Directory and General Commercial Ad- 
 vertiser. . . . Charleston, 1854. 
 
 CHASE, HENRY and SANBORN, C. H. The North and the South: A Statistical View of 
 the Condition of the Free and the Slave States. New York, 1 856. 
 
 CIST, CHARLES. Sketches and Statistics of Cincinnati in 1851. Cincinnati, 1851. 
 
 Sketches and Statistics of Cincinnati in 1859. Cincinnati, 1859. 
 
 DAWSON, J. L., and DESAUSSURE, H. W. Census of the City of Charleston, South 
 Carolina for the year 1848; ... . Charleston, 1849. 
 
 FEATHERSTONHAUGH, GEORGE W. Excursion through the Slave States. New York, 
 1844. 
 
 FORREST, WILLIAM S. The Norfolk Directory , for 1851-1852 .... Norfolk, 1852. 
 
 KEMBLE, MRS. FRANCES ANNE. Journal of a Residence on a Georgia Plantation in 
 1838-1839. New York, 1863. 
 
 LYELL, SIR CHARLES. A Second Visit to the United States. 2 vols. London, 1 849. 
 
 MACKAY, CHARLES. Life and Liberty in America; or Sketches of a Tour in the United 
 States and Canada in 1857-1858. New York, 1859. 
 
 PITKIN, TIMOTHY. Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States. 2d ed. 
 New York, 1817. 
 
 ROBERTSON, JAMES. A Few Months in America ... . London, 1865. 
 
 RUSSELL, ROBERT. North America; Its Agriculture and Climate, ... . Edin- 
 burgh, 1858. 
 
 RUSSELL, WILLIAM H. Pictures of Southern Life, Social, Political, and Military. 
 New York, 1861. 
 
 STIRLING, JAMES. Letters from the Slave States. London, 1857. 
 
 TUCKER, GEORGE. Progress of the United States in Wealth and Population. New 
 York, 1843. 
 
 WHITE, GEORGE. Statistics of the State of Georgia, Including an Account of Its 
 Natural, Civil and Ecclesiastical History. . . . Savannah, 1849. 
 
307] BIBLIOGRAPHY 307 
 
 CONTEMPORARY MONOGRAPHS, SPECIAL WORKS, AND BOOKS 
 OF A CONTROVERSIAL CHARACTER 
 
 ADAMS, REV. NEHEMIAH. A Southside View of Slavery, or Three Months at the South. 
 Boston, 1854. 
 
 BATCHELDER, S. Introduction and Early Progress of Cotton Manufacture in the 
 United States. Boston, 1863. 
 
 BLEDSOE, ARTHUR TAYLOR. An Essay on Liberty and Slavery. Philadelphia, 1856. 
 
 CAIRNES, J. E. The Slave Power. Its Character, Career and Probable Design. 2d. ed. 
 London, 1863. 
 
 CARPENTER, S. D. The Logic of History. Madison, Wis. 1864. 
 
 CHRISTY, DAVID. Cotton is King, and Its Relation to Agriculture, Manufactures, and 
 Commerce, ... . 2d. ed. New York, 1856. 
 
 COBB, T. R. R. An Inquiry into the Law of Negro Slavery. Philadelphia, 1858. 
 
 DAVIS, JEFFERSON. Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government. 2 vols. New York. 
 1881. 
 
 ELLIOTT, E. N., ed. Cotton is King and Pro-Slavery Arguments, Comprising the 
 Writings of Hammond, Harper, Christy, Stringfellow, Hodge, Bledsoe, and Cart- 
 wright .... Augusta, 1860. (These writings can be found separately.) 
 
 FITZHUGH, GEORGE. Cannibals All, or Slaves without Masters. Richmond, 1856. 
 
 Sociology for the South, or the Failure of Free Society. Richmond, 1854. 
 
 GOODLOE, DANIEL R. An Inquiry into the Causes which have Retarded the Accumula- 
 tion of Wealth and Increase of Population in the Southern States ... 
 Washington, 1846. 
 
 GOODELL, WILLIAM, Slavery and Anti-slavery; a History of the Great Struggle in both 
 Hemispheres, ... . New York, 1852. 
 
 GREELEY, HORACE. The American Conflict. 2 vols. Hartford, 1864. 
 
 HARPER, WILLIAM. The Pro-Slavery Argument as Maintained by the Most Dis- 
 tinguished Writers of the Southern States, containing the several essays on the subject, 
 of Chancellor Harper, Dr. Simms, and Professor Dew. Philadelphia, 1852. 
 
 HELPER, HINTON R. The Impending Crisis of the South, How to Meet It. New York, 
 1857. 
 
 HILDRETH, RICHARD. Despotism in America. Boston, 1854. 
 
 HODGSON, JOSEPH. The Cradle of the Confederacy; or, the Times of Troup, Quitman, 
 and Yancey. Mobile, 1876. 
 
 KETTELL, THOMAS PRENTICE. Southern Wealth and Northern Profits, as exhibited in 
 Statistical Facts and Official Figures. New York, 1 860. 
 
 LUNT, GEORGE. The Origin of the Late War; Traced from the Beginning of the Con- 
 stitution to the Revolt of the Southern States. New York, 1 866. 
 
 OLMSTED, FREDERICK. LAW. A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, with Remarks on 
 their Economy, New York, 1856, New York (Putnam's, 2 vols.), 1904. 
 
 A Journey through Texas. . . . New York, 1857. 
 
 A Journey in the Back Country. 2 vols. New York (Putnam's), 1907. 
 
 The Cotton Kingdom, a Traveller's Observations on Cotton and Slavery. 
 
 2d ed. 2 vols. New York, 1862. 
 
 POLLARD, E. A. The Life of Jefferson Davis, with a Secret History of the Southern 
 Confederacy. . . . Philadelphia, 1869. 
 
 The Lost Cause; a New Southern History of the War of the Confederates. 
 
 New York, 1867. 
 
308 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840-1 86 1 [308 
 
 RUFFIN, EDMUND. Anticipations of the Future to Serve as Lessons for the Present 
 
 Time. Richmond, 1860. . 
 
 RUSSELL, WILLIAM H. My Diary North and South. Boston, 1863. 
 [ScoTT, JOHN]. The Lost Principle; or the Sectional Equilibrium; How It Was 
 
 Created How Destroyed How It May be Restored. By "Barbarossa." Rich- 
 mond, 1860. 
 STEPHENS, ALEXANDER H. A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the 
 
 States. 2 vols. Philadelphia, 1868-1870. 
 
 TUCKER, BEVERLY. The Partisan Leader. Washington, 1836, New York, 1861. 
 VAN EVRIE, DR. JOHN H. Negroes and Negro Slavery. New York, 1853. 
 WARE, N. A. Notes on Political Economy, as Applicable to the United States, by a 
 
 Southern Planter. New York, 1 844. 
 WESTON, GEORGE M. The Progress of Slavery in the United States. Washington, 
 
 1858. 
 WILSON, HENRY. History of the Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America. 3 vols. 
 
 Boston, 1872-1877. 
 WOLFE, S. M. Helper's Impending Crisis Dissected. Philadelphia, 1860. 
 
 COLLECTIONS OF SOURCES 
 
 AMES, HERMAN V. State Documents on Federal Relations. Philadelphia, 1906. 
 American Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events, Vols. I and II. 
 
 (Appleton's) New York, 1862 . 
 
 CALLENDAR, G. S. Selections from the Economic History of the United States, 1756- 
 
 1860. Boston, New York, 1909. 
 
 CLUSKY, MICHAEL W. The Political Text Book, or Encyclopedia. Philadelphia, 1858. 
 COMMONS, J. R., et al. A Documentary History of American Industrial Society, 
 
 Vols. I and II: Plantation and Frontier. Edited by U. B. Phillips. Cleveland, 
 
 1909. 
 DEBow, J. D. B. Industrial Resources, etc., of the Southern and Western States. 
 
 3 vols. New Orleans, 1852-1853. 
 Great Debates in American History, Vol. V: State Rights, 1798-1861, Slavery, 1858- 
 
 1861. M. M. Miller, ed. New York, 1913. 
 
 HAMBLETON, JAMES P. A Biographical Sketch of Henry A. Wise, with a History of 
 the Political Campaign in Virginia in 1855. Richmond, 1 856. 
 
 McPnERSON, EDWARD. The Political History of the United States of America during 
 the Great Rebellion. 3d ed. Washington, 1876. 
 
 MOORE, FRANK. The Rebellion Record: A Diary of American Events with Docu- 
 ments, Narrative, Illustrative Incidents, etc., Vols. I and II. (Putnam's) New York. 
 
 PIKE, JAMES S. First Blows of the Civil War. The Ten Years of Preliminary Con- 
 flict in the United States. New York, 1 879. 
 
 POORE, B. P. Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters and Other Organic 
 Laws of the United States. Washington, 1877. 
 
 RICHARDSON, JAMES D. Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 
 Vols. III-VI. lovols. Washington, 1896. 
 
 A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, Including 
 
 the Diplomatic Correspondence, 1861-1865. 2 vols. Nashville, 1905. 
 
309] BIBLIOGRAPHY 309 
 
 RECENT MONOGRAPHS AND SPECIAL ARTICLES AND WORKS 2 
 
 *AMBLER, CHARLES H. Sectionalism in Virginia from 1776-1861. Chicago, 1910. 
 
 Thomas Ritchie: A Study in Virginia Politics. Richmond, 1913. 
 
 BALLAGH, J. C. A History of Slavery in Virginia (Johns Hopkins Univ., Studies, 
 
 Sup. Vol. XXIV). Baltimore, 1902. 
 
 Southern Economic History: Tariff and Public Lands (Amer. Hist. 
 
 Assoc., Report, 1898). Washington, 1899. 
 
 BATES, WILLIAM W. American Navigation; the Political History of its Rise and Ruin. 
 
 Boston and New York, 1902. 
 
 BOGART, E. L. The Economic History of the United States. New York, 1907. 
 BOLLES, A. S. Industrial History of the United States. . . . Norwich, Conn., 
 
 1879. 
 *BOUCHER, CHAUNCEY S. The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina. Chicago, 
 
 1916. 
 * The Ante-Bellum Attitude of South Carolina towards Manufactures and 
 
 Agriculture (Washington Univ. Humanistic Studies, Vol. Ill, Pt. II, No. 2). 
 
 St. Louis, 1916. 
 
 BOUCHER, CHAUNCEY S. The Secession and Co-operation Movements in South Caro- 
 lina, 184810 1852 (Washington Univ. Humanistic Studies, Vol. V, Pt. II, No. 2). 
 
 1918. 
 
 South Carolina and the South on the Eve of Secession, 1852-1860 (Wash- 
 ington Univ. Humanistic Studies, Vol. VI, Pt. II, No. 2). 1919. 
 
 BOYD, WILLIAM K. "North Carolina on the Eve of Secession," Amer. Hist. Assoc., 
 
 Report, 1910, pp. 167-77. Washington, 1912. 
 BROWN, WILLIAM GARROTT. The Lower South in American History. New York, 
 
 1902. 
 CALLAHAN, JAMES MORTON. The Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 Baltimore, 1910. 
 
 "The Mexican Policy of Southern Leaders under Buchanan's Adminis- 
 tration," Amer. Hist. Assoc., Report, 1910, pp. 135-51. 
 
 CALLENDAR, G. S. "Early Transportation and Banking Enterprises of the States," 
 Quar. Jour, of Econ., XVII, 111-162. Boston, 1902. 
 
 CLARK, VICTOR S. History of Manufactures in the United States, 1607-1860. Wash- 
 ington, 1916. 
 
 *CoLE, ARTHUR C. The Whig Party in the South. Washington, 1913. 
 
 "The South and the Right of Secession in the Early Fifties," Miss. Val. 
 
 Hist. Rev., I. Cedar Rapids, 1914. 
 
 COLLINS, WINFIELD H. The Domestic Slave Trade of the Southern States. New York, 
 
 1904. 
 COTTERILL, R. S. "Southern Railroads and Western Trade," Miss. Val. Hist. 
 
 Rev., Ill, 427-441. 
 
 "Memphis Railroad Convention, 1849," Tenn. Hist. Mag., IV, 83-94. 
 
 COULTER, E. M. "Effects of Secession upon the Commerce of the Mississippi 
 
 Valley," Miss. Val. Hist. Rev., Ill, 276-300. 
 
 'No attempt has been made to list all the monographs and special articles and works which 
 have bearing upon the subject, but only those arc listed that have proved of some assistance in the 
 preparation of this thesis. The most valuable are starred. 
 
3IO ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-1 86 1 [jIO 
 
 DAVIS, WILLIAM WATSON. Ante-Bellum Southern Commercial Conventions (Ala. 
 
 Hist. Soc., Transactions, V, 153-202). Montgomery, 1904. 
 DAVIS, JOHN P. The Union Pacific Railway: A Study in Railway Politics, History, 
 
 and Economics. Chicago, 1894. 
 
 DEWEY, DAVID R. Financial History of the United States. New York, 1915. 
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 DONNE LL, E. J. Chronological and Statistical History of Cotton. New York, 1872. 
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 ELLIS, HENRY G. "The Influence of Industrial and Educational Leaders on the 
 
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 FERTIG, J. W. Secession and Reconstruction of Tennessee. Chicago, 1898. 
 FICKLIN, JOHN ROSE. History of Reconstruction in Louisiana, through 1868 (Johns 
 
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 FISH, CARL RUSSELL. "The Decision of the Ohio Valley," Amer. Hist. Assoc., 
 
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 FLEMING, WALTER T. "Immigration to the Southern States," Pol. Sci. Quar., XX, 
 
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 GARNER, JAMES W. "The First Struggle over Secession in Mississippi," Miss. 
 
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 HAMER, PHILIP MAY. The Secession Movement in South Carolina, 1847-1852. 
 
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 HAMILTON, J. G. DE R. Reconstruction in North Carolina (Columbia Univ. Studies, 
 
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 HEARON, CLEO. Mississippi and the Compromise of 1850 (Miss. Hist. Soc., Publ., 
 
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 HOUSTON, D. F. A Critical Study of Nullification in South Carolina (Harvard 
 
 Historical Studies, Vol. III). New York, 1896. 
 *!NGLE, EDWARD. Southern Sidelights: A Picture of Social and Economic Life in the 
 
 South a Generation before the War. New Yorkj 1896. 
 
 "Two Southern Magazines," So. Hist. Assoc., Publications, I. Washing- 
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 JACK, T. H. Sectionalism and Party Politics in Alabama, 1819-1842. Menasha, Wis., 
 1919. 
 
 JACOBSTEIN, MEYER. The Tobacco Industry in the United States (Columbia Univ. 
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 MAYES, EDWARD. "Origin of the Pacific Railroads, and especially of the South- 
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 MILLION, JOHN W. State Aid to Railways in Missouri. Chicago, 1896. 
 
 MUNFORD, B. B. Virginia's Attitude toward Slavery and Secession. New York, 
 1909. 
 
 PAGE, THOMAS NELSON. The Old South: Essays Social and Political New York, 
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 Social Life in Virginia before the War. New York, 1898. 
 
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 "The Origin and Growth of the Southern Black Belts," Amer. Hist. 
 
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 "The Economic Cost of Slaveholding," Pol. Set. Quar., XX, 257-75. 
 
 1905. 
 
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 "The Decadence of the Plantation System," An. of the Amer. Acad. of 
 
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 "The Literary Movement for Secession," Studies in Southern History 
 
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 RAMSDELL, CHARLES W. "The Frontier and Secession," Studies in Southern His- 
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 REED, J. C. The Brothers War. Boston, 1905. 
 
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 SCOTT, W. A. Repudication of State Debts . . . New York, 1893. 
 
 SIOUSSAT, ST. GEORGE L. "Tennessee, the Compromise of 1850, and the Nashville 
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 "Memphis as a Gateway to the West," Tenn. Hist. Mag., 1917, pp. 1-27, 
 
 77-114. 
 
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 "Some Problems of Southern Economic History," Amer. Hist. Rev., 
 
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 TAUSSIG, WILLIAM. The Tariff History of the United States. New York, 1914. 
 THOMPSON, HOLLAND. From Cotton Field to Cotton Mill. A Study of the Industrial 
 
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 TILLINGHAST, J. A. The Negro in Africa and America. New York, 1902. 
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 WAGSTAFF, H. M. Stat: Rights and Political Parties in North Carolina, 1776-1861 
 
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 WEAVER, C. C. Internal Improvements in North Carolina previous to 1860 (Johns 
 
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 BIOGRAPHIES AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 
 
 BASSETT, JOHN S. The Life of Andrew Jackson. 2 vols. New York, 1911. 
 BUTLER, PIERCE. Judah P. Benjamin. Philadelphia, 1907. 
 
312 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, l84O-l86l [3 12 
 
 CALDWELL, J. W. "John Bell of Tennessee," Amer. Hist. Rev., IV, 651-64. 1899. 
 COLTON, CALVIN. The Life and Times of Henry Clay. 2 vols. New York, 1846. 
 DAVIS, MRS. VARINA H. Jefferson Davis, Ex-President of the Confederate States: 
 
 a Memoir. 2 vols. New York, 1 890. 
 DODD, WILLIAM E. Jefferson Davis. Philadelphia, 1907. 
 DuBosE, J. W. Life and Times of W. L. Yancey. Birmingham, 1892. 
 ELLIS, H. G. Edmund Ruffin, His Life and Times (Branch Historical Papers, Vol. 
 
 Ill, 100-23). Richmond, 1903. 
 
 HALL, CLIFTON R. Andrew Johnson, Military Governor of Tennessee. London, 1916. 
 HUNT, GAILLARD. John C. Calhoun. Philadelphia, 1908. 
 JERVEY, THEODORE. Robert Y. Hayne and his Times. New York, 1909. 
 MAYES, EDWARD. Lucius Q. C. Lamar: His Life, Times and Speeches, /82^-iSpj. 
 
 Nashville, 1896. 
 
 PHILLIPS, ULRICH B. The Life of Robert Toombs. New York, 1913. 
 STOVALL, P. A. Robert Toombs: Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage. New York, 1892. 
 TRENT, W. P. William Gilmore Simms. Boston and New York, 1892. 
 WHEELER, JOHN H. Reminiscences and Memoirs of North Carolina and Eminent 
 
 North Carolinians. Columbus, 1884. 
 WISE, BARTON H. Life of Henry A. Wise. New York, 1899. 
 
 STATE AND LOCAL HISTORIES 
 
 AVERY, ISAAC. The History of the State of Georgia from 1850 to 1881; . . . New 
 
 York, 1 88 1. 
 
 BROWN, WILLIAM G. A History of Alabama. New York, 1900. 
 BURTON, H. W. The History of Norfolk. Norfolk, 1877. 
 CABLE, GEORGE W. History and Present Condition of New Orleans (Tenth Census, 
 
 XIX, Pt. II, 213-95). 
 CARR, LUCIEN. Missouri, A Bone of Contention (American Commonwealths series). 
 
 Boston, 1888. 
 
 CORDOZA, J. N. Reminiscences of Charleston. Charleston, 1866. 
 FORREST, WILLIAM S. Historical and Descriptive Sketches of Norfolk and Vicinity. 
 
 . . . Philadelphia, 1853. 
 
 FORTIER, ALCEE. The History of Louisiana, Vol. IV. 4 vols. New York, 1904. 
 GARRISON, GEORGE P. Texas (American Commonwealths series). Boston, 1903. 
 GAYARRE, CHARLES. History of Louisiana, Vol. IV, The American Domination. 
 
 4 vols. New Orleans, 1903. 
 HAMILTON, PETER J. Mobile of the Five Flags, the Story of the River Basin and 
 
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 HOWISON, ROBERT R. A History of Virginia from Its Discovery and Settlement by 
 
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 McELROY, R. M. Kentucky in the Nation's History. New York, 1909. 
 MOORE, J. W. History of North Carolina. 2 vols. 1880. 
 ROWLAND, DUNBAR, ed. Encyclopedia of Mississippi History. 2 vols. Madison, 
 
 1907. 
 SHALER, N. S. Kentucky (American Commonwealths series). Boston, 1885. 
 
313] BIBLIOGRAPHY 313 
 
 GENERAL HISTORIES 
 
 Of the many general histories covering the period, the following have especially 
 valuable chapters or sections dealing with topics discussed in this thesis: 
 The American Nation: A History, A. B. Hart, ed. 27 vols. New York, 1906 . 
 Vol. 16, Hart, A. B., Abolition and Slavery, especially, chs. I-X. 
 Vol. 17, GARRISON, GEORGE P., Westward Extension, ch. XII. 
 Vol. 1 8, SMITH, T. C, Parties and Slavery, chs. IV, V, XIII, XIX, XX. 
 Vol. 19, CHAD WICK, F. E., Causes of the Civil War, chs. I-IV, IX. 
 The Chronicles of America Series, ALLEN JOHNSON, ed. 50 vols. New Haven, 1918 . 
 Vol. 24, STEPHENSON, N. W., Texas and the Mexican War, especially ch. IX. 
 Vol. 27, DODD, WILLIAM E., The Cotton Kingdom. 
 
 Vol. 29, STEPHENSON, N. W., Abraham Lincoln and the Union, especially chs. 
 I-VI. 
 
 Vol. 30, STEPHENSON, N. W., The Day of the Confederacy, especially chs. I-IV. 
 DODD, W. E. Expansion and Conflict, chs. VII-XIV (Vol. Ill of the Riverside His- 
 
 tory of the United States). Boston, 1915. 
 
 HOLST, HERMAN E. VON. Constitutional and Political History of the United States, 
 especially Vol. I, chs. IX, X; Vol. Ill, ch. XVII; Vol. VII, chs. VII, VIII. 8 vols. 
 Chicago, 1877-92. 
 MCMASTER, JOHN B. A History of the People of the United States, Vols. VII and 
 
 VIII, passim. 8 vols. New York, 1888-1913. 
 
 RHODES, JAMES FORD. History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850, 
 especially Vol. I, chs. I, IV; Vol. II, chs. XII-XV; Vol. III. 7 vols. New York, 
 1896-1906. 
 The South in the Building of the Nation, by J. A. C. Chandler, et a/., Vols. I-V, 
 
 especially Vol. IV, Pt. Ill, ch. II. Richmond, 1909-13. 
 
 THORPE, FRANCIS NEWTON. The Civil War: The National View, chs. 1-IV (Vol. XV 
 of the History of North America^ GUY CARLETON LEE, ed.). Philadelphia, 1906. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adams, Governor, of South Carolina, 
 for revival of slave trade, 213, 218 
 
 African Labor Supply Association, 214 
 
 Agriculture, plantation and farm, u, 
 201; absorbs capital, 24; long de- 
 pressions in 18405, 33-35; diversifi- 
 cation urged, 35-37 4-43> 2OI -4> 2 9; 
 diversion of capital to manufactures 
 advised, 36-37, 40-46; glorification of, 
 51, 204; prosperity of (1850-60), 199- 
 230; not being diversified, 201-4, 22 8; 
 progress of, and manufactures com- 
 pared, 228; see also cotton, tobacco, 
 sugar 
 
 Alabama, mineral survey, 42, 170; dis- 
 union movement, 73, 75, 77, 90; dis- 
 criminatory taxation, 156; retaliation 
 against North, 160; no state aid to 
 railroads, 172; agricultural condi- 
 tions, 202-4; slaves in mechanical 
 pursuits, 219; sectionalism, 220, 232, 
 241; manufactures, 227; secession, 
 232, 238, 241 f.; on foreign slave trade, 
 270 
 
 Amazon river, Southern interest in 
 navigation of and steamship lines to, 
 1 1 8, 130, 132, 133, 139 
 
 Anticipations of the Future to Serve as 
 Lessons for the Present, etc., 187-89 
 
 Arkansas, aid to internal improvements, 
 173; secession, 233, 278 
 
 Augusta, Georgia, direct trade conven- 
 tions, 17 ff.; cotton manufactures, 61 
 notes, 262; Northerners in, 100 
 
 Baltimore, seeks steamship line to 
 Europe, 116; Southern Commercial 
 Convention, 129-31; attempts to 
 profit by sectional struggle, 176; and 
 secession, 275, 277, 286 
 
 Banks, extent of capital, 12, 23, 101, 
 107; question of increasing capital in 
 Virginia, 24, 27; improvements sug- 
 gested, 26-27; methods criticized, 106, 
 no, 195; position strengthened, 205, 
 229; see also capital and credits 
 
 Barnard, F. A. P., on Southern indus- 
 trial dependence, 49; on causes of dis- 
 union movement, 85 
 
 Bell, John, in Southern Commercial 
 Convention, 131-32; opposes dis- 
 unionist doctrines, 193; candidate for 
 president, 238; on effects of secession, 
 250; goes over to secessionists, 283 
 
 Benton, Thomas H., denounces Nash- 
 ville Convention, 74; and Southern 
 Commercial Convention, i37n., 218 
 
 Berrien, J. M., 90; proposes discrimina- 
 tory taxation, 160 
 
 Blockade of the South, disunionist ex- 
 pectations regarding, 187-88, 208; 
 effects, 266-67 
 
 Bluffton movement, 37-39, 152; and 
 disunion, 69-70; design to revive, 73 
 
 Border states, attitude toward disunion 
 movement (1850), 74, 79, 87; con- 
 sidered by disunionists (1852-60), 
 1 8 1, 1 88, 235-36; views on economic 
 effects of secession, 184-85; sell slaves, 
 21 1 ; fears for slavery in, 217; against 
 reopening foreign slave trade, 224; 
 secession delayed, 233-34; views of 
 causes of secession of cotton states, 
 249-52; watch early economic policies 
 of Confederacy, 257, 259; cotton 
 states' attitude toward secession of, 
 268; fear revival of foreign slave trade, 
 270-72, 281; considerations affecting 
 decision as to secession, 273-88, 291; 
 secessionists identified, 283-88; see 
 also Virginia, Kentucky, etc. 
 
 Boyce, W. W., Nullifier and coopera- 
 tionist (1850), 89; for free trade and 
 direct taxation, 139, 141, 163-64 
 
 Brown, Joseph E., secessionist per se, 
 73; on causes of secession, 247; on di- 
 rect trade, 256; on export taxes, 260 
 
 Burwell, William, on internal improve- 
 ments, 127; on Norfolk, 130 
 
 Butler, A. P., Nullifier and cooperation- 
 ist (1850) 89; on tariff, 163 
 
 Calhoun, A. P., I43n., on tariff, 165; 
 
 Calhoun, John C., and direct trade with 
 Europe, 17, 29; on state of agricul- 
 ture, 34; opposes Bluffton movement, 
 38-39; on Tariff of 1842, 39; on un- 
 equal operation of Federal govern- 
 ment, 67, 82; and disunion movement 
 (1850), 55, 72-74, 82, 90-92; in South- 
 western Convention, 124-25; candi- 
 date for nomination for president, 
 152; and manufactures, 154; on com- 
 mercial retaliation against North, 157 
 
 Capital, deficiency of in South, com- 
 mercial dependence on North as cause, 
 20-22, 8 1, 94, 190-91; unequal oper- 
 
 315 
 
3l6 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 840-1861 [316 
 
 ation of Federal government as cause, 
 22, 67, 80 ff., 182; as cause of com- 
 mercial dependence, 22-23, 26, 105; 
 industrial dependence as cause, 41, 
 48-49, 190-191; handicaps develop- 
 ment of manufactures, 45-46, 63, 183; 
 cotton manufactures to supply, 49; 
 direct trade with Europe to supply, 
 99 ff., 183, 184; financial depen- 
 dence on North, 100-7; handicaps all 
 enterprises, 104; capital beginning to 
 accumulate, 204-5; agriculture and 
 railroads absorb, 226; Northern and 
 European capital coming, 229, 293; 
 see also banks and credits 
 
 Charleston, direct trade convention 
 ( I 839), 17 ff.; imports, 19; conduct of 
 commerce, 25; yellow fever, 25n.; and 
 Cincinnati railroad, 29-30; progress 
 and aspirations, 97; character of 
 population, 100; as distributing cen- 
 ter, no; harbor improvement, 113; 
 steamship lines and projects, 118, 
 256; Southern Commercial Conven- 
 tion, 133-36; aid to railroads, 172; 
 and secession, 239, 251; see also cities 
 and towns 
 
 Charleston Mercury , and Bluffton move- 
 ment, 38, 70; disunion organ, 73, 179; 
 on Southern Commercial Conven- 
 tion, 150; for disunion, 184, 193; de- 
 plores slave trade agitation, 216; on 
 causes of secession, 247; on Confeder- 
 ate Constitution, 262; against pro- 
 hibition of slave trade, 271 
 
 Cheves, Langdon, approves Bluffton 
 movement, 38; for disunion, 69, 70; 
 speech in Nashville Convention, 75n.; 
 cooperationist (1850), 89 
 
 Christy, David, Cotton Is King, 208, 209 
 
 Cities and towns in South, few and 
 small, 12, 296; seaports languishing 
 and dependent, 15, 20; natural ad- 
 vantages, 25, 112; aspirations, 96-98; 
 Northerners and foreigners in, 99- 
 100; as distributing centers, no-n; 
 anticipated effects of secession on, 
 183, 191, 197; slave populations de- 
 clining, 21 1 ; labor troubles, 53, 219; 
 and secession, 239-43, passim, 251, 
 284-85; see also Charleston, New 
 Orleans, etc. 
 
 Civil War, secessionist anticipations, 
 181, 187, 188-89, 208, 235; affects 
 economic policies of the Confederacy, 
 2 55> 2 59 ff-> an d secession of border 
 states, 282-83, 2 9 J ? n t inevitable, 
 294 
 
 Clay, C. C., on fishing bounties and 
 other protective legislation, 164; dis- 
 unionist member of Congress, 180 
 
 Clingman, Thomas L., on value of 
 Union (1850), 82; on benefits of 
 secession, 252, 273 
 
 Cobb, Howell, opposes secession of 
 Georgia (1850), 73, 77, 89; Secretary 
 of Treasury, on tariff, 165; on foreign 
 slave trade, 215; and secession, 240; 
 and tariff policy of Confederacy, 265 
 
 Commerce of South, external, amount 
 of foreign, 12, 15, 295; amount of 
 foreign goods consumed, 107-10; 
 extent of, with North and West, 108- 
 9; little internal commerce, in; with 
 West, 201-3; see a h commercial de- 
 pendence, North, and West 
 
 Commercial dependence of South, de- 
 gree and evils of, 12, 15-16, 19-22, 32, 
 81, 94-104, 127, 128, 190, 207, 208, 
 290; causes analyzed, 22-25, IO 5> 107- 
 113, 292; remedies proposed in direct 
 trade conventions, 25-30; secession 
 as remedy, 80, 83, 183-85, 188, 191- 
 92, 194-95, 197, 293; various remedies, 
 113; projects for steamship lines to 
 Europe, 114-22; considered in South- 
 ern Commercial Convention, 130-34, 
 138-39. i4 J -42> H7> 149; discrimina-, 
 tory taxation as remedy, 156-61, 167- 
 72, 176-78; commercial non-inter- 
 course with North as remedy, 157- 
 58> 175-76; patronage of direct im- 
 porters as remedy, 173-75; expecta- 
 tions of commercial progress as cause 
 for secession, 237, 248-49, 251-54, 
 256, 263, 275-76; see also Confederate 
 States, direct trade conventions, ship- 
 ping and shipbuilding 
 
 Compromise of 1850, debated, 72-74; 
 denounced in Nashville Convention, 
 75; contests over acceptance, 76-78; 
 aggravates sectionalism, 128 
 
 Confederate States of America, tariff 
 and commercial policies considered by 
 disunionists, 181, 183-85, 188-89, 2 43; 
 formulated, 257-67 (see tariff policy 
 of Confederacy); foreign relations 
 considered by disunionists, 181, 185, 
 189, 194, 208, 243; policy formulated, 
 259, 261, 263-67; expansion antici- 
 pated, 181-82, 250-51, 253; navigation 
 of Mississippi considered by disunion- 
 ists, 181, 185, 189; policy formulated, 
 258-59, 261, 280; admission of West- 
 ern States considered, 185-86, 189, 
 268; foreign slave trade policy con- 
 
INDEX 
 
 317 
 
 sidered by disunionists, 181-82, 270- 
 72; Confederacy organized, 233; 
 Provisional Constitution, 233, 260, 
 271, 274; Permanent Constitution, 
 233, 261, 269, 271, 274, 281; naviga- 
 tion laws of, 261. 
 
 Congress of United States, attempts 
 compromise to save Union, 231, 233; 
 House of Representatives on causes 
 of secession, 252 
 
 Corporations, opposition to, 42, 154 
 
 Cotton, prices, 26, 33-35, 60, 102, 199, 
 201 ; overproduction of, 26, 36 ff., 125, 
 204; depression in the industry, 33 
 ff.; factorage system, 101; crop, 199, 
 203; prosperity of the industry, 199- 
 225; labor shortage in, 210-13; see 
 also manufactures 
 
 Cotton Is King, 2o8n., 209; cotton is 
 king argument, 207-10, 266 
 
 Cotton planters' conventions, 37, 94, 
 204 
 
 Crawford, Geo. W., Governor of 
 Georgia, on encouraging manufac- 
 tures, 42, 154 
 
 Credits, long, system of in South, 16, 
 23, 101, 105-6; cause of commercial 
 dependence, 23-24; handicaps cotton 
 manufacturers, 63-64; handicaps im- 
 porters, 105; signs of breaking away 
 from, 205 
 
 Crittenden, J. J., on necessity of Union, 
 87; and secession, 279 
 
 Davis, Jefferson, leader Southern Rights 
 Party in Mississippi, 77; and surveys 
 for Pacific railroad, 135; on Tariff of 
 1857, 166; appeal to Northern busi- 
 ness interests, 209; on revival of slave 
 trade, 217; on causes of secession, 
 246; and tariff and foreign policies of 
 Confederacy, 264, 265-67; on ad- 
 mitting non-slaveholding states to 
 Confederacy, 269 
 
 Dawson, Senator Wm. C., and origin 
 of Southern Commercial Convention, 
 129; presides in, 129, 131, 133; op- 
 poses Pike's plan for Pacific railroad, 
 
 135 
 
 DeBow, J. D. B., on political aspects of 
 diversification of Southern industry, 
 56; objects to disunionists' doctrines, 
 78; on warehousing system, 93; in- 
 terest in direct trade, 94; and origin 
 of Southern Commercial Convention, 
 128; on objects of, 134; presides, 140; 
 disunionist, 140, 180; chairman com- 
 mittee, Commercial Convention, 147; 
 
 on Tariff of 1857, 163; and Southern 
 advertising, 175; reviews Southern 
 Wealth and Northern Profits, 192; and 
 revival of slave trade, 214, 215; on 
 white labor in cotton industry, 221; 
 on immigration, 221; and causes of 
 secession, 247; on effects of seces- 
 sion, 249, 267; characterized, 293 
 
 DeBow's Review, for development of 
 manufactures, 43; disunionist teach- 
 ings, 1 80, 193, 237; on effects of se- 
 cession, 257, 267; on revenue clause of 
 Confederate Constitution, 262; char- 
 acterized, 293 
 
 Democratic party in South, two wings, 
 66-67, 88-92; attitude toward se- 
 cession (1850), 76-77, 89-92; and 
 diversification of industry, 87; and 
 Southern Commercial Convention, 
 147; attitude on tariff, 151-54, 161, 
 163, 165-66; and corporations, 154- 
 55; and discriminatory taxation, 159, 
 167; and Federal protective legisla- 
 tion, 163-64; and state aid to internal 
 improvements, 172-73; Southern 
 Rights wing in ascendancy, 179; at- 
 titude towards secession (i 860-61), 
 238-43, 284-86 
 
 Devereaux, Thomas P., on slavery and 
 white labor, 53, 54 
 
 Direct trade conventions of 1837-39, 
 origin and objects, 13, 16-18, 30; 
 composition and temper, 17-18; pub- 
 lic interest in, 17 f., 31; proceedings, 
 19-30; slavery and disunion little 
 consideration, 30-31; results, 32; pro- 
 ceedings republished, 94 
 
 Direct trade convention, at Old Point 
 Comfort (1850), 115; (1857), 120; 
 at Richmond (1851), 116; at Bristol, 
 Va., 120 
 
 Discriminatory taxation, see taxation 
 
 Disunion movement, see secession move- 
 ment 
 
 Dred Scott Decision, empty victory 
 without slave trade, 217 
 
 Education and culture in South, back- 
 wardness, 13, 147; effect of manu- 
 facturing on, 50; discussed in South- 
 ern Commercial Convention, 132-33, 
 142, 147, 158; pleas for home patron- 
 age, 173; George Fitzhugh's interest 
 in, 176 
 
 Elmore, F. H., report on direct trade, 
 1 8, 25; opposes Bluffton movement, 
 38; and disunionist movement, 73 
 
3l8 ECONOMIC ASPECTSOF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1840-1861 [318 
 
 Federal government, see internal im- 
 provements and taxation and dis- 
 bursements 
 
 Financial dependence of South, 100-7; 
 see also capital and banks 
 
 Fisher, Ellwood, compares North and 
 South, 205 
 
 Fitzhugh, George, doctrines, 176-78; 
 praises agriculture, 206; on power of 
 cotton, 208 
 
 Floyd, John B., proposes discrimina- 
 tory taxation of Northern goods, 159- 
 60, 1 68 
 
 Foote, Henry S., Unionist leader, 77; 
 denounces Rhett's disunion speech, 
 83; on value of Union, 86; in Southern 
 Commercial Convention, 131; op- 
 poses slave trade, 2i8n. 
 
 Forsyth, John, compares North and 
 South, 47; describes Mobile, 98; on 
 effects of secession, 197 
 
 Gadsden Purchase and Pacific railroad, 
 135-36 
 
 Garnett, M. R. H., The Union, Past and 
 Future, etc., 79-81; Calhoun Demo- 
 crat, 92 
 
 Georgia, progress of cotton manufac- 
 tures, 41, 44, 226; disunion movement 
 (1849-50), 73, 75, 76; question of cor- 
 poration charters, 154; question of 
 discriminatory taxation, 160, 167- 
 68; state aid to railroads, 172; con- 
 dition of agriculture, 203; secession, 
 232, 238-40, 245; direct trade pro- 
 jects, 256; tariff sentiment, 261; 
 against foreign slave trade, 271 
 
 Gregg, William, advocates establish- 
 ment of cotton manufactures, 40-42, 
 45, 46; Essays on Domestic Industry, 
 40-41; manufacturer, 41, 42; on poor 
 whites, 52, 223; on progress of cot- 
 ton manufactures, 58, 6 in.; on evils 
 of commercial dependence, 95; on 
 Charleston as distributing center, 
 no; opposes state aid to manufac- 
 tures, 155; tariff man, 166; on patron- 
 age to home industries, 174; refutes 
 disunionist arguments, 194; on 
 foreign slave trade, 223 
 
 Hamilton, Gen. James, 17; opposes 
 Bluffton movement, 70; on disunion- 
 ist sentiment in South (1850), 86; 
 cooperationist in South Carolina, 89 
 
 Hammond, J. H., 17; advocates diver- 
 sification of industry, 35, 49, 50, 155; 
 
 and Bluffton movement, 36, 38-39; 
 compares North and South, 47; on 
 poor whites, 52; ready for secession, 
 73; _ cooperationist (1850), 89; on 
 panic of 1857, 103, 1040.; on Southern 
 commerce, 108; on Charleston's 
 commerce, 113; "Plan of State Ac- 
 tion," 161; reviews Fisher's pamphlet, 
 206 
 
 Harris, W. P., on tariff policy of Con- 
 federacy, 263 
 
 Hayne, Robert Y., in direct trade con- 
 ventions, 17; reports on direct trade, 
 1 8, 21; on long credits, 23; starts son 
 in importing business, 28 
 
 Henderson, Gen. John B., of Missouri, 
 on causes of secession, 251 
 
 Hicks, Governor of Maryland, on causes 
 of secession, 250, 282 
 
 Hilliard, Henry W., on value of Union, 
 86; in Southern Commercial Conven- 
 tion, 143; appeals to Northern busi- 
 ness interests, 209; against foreign 
 slave trade, 224; and secession of 
 Alabama, 241 
 
 Houston, Sam, Governor of Texas, 
 opposes secession, 232 
 
 Hunter, R. M. T., Calhoun Democrat, 
 Senator, 91; and Tariff of 1857, 163; 
 attacks ship subsidies, 164; appeals to 
 Northern business interests, 209; on 
 tariff and commercial policies of Con- 
 federacy, 264; on effects of secession 
 on border states, 273 
 
 Immigration, mostly to non-slavehold- 
 ing states, 12; manufactures would at- 
 tract, 57; attitude of South, 57 f., 
 213, 220-21, 223; not discussed in 
 Southern Commercial Convention, 
 146; considered by disunionists, 181; 
 immigrants unfriendly to slavery, 220 
 
 Industrial dependence of South, see 
 manufactures 
 
 Internal improvements, Federal aid to, 
 attitude of South, 112-13, 115, 116- 
 17; discussed in Southwestern Con- 
 vention, 124-26; in Chicago Rivers 
 and Harbors Convention, 125-26; 
 requested for Pacific railroad, 126, 
 133, 148; considered by Southern 
 Commercial Convention, 132, 133, 
 142, 147, 148, 172; prohibited by 
 Confederate Constitution, 261 
 
 Iverson, Alfred, of Georgia, disunionist 
 member of Congress, 180; on tariff 
 policy of Confederacy, 259 
 
319] 
 
 INDEX 
 
 319 
 
 James, Charles T., of Rhode Island, in- 
 terest in cotton manufactures in 
 South and West, 43, 45-46, 226; on 
 poor whites, 52 
 
 Johnson, Andrew, on causes of secession, 
 250, 281, 287 
 
 Jones, John A., Southern Rights Demo- 
 crat, 90; free trader, 165; on slave 
 trade, 216 
 
 Kansas-Nebraska bill, 136, 179 
 
 Kansas troubles, considered in Southern 
 Commercial Convention, 140; Eng- 
 lish bill, 165, 181; fan sectionalism, 
 179; Kansas question and foreign 
 slave trade, 217 
 
 Kennedy, John P., on causes of seces- 
 sion, 250; opposes secession of Mary- 
 land, 275-77 
 
 Kentucky, doesn t calculate value of 
 Union (1850), 87; secession defeated, 
 233; considerations affecting de- 
 cision against secession, 279-80, 282- 
 83, 286; see also border states 
 
 Kettell, T. P., on manufactures in 
 South, 61; estimates value of Union 
 to North, 81-82, 190-91; quoted in 
 South, 8 1, 191-92; refuted, 254 
 
 King, Thomas Butler, 17; agent of 
 Georgia to Europe, 256 
 
 Labor, in manufactures,^!-^, 45, 51- 
 55, 62, 2ic, 222; prejudice against 
 manual, 51; attitude of laboring class 
 toward slavery and slaveholders, 53- 
 54, 218-20, 223, 290; shortage of in 
 cotton and sugar industries, 210- 
 13, 220-22; see also poor whites, 
 slavery, slave trade 
 
 Lamar, L. Q. C., on secessionists, 238 
 
 Letcher, John, Governor of Virginia, 
 233; on causes of secession, 249 
 
 Lincoln, Abraham, 234, 235, 239, 249, 
 273; see also presidential elections 
 
 London, D. H., for discriminatory taxes 
 on indirect imports, 117, 167 
 
 Louisiana, sentiment for Union (1850), 
 74, 87; for tariff, 151, 166, 259, 261; 
 state aid to railroads, 172; sugar in- 
 dustry, 200; condition of agriculture, 
 203; legislature considers revival of 
 slave trade, 215-16, 225; secession, 
 232, 242; and Confederate aid to in- 
 ternal improvements, 262; and Con- 
 federate prohibition of foreign slave 
 trade, 271 
 
 Lumbering in South, considered in 
 Southern Commercial Convention, 
 133, 147; value of, 228-29 
 
 Lumpkin, Joseph H., on cotton manu- 
 factures in South, 60; secessionist per 
 se, 73; Calhoun Democrat, 90 
 
 Lyon, James, remarks as president of 
 Southern Commercial Convention, 
 138-39 
 
 McDonald, A. G., for secession of 
 Georgia, 73, 77; Calhoun Democrat, 
 90 
 
 McDuffie, George, in direct trade con- 
 ventions, 17; writes address in be- 
 half of, 1 8; on direct trade, 21, 28n.; 
 on long credits system, 23; alludes to 
 secession, 31; supports Bluffton move- 
 ment, 38; on Tariff of 1842, 39; views 
 on tariff and secession, 68-69; on state 
 protection to industry, 157 
 
 Magoffin, Governor of Kentucky, and 
 secession, 233, 280 
 
 Mallory, Francis, report in Richmond 
 Direct Trade Convention (1838), 19 
 ff. 
 
 Mann, A. Dudley, plan for "Steam 
 Ferry," 119-20, 139, 141, 257; Con- 
 federate commissioner to Europe, 
 257, 264-66 
 
 Manufactures in South, extent and 
 growth, 12, 33, 42, 44, 58-59, 226-30; 
 growth of cotton, 33, 42, 44, 58-59, 
 226, 298; profits of cotton, 33, 43, 45, 
 60-6 1 ; beginning of movement to 
 develop cotton and other, 35-40; 
 development of movement, 40-46, 127; 
 evils of dependence on North de- 
 picted, 40-41, 46-49, 290; benefits of 
 manufactures, 49-58; opposition, 50- 
 54, 223, 290; relation of movement to 
 diversify industry to sectional quar- 
 rels, 55-58; movement ends, 58-59; 
 causes for failure, 59-64, 105, 174; 
 manufactures discussed in Southern 
 Commercial Convention, 125, 131- 
 33, 147; people awake to need, 149; 
 attitude of anti-tariff men, 154-56; 
 discriminatory taxation of Northern 
 goods proposed to encourage, 156-61, 
 167-72, 176-78; commercial non- 
 intercourse proposed to encourage, 
 I 57-5^> 175-76; patronage of home in- 
 dustries urged,_63, ^173-75, 255; ad- 
 vocates of diversification become 
 disunionists, 182, 291; disunion ex- 
 
32O ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-l86l [320 
 
 pected to promote, 183-85, 188, 191- 
 92, 194-95, 293; manufacturers re- 
 assured by disunionists, 194; argu- 
 ments of diversificationists refuted, 
 206-10; diversification and foreign 
 slave trade, 213, 222-23; deficiency of 
 capital the great obstacle, 222; ex- 
 pectations of industrial independence 
 as cause for secession, 249, 273-75, 
 291; measures after secession to en- 
 courage manufactures, 255; cotton 
 manufactures would have come, 293 
 
 Marketing system in South; see credits 
 and cotton factorage 
 
 Maryland, depression of manufactures, 
 6on.; secession defeated, 233; con- 
 siderations affecting decision for 
 Union, 274 f., 277, 282-83, 286 
 
 Mason, James M,, not disunionist -per 
 se (1850), 84; Senator, Calhoun 
 Democrat, 91; and steamship line, 
 Norfolk to Antwerp, 116; commis- 
 sioner to Europe, 264 
 
 Mason, John Y., and steamship line to 
 Europe, 117 
 
 Maury, M. F., on warehousing system, 
 94n.; on Southern merchants, 99; 
 interest in navigation of Amazon, 118 
 f.; in Southern Commercial Conven- 
 tion, 130, 135 
 
 Meade, R. K., in Old Point Comfort 
 Convention, 115; and steamship line 
 to Europe, 116 
 
 Memminger, C. G., 17; on class con- 
 sciousness of white labor, 53-54; co- 
 operationist (1850), 89; "Declaration 
 of Immediate Causes" of secession of 
 South Carolina, 243-44 
 
 Memphis, Southwestern Convention, 
 124-26; Pacific Railroad Convention, 
 126; Southern Commercial Conven- 
 tion, 131-33 
 
 Mercantile Convention, Richmond, 116 
 
 Merchants and Planters Convention, 
 Macon, 247, 257; on Confederate 
 tariff and commercial policies, 266 
 
 Merchants in South, prejudice against 
 mercantile business, 24, 28; lack of 
 permanent native class of, 99-100 
 
 Miles, Wm. Porcher, disunionist in Con- 
 gress, 1 80; on tariff policy of Confed- 
 eracy, 263 
 
 Millson, John S., report in Norfolk Di- 
 rect Trade Convention, 19 
 
 Mining in South, progress, 12, 226; 
 mineral surveys, 42, 170; discussed in 
 Southern Commercial Convention, 
 147, 167; no class to secure fostering 
 
 legislation, 171; fields about to be 
 opened, 229, 293 
 
 Mississippi, State, of, secession senti- 
 ment, 73-75; secession defeated 
 (1850), 77; discriminatory taxation 
 discussed, 160; aid to railroads, 172; 
 condition of agriculture, 202-3; con- 
 siders revival of slave trade, 214-15, 
 224, 270; hostility of white labor to 
 slavery, 219; secession, 242, 245 
 
 Mississippi river, improvement of navi- 
 gation demanded, 112; as outlet for 
 Western commerce, 185, 202; ques- 
 tion of navigation considered by dis- 
 unionists, 1 8 1, 185, 189; policy of 
 Confederacy formulated, 258-59, 261, 
 280 
 
 Missouri, secession defeated, 233; con- 
 siderations affecting decision for 
 Union, 279-80, 282-83, 286 
 
 Mobile, aspirations, 98; business con- 
 trolled by Northern men, 100; harbor 
 of, H2; aid to Mobile and Ohio rail- 
 road, 173; and secession, 241, 251 
 
 Montgomery Daily Confederation, on 
 Southern Commercial Convention, 
 143, I44n.; on tariff, 165; Union not 
 detrimental to South, 193; opposes 
 diversification of industry, 207 
 
 Nashville Convention, 71, 128; origin, 
 73-74; objects and composition, 74- 
 75, 83n.; proceedings, 75-76; con- 
 siders commercial retaliation, 157-58 
 
 National Intelligencer, opposes discrimi- 
 
 ' natory taxation, 160; on causes of 
 secession, 250 
 
 New England, attitude toward South- 
 ern cotton manufactures, 45; depres- 
 sion of cotton manufactures, 60-6 1; 
 methods of meeting Southern com- 
 petition, 62-63 
 
 New Orleans, exports and imports, 15; 
 character of population, 31, 99; Union 
 sentiment, 87; and warehousing sys- 
 tem, 93; awakens to need of railroads, 
 97; panic of 1857, 102-3; yellow fever, 
 H2n.; demands improvement of 
 Mississippi river, 112; railroad con- 
 ventions, 127; jealous of Baltimore, 
 130; interest in railroad across Te- 
 huantepec, 132; Southern Commer- 
 cial Convention, 136-38; attitude of 
 South toward, 137; and Western 
 trade and secession, 185, 189; West- 
 ern commerce of, 202; hostility of 
 white laborers to slaves, 219; and 
 
321] 
 
 INDEX 
 
 321 
 
 secession, 243, 251; project for steam- 
 ship line to Europe, 256 
 
 New Orleans Delta, on Southern Com- 
 mercial Convention, 132, 138; dis- 
 unionist, 180 
 
 New Orleans Picayune, on panic of 
 1857, 103; on Southern Commercial 
 Convention, 149; Union not detrimen- 
 tal to South, 192; against reviving 
 slave trade, 223; on Southern prog- 
 ress, 230 
 
 Newton, Willoughby, Calhoun Demo- 
 crat, 92; on economic benefits of 
 secession, 184; on slavery and se- 
 cession, 281 
 
 New York City, importance of South- 
 ern trade, 21; financial concentration, 
 101; finances movement of Southern 
 staples, 101 f.; advantages over 
 Southern cities, no ff.; steamship 
 lines, 114, 117, 122; Southern ex- 
 pectations of effect of secession on, 
 1 88, 249 
 
 New York Herald, on Southern Com- 
 mercial Convention, 144; on econo- 
 mic effects of secession, 192; repre- 
 sents business interests, friendly to 
 South, 209; on causes of secession, 
 
 254 
 
 New York Times, on causes of secession, 
 253; opposes Morrill Tariff, 264 
 
 Non-intercourse with North discussed, 
 157-58, 175-76 
 
 Non-slaveholding whites, attitude 
 toward slavery and slaveholders, u, 
 53-54, 218-20, 223, 290; attitude 
 toward secession, 239-43, 283-88; 
 see also labor and poor whites 
 
 Norfolk, direct trade convention, 18; 
 advantages and aspirations, 96; yel- 
 low fever, H2n.; proposed steamship 
 lines, 116 ff.; and secession, 275, 285 
 
 North, advantages of union with South, 
 20 ff., 46, 48-49, 80 fF., 94-96, 104, 115, 
 182, 1 88, 190-91, 196-97, 207-10; 
 North and South compared, 24, 33, 
 47-49, 205-6, 227-29; imports from 
 South, 12, 108, 190; exports to South, 
 12, 24, 109, 190; commercial policy 
 of Confederacy toward North con- 
 sidered by disunionists, 181, 183-84; 
 formulated, 258-59, 261, 263, 265-67; 
 relations of East and West and East 
 and South compared, 186, 202; effects 
 of secession on North considered, 
 1 88, 190-92, 194, 208, 235, 248-49, 
 253; class of Northerners encourage 
 disunionists, 189-92; Northern opin- 
 
 ions of disunionist sentiment in 
 South, 195-98; Northern views of 
 causes of secession, 252-54; see also 
 capital, commerce, manufactures, 
 tariff 
 
 North Carolina, little interest in direct 
 trade in 18305, 31; agricultural de- 
 pression, 34; growth of cotton manu- 
 factures, 41, 44, 227; disunion senti- 
 ment, 73, 74, 79n.; disunion argu- 
 ments refuted, 88; people regret com- 
 mercial dependence on Virginia and 
 South Carolina, 97; tariff and dis- 
 criminatory taxation questions, 161- 
 62; state aid to railroad, 172-73; 
 agricultural conditions, 203; ad valo- 
 rem issue, 219, 287; sectionalism, 220, 
 287; secession defeated, 233; consider- 
 ations affecting final decision for 
 secession, 273-75, 276, 283n., 284, 
 287 
 
 Northerners and foreigners in South, 
 as merchants, factors, etc., 19, 28, 
 198; in New Orleans and Mobile, 31; 
 attitude toward slavery, 57, 220; 
 merchants in cities and towns, 99-100 
 
 Nullifiers, in direct trade conventions, 
 17; on causes of commercial de- 
 pendence, 22; origin, 65; party affili- 
 ations, 66; political principles 67-68; 
 become disunionists, 68-72, 88-92; 
 not satisfied by Tariff of 1846, 70, 
 162; for free trade and direct taxa- 
 tion, 163-65; see also Democratic 
 party 
 
 Olmsted, F. L., on Southern imports, 
 108; on domestic slave trade, 211; 
 and white labor in cotton industry, 
 221 
 
 Pacific railroad, 14, 94, 97, 290, 293; 
 conventions at Memphis, St. Louis, 
 and Philadelphia, 126; becomes sec- 
 tional issue, 127, 135; considered in 
 Southern Commercial Convention, 
 130, 132-36, 138, 139, 148; and rail- 
 road across Tehuantepec, 132; and 
 Gadsden Purchase, 135; disunionists 
 consider, 181; Texas interested, 262; 
 and secession in Missouri, 280 
 
 Panic, of 1837, 16; specie payments sus- 
 pended, 27; general stagnation of 
 business, 30, 93; in Southwest, 31; 
 effects of panic of 1857, 102-4, J 99 
 South weathers better than North, 
 205 
 
322 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM-, 1 840-l86l [322 
 
 Patronage of home manufacturers and 
 merchants urged, 27 f., 63, 113, 142, 
 173-75, 255 
 
 Pettigru, J. J., Unionist in South Caro- 
 lina (1850), 89; opposes foreign slave 
 trade, 217-18, 222, 224 
 
 Pike, Albert, plan for Pacific railroad, 
 134-36, 138, 139 
 
 Polk, James K., Kane Letter, 38, 162; 
 vetoes Rivers and Harbors bill, 125 
 
 Poor whites, employment in cotton fac- 
 tories considered, 41, 42, 52-54; tried, 
 42, 62; character and numbers, 51-52; 
 responsibility of slavery for, 53, 198, 
 223, 290; consumed few imports, 107; 
 production of cotton by considered, 
 212, 221 
 
 Population of South, sparsity, 13, 292; 
 growing disparity in favor of North, 
 15, '6, 55, 57, 98, 128, 217, 229, 289; 
 increase, 203, 211 
 
 Presidential elections, of 1856, 138, 179; 
 of 1860, 181, 231, 234-36, 238 
 
 Preston, Wm. Ballard, to Europe in in- 
 terest of direct trade, 120; on Virginia 
 as slave selling state, 224 
 
 Progress of Slavery, by Weston, 197-98 
 
 Pryor, Roger A., on fishing bounties, 
 164; disunionist in Congress, 180; 
 opposes revival of slave trade, 218, 
 224 
 
 Public opinion, conditions of formation 
 in South, 293-94; m North, 294 
 
 Quitman, John A., leader Southern 
 Rights Party in Mississippi, 77; Nulli- 
 fier, 91; in Southern Commercial Con- 
 vention, 131, 148; disunionist in 
 Congress, 180 
 
 Railroads in South, anticipated ad- 
 vantages from railroads to West, 29, 
 115, 125, 130, 185, 269, 290; projects 
 for and direct trade, 29, 114; being 
 rapidly built, 30, 94; New Orleans 
 roads, 97, 194; economically built, 
 102, 225; building handicapped by 
 lack of capital, 104; traffic light, in, 
 225; Virginia and Tennessee, 114, 
 276; Chesapeake and Ohio, 115, 277; 
 projects considered in Southwestern 
 Convention, 125; in New Orleans 
 railroad conventions, 127; in South- 
 ern Commercial Convention, 132, 
 147; Baltimore and Ohio, 130, 277; 
 state aid, 172-73; railroads to West 
 and secession, 185, 269; progress, 203, 
 225-26, 229; see also Pacific railroad 
 
 Republicans, Southern attitude, 138, 
 179, 181, 234; and economics of 
 slavery, 196-98; attitude toward dis- 
 union movement, 196-98; on causes 
 of secession, 252-53 
 
 Retaliation, commercial, against North, 
 see non-intercourse and taxation, dis- 
 criminatory 
 
 Rhett, R. B., leads Bluffton movement, 
 38; on Tariff of 1842, 39; disunion 
 speech in Senate, 83-84, 244; leads 
 separate-actionists (1850-52), 89; on 
 state protection of industry, 156; 
 opposes slave trade agitation, 2i6n.; 
 "Address of the People of South 
 Carolina," 243-44; and revenue pro- 
 visions of Confederate Constitution, 
 261; and tariff and foreign policies 
 of Confederacy, 265 
 
 Richmond, direct trade convention, 18; 
 aspirations, 96; mercantile conven- 
 tion, 116-17; ships flour to Rio de 
 Janeiro, 117; Southern Commercial 
 Convention, 137-38; industrial town, 
 229; and secession, 275, 285 
 
 Richmond Enquirer, on diversification 
 of industry, 49, 155; on Southern 
 Commercial Convention, 148; dis- 
 criminatory taxation, 159; disunion- 
 ist organ, 1 80 
 
 Richmond Whig, 42; on disunionism in 
 South Carolina (1850), 85-86; wavers 
 on tariff, 162 
 
 Rivers and Harbors Convention (Chi- 
 cago)i 125-26 
 
 Robb, James, refutes disunionist argu- 
 ments, 194 
 
 Ruffin, Edmund, 18; Calhoun Demo- 
 crat, 92; in Southern Commercial 
 Convention, 143; on economic bene- 
 fits of secession, 187-89 
 
 Russell, Robert, on Southern opinion, 
 108; on plantation economy, 202; 
 on white labor in cotton industry, 
 221; on Southern attitude toward 
 English opinion, 224 
 
 St. Louis, Pacific railroad convention, 
 126; and secession, 251, 276, 279, 280, 
 286 
 
 Savannah, aspirations, 97; Northerners 
 and foreigners, 100; Southern Com- 
 mercial Convention, 138-40; direct 
 trade projects, 256 
 
 Savannah Daily Republican, on South- 
 ern Commercial Convention, 138; and 
 value of Union, 192; opposes revival 
 of slave trade, 214 
 
323] 
 
 INDEX 
 
 323 
 
 Seabrook, W. B., Governor of South 
 Carolina, and secession movement, 
 73-74; and state aid to manufactures, 
 155, 161 
 
 Secession movement, attitude of diver- 
 sificationists, 58; disunionist views of 
 economic value of Union, 68-69, 7 2 ; 
 Bluffton movement and, 69-70; 
 growth of disunion sentiment, 70-73; 
 Nashville Convention and, 73-76; 
 contests over acceptance of compro- 
 mise of 1850, 76-77; disunionist agru- 
 ments, 77-88; secessionists (in 1850) 
 identified, 88-92; disunionists in 
 Southern Commercial Convention, 
 137-44. 149-50. 179; George Fitzhugh 
 and, 177; growth of disunion senti- 
 ment, 179; methods of propagating, 
 1 80; issue sought, 181; every aspect 
 considered, 181-82; various motives, 
 182; economic arguments for seces- 
 sion, 182-89, 291, 293; class of North- 
 ern writers encourages disunionism, 
 189-92; secessionists refuted in South, 
 192-95; Northern opinions of move- 
 ment, 195-98; secessionists agitate 
 slave trade question, 213-14, 216, 
 270; secession of cotton states, 231- 
 33; secession delayed in border states, 
 233; arguments of secessionists, 234- 
 35, 236-38; of Unionists, 235-36, 237; 
 secessionists identified, 238-43; state- 
 ments of causes, 243-48; expecta- 
 tions of economic benefits, 248-49; 
 border state views of causes, 249-52; 
 Northern views, 252-54; causes as 
 shown by economic policies of Con- 
 federacy, 255-70; desire to reopen 
 slave trade not the cause, 270-72; 
 considerations affecting decision of 
 border states, 273-88, 291; secession- 
 ists identified in, 283-86 
 
 Sectionialism, in Albama, 220, 232, 241; 
 in Tennessee, Virginia, and North 
 Carolina, 220, 277, 287 
 
 Seward, W. H., effects of secession on 
 North, 196; on causes of secession, 
 252 
 
 Shipping and shipbuilding in South 
 12, 16, 25, 147, 227; Louisiana bonus, 
 170 
 
 Slavery, basis of sectionalism, n, 13; 
 question little discussed in direct 
 trade conventions, 30; as cause of 
 Southern "decline," 47, 196-98, 290- 
 92; responsibility for poor whites, 
 53, 198, 223, 292; hostility toward in 
 South, 53-54, 218-20, 223, 286-88; 
 
 quarrels over augment interest in 
 manufactures, commerce, etc., 55-58, 
 98; struggles over cause growth of 
 disunion sentiment, 68, 71-76, 179, 
 182, 195, 197; Southern defense, 
 68, 72, 98, 176, 206-10, 290; quarrel 
 reaches bitter stage, 128; leads to 
 threats of commercial retaliation, 
 157-61, 169-70, 175; West becoming 
 hostile, 187; attitude of Northern 
 business interests, 189-92, 196, 209- 
 10; fears for as cause of secession, 
 234-36, 239-48, 250, 254, 269, 273, 
 281, 283-86, 291; in Confederate 
 Constitution, 269 
 
 Slaves, distribution, ii; employment in 
 factories suggested, 41, 54-55; tried, 
 55, 62, 210, 222; redundancy of labor, 
 55, 210; considered necessary to cot- 
 ton industry, 207, 290; prices rise, 
 210; shift to black belts, 210-11; 
 foreign slave trade revived, 211, 215; 
 demand outrunning supply, 212, 220 
 ff. 
 
 Slave trade, movement to reopen the 
 foreign, discussed in Southern Com- 
 mercial Convention, 139, 141, 143-44, 
 150, 213-15; disunionists and the 
 agitation, 181; origin and develop- 
 ment of movement, 212-16; motives 
 and arguments of advocates and op- 
 ponents, 216-24; attitude of border 
 states, 224; strength of movement, 
 224-25; desire to reopen as cause of 
 secession, 348, 250-51, 253, 270-72; 
 fears of revival delay secession of 
 border states, 280 
 
 Smith, Hamilton, advocates manufact- 
 ures in Ohio valley, 43-46; suggests 
 export duty on cotton, 154 
 
 South Carolina, distress in agriculture, 
 34, 36, 41; agitation in behalf of 
 manufactures, 37 ff.; Bluffton move- 
 ment, 37-40, 69-70; hostility of white 
 labor to slaves, 53, 219; nullification 
 in, 65; party divisions, 66 f.; disunion 
 movement (1849-52), 72-74, 76, 77, 
 82-85, 89; question of aid to manu- 
 factures, 155; discriminatory tax- 
 ation, 156, 160; and tariff, 166; aid to 
 railroads, 172; agriculture, 203; and 
 revival of slave trade, 213, 215, 217, 
 225; manufactures, 227; secession, 
 231, 239, 243-45, 250-51; projects for 
 direct trade, 256; and Confederate 
 Constitution, 262, 269, 271 
 
 Southern Commercial Convention, ori- 
 gin, 123-29; objects and proceedings, 
 
324 ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SOUTHERN SECTIONALISM, 1 84O-l86l [324 
 
 129-44, 119-20, 162, 163, 167-68, 
 173, 174, 178; composition, 142, 144; 
 reasons for changes in objects and 
 personnel, 144-48; achievements and 
 results, 134, 140, 145, 146, 148-50; 
 a criticism of, 174; and growth of dis- 
 unionism, 179, 180; considers revival 
 of foreign slave trade, 213-24, passim 
 
 Southern rights associations, 77; Central 
 of Virginia, 117, 158; for measures to 
 promote commercial independence, 
 I S9> l &9'i attacks Virginia tax sys- 
 tem, 169; associations in Virginia, 158; 
 in Albama, 160 
 
 Southern Rights party, 78, 86, 179; in 
 Georgia, 76, 89; in Mississippi, 77, 
 90, 160; in Alabama, 77, 90 
 
 Southern Wealth and Northern Profits, 
 190-92, 254 
 
 Southwestern Convention, Memphis, on 
 overproduction of cotton, 37; com- 
 position and proceedings, 124-26 
 
 Spratt, L. W., advocates reopening 
 foreign slave trade, 213, 215, 218, 220, 
 222n., 223; and causes of secession, 
 244, 248; on boundaries of Confeder- 
 acy, 268; against interdiction of slave 
 trade, 271 
 
 Steamship lines, advantages over sail, 
 114; Federal government subsidizes, 
 114; Southern requests for subsidies, 
 115, 116, 117, 121, 142; Virginia's 
 interest in, 115; Thompson's pro- 
 jects, 116-17; projects in South Caro- 
 lina and Alabama, 118; to Amazon, 
 proposed, 118; Mann's Steam Ferry 
 project, 119-20, 139, 141, 257; later 
 Virginia projects, 120-21; later pro- 
 jects elsewhere, 121-22; considered 
 in Southern Commercial Convention, 
 130-33, 139, 141-42; government sub- 
 sidies discontinued, 164; projects 
 after secession, 256-57 
 
 Stephens, A. H., in direct trade conven- 
 tion, 17; against secession (1850), 77; 
 attributes prosperity to Union, 193; 
 compares Georgia and Ohio, 206; on 
 foreign slave trade, 217; Union 
 Speech, 237; "Corner Stone" speech, 
 246 f., 269; on effects of secession, 
 249; and revenue provision of Con- 
 federate Constitution, 262; on tariff 
 policies of Confederacy, 264; and 
 three-fifths clause, 270 
 
 Sugar industry, condition of, 200 
 
 Tariff acts (United States), Tariff of 
 1842 and Bluffton movement, 37-40; 
 
 Tariff of 1846 and cotton manufac- 
 tures, 60; nullification in South Caro- 
 lina, 65-66; Tariff of 1846 doesn't 
 satisfy Nullifiers, 70; attitude of 
 South (1828-50), 151-56; tariff senti- 
 ment falls off, 161-62; free trade and 
 direct taxation agitated, 139, 141, 
 162-64; South and Tariff of 1857, 163- 
 64; and Morrill bill, 165, 254; South- 
 ern attitude summarized, 88; see 
 also taxation and disbursements 
 
 Tariff policy of Confederacy, anticipa- 
 tions of disunionists, 181, 183-84, 185, 
 1 88, 189, 243, 245; considerations 
 affecting policy of Confederacy, 255, 
 259, 267; policies of individual states 
 after secession, 257-58; export duties 
 proposed, 260; provisions of Provis- 
 ional Constitution, 260; tariff acts of 
 Provisional Congress, 260-61; pro- 
 visions of Permanent Constitution, 
 261-62; Tariff of May 17, 1861, 262- 
 63; tariff and diplomacy, 264-67; pro- 
 tectionist sentiment, 266-67; effect 
 upon decision of border states, 274-75 
 
 Taxation, systems in Southern states 
 and cities criticized, 28, 168-70; dis- 
 criminatory taxation of indirect im- 
 ports proposed, 114, 117; Toombs's 
 plan, 139, 168; discriminatory taxation 
 of Northern manufactures proposed, 
 142, 156-57; discriminatory taxation 
 in Southern states, 156; discrimin- 
 atory taxation considered during crisis 
 of 1850, 159-61; policy under advise- 
 ment to secession, 167-70; why dis- 
 crimination not resorted to, 171-72; 
 George Fitzhugh on, 177 
 
 Taxation and disbursements of Federal 
 government, Southern "decline" at- 
 tributed to inequality of, 22, 67-68, 
 80-88, passim, 289, 292; tonnage 
 duties, ship subsidies, fishing boun- 
 ties, etc. attacked, 133, 164, 166; free 
 trade and direct taxation agitated, 
 139, 141, 162-64; South Carolina 
 view prevails, 182-83, 197, 291; in- 
 equality of as cause for secession, 237, 
 243-54, passim, 291; see also tariff 
 acts (United States) 
 
 Tennessee, disunionists in, 73, 75, 79n.; 
 tariff sentiment, 151, 166; aid to rail- 
 roads, 172; conditions of agriculture, 
 203; political divisions based on 
 slavery, 220; secession delayed, 233; 
 considerations affecting decision to 
 secede, 274, 278, 283, 284; sectional- 
 ism and secession, 287 
 
325] 
 
 INDEX 
 
 325 
 
 Texas, "Texas or disunion," 38, 69; 
 aid to railroads, 172; agriculture, 202- 
 3; and foreign slave trade, 225; se- 
 cession, 232, 245 
 
 Thornwell, Dr. J. H., on causes of se- 
 cession, 248 
 
 Tobacco, foreign duties on, 142, 189, 
 200; industry prosperous, 199; manu- 
 factures of, 228 
 
 Toombs, Robert, Unionist (1850), 77; 
 letter on discriminiatory taxation, 
 139, 167; and secession, 237, 240, 245; 
 effects of secession, 249; on tariff and 
 foreign policies of Confederacy, 266; 
 on admitting new states, 269^ 
 
 Townsend, John, on benefits of seces- 
 sion, 83, 191 
 
 Tucker, J. Randolph, on benefits of 
 secession to Virginia, 274, 275, 281 
 
 Unionists in South, advocate diversi- 
 fication of industry, 58, 85, 87, 179; 
 in South Carolina, 65-66; and Nash- 
 ville Convention, 75; Union party 
 (in 1850), 76-77, 89-90; refute seces- 
 sionist arguments, 85-88, 192-95; 
 oppose discriminatory taxation, 171; 
 oppose agitation of slave trade ques- 
 tion, 216; opposition to secession in 
 1861, 231-33; their arguments, 235- 
 36, 237; identified, in cotton states, 
 238-43; arguments and motives in 
 border states, 273-83, passim, 286- 
 88, 291; identified in border states, 
 283-85 
 
 Virginia, commerce, 19, 20, 95; banking 
 capital question, 24, 27; depression 
 in manufactures, 6on.; secession senti- 
 ment (1850), 73, 88, 91; projects for 
 steamship lines to Europe, 114-18, 
 119-21; tariff sentiment, 151, 160; 
 commercial retaliation and discrimi- 
 natory taxation discussed, 156, 158- 
 60, 168-70; aid to railroads, 172-73; 
 agriculture, 203; and domestic slave 
 
 trade, 224; secession delayed, 233; 
 considerations affecting decision to 
 secede, 274-78, 281-83, 285, 287; 
 sectionalism, 220, 277, 287 
 
 Warehousing system, 93, 125 
 
 West, agricultural depression, 34; in- 
 terest in cotton manufactures, 43; 
 political alliance with South, 55, 
 124-25, 209; trade between South 
 and, 108-9, J 86, 201-3, 207; effects of 
 secession upon relations of West and 
 South considered, 185-86, 189, 258, 
 263, 268, 280 
 
 Weston, George M., on disunion move- 
 ment, 197 f. 
 
 Whig party in South, state rights ele- 
 ment, 66; attitude toward secession 
 (1850), 74, 76-77, 89-92; and diversi- 
 fication of industry, 87, 152; and 
 slaveholding, 92; and Southern Com- 
 mercial Convention, 147; attitude on 
 tariff, 151-54, 161-62; and corpor- 
 ations, 154; and discriminatory tax- 
 ation, 159; and state aid to railroads, 
 173; begins to dissolve, 179; attitude 
 toward secession, 238-43, 284-86 
 
 Wilmington, North Carolina, aspira- 
 tions, 97; improvement of harbor, 
 1 13; for secession, 284 
 
 Wise, Henry A., Calhoun Democrat, 
 92; on future of Norfolk, 96; and de- 
 velopment of Virginia, 176 
 
 Yancey, W. L., Calhoun Democrat and 
 disunionist, 90; in Southern Com- 
 mercial Convention, 143; advocates 
 disunion, 180; appeals to Northern 
 business interests, 209; on foreign 
 slave trade, 2i6n., 218, 224; on eco- 
 nomic benefits of secession, 237; on 
 commercial policy of Confederacy, 
 259; commissioner to Europe, 264- 
 66; on slave trade provision of Con- 
 federate Constitution, 28 in. 
 
30112084204384 
 
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