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People Of Major Importance

click image to enlarge The Confederate leaders are portrayed as a band of competing opportunists led by South Carolina governor and secessionist Francis Pickens (far left). The January 1861 secession of five states from the lower South, following the lead of South Carolina, which had formally declared its independence a month before. Armed with a whip and a pistol, Pickens sits on the back of a young slave, pronouncing, "South Carolina claims to be file leader and general whipper in of the new Confederacy, a special edict! Obey and tremble!" The other leaders are also armed. Pickens's tyranny is met by expressions of self-interest from the other confederates. The nature of these individual interests are conveyed pictorially and in the text. Leaders from Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia sit on bales of cotton, while Florida and Louisiana sit on a wrecked ship's hull and a barrel of sugar respectively. Florida (represented by a bearded man, possibly Stephen R. Mallory, senator and later secretary of the Confederate navy): "We want it distinctly understood that all the lights on the Coast will be put out, in order to facilitate wrecking business." Alabama (William L. Yancey): "Alabama proclaims that "Cotton is King," and the rest of the Confederacy "must obey" that Sovereign. Mississippi (Jefferson Davis): "We came in, with the understanding that we shall issue bonds to an unlimited extent, with our ancient right of repudiation when they became due." Georgia (Governor Joseph E. Brown): "Georgia must have half the honors, and all the profits, or back she goes to old "E Pluribus Unum." Louisiana (a mustachioed man): "A heavy duty must be levied on foreign sweetening in order to make up for what we have sacrificed in leaving the Union, otherwise we shall be like a "Pelican in the wilderness!" Although Texas, which seceded on February 1, is not represented here, the print probably appeared at the time of the Montgomery convention in early February when the Confederate States of America was formed, but before Jefferson Davis assumed its presidency. Texas did not attend that convention.

No event in the history of the United States has resonated more in the hearts and minds of the American people than the nation's Civil War. More Americans died during the Civil War from 1861-1865 than in any other war, ever. While these dates may define the period of war action, in fact the Civil War was the result of a long, history of complex issues of such things as Constitutional interpretation and economics. From political leaders to military leaders, people were of major importance in the Civil War.

Differing interpretations of the Constitution were at the heart of the Civil War. On the cold day of February 4, 1861, 60 delegates gathered at Willard’s Hotel, in Washington, D.C., in a last-ditch attempt to keep the United States together. It was already too late.

They were hoping that a Constitutional amendment based on the Crittenden compromise, which would extend the line dividing free and slave states to California, might succeed where the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act had all failed. But their meeting, presided over by former President John Tyler, was most notable for who wasn’t there—anyone from the six states that had already seceded. On that very same day, February 4, Tyler’s own granddaughter raised the first Confederate flag over the state capitol in Montgomery, where delegates from South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi were meeting for the first time to create a new nation.

In a city with streets named for Jefferson, Madison, and Adams, in a room hung with portraits of George Washington, the soon-to-be Confederates assumed the nobility of that other band of rebels 85 years earlier. The parallel was almost convincing, if you ignored the nearness of their enemy or the cruelty behind their cause. But, unable to predict that instead of preserving their way of life they were leading America into the bloodiest war in its history, these 40-odd men gave birth to a new nation, dedicated to the proposition that all men were not created equal.

Much of American history had led to this point, a slow burn of Supreme Court decisions, congressional compromises, and political maneuvering that had failed to assuage the distrust the two regions had for each other. Rabid secessionists, dubbed “fire-eaters,” had, through a decades-long campaign waged from newspaper pages, pulpits, and meeting halls, convinced Southerners that all Republicans—indeed, all Northerners—were hell-bent on eradicating slavery.

The day after Lincoln’s election, the Stars and Stripes came down outside Southern capitols, replaced by state flags. Before the election, states had been hesitant to secede. None wanted to be the first, and none wanted to act alone. Like a child on a schoolyard dare, Florida, for example, confirmed it would secede if South Carolina did. But in December and January, citizens from seven states in the deep South elected secession conventions to decide the matter. Oddly, though, voters across the region favored moderates over the rash fire-eaters who had brought them to this point. Unionist sentiment remained strong in many parts of the South, and the conventions debated the pros and cons of secession hotly.

Alexander Stephens of Georgia, for one, wanted to wait to see how Lincoln would govern before acting. “This step, . . . once taken, can never be recalled,” he said. “We and our posterity shall see our lovely South desolated by the demon of war.” Thomas Cobb, also from Georgia, argued the other side more succinctly: “These people hate us.”

Within three weeks in December and January, four states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama—seceded, with Louisiana and Georgia following soon after. No one could know for sure whether this step would ensure peace or incite war. Eight border states, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, and Kentucky, still hesitated.

Once they had seceded, the first six states knew they needed to band together. The Union could easily defeat them individually, but together they’d make a more formidable opponent. “The condition of weakness and confusion which will result from four or five states floating about is indescribable,” said William Trescott, of South Carolina. “Weld them together while they are hot.” Robert Rhett, a notorious fire-eater, suggested a convention in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a provisional government, and the South Carolina convention approved it. Invitations went out to all six states to send delegates to the Alabama capitol for a convention to begin February 4, 1861.

As the delegates converged on Montgomery from all over the Deep South, many indulged the idea that they were the South’s Founding Fathers, the true heirs of 1776. They would fulfill the promise of self-determination that Washington and Jefferson had dreamed of before sectionalism and Republican politics destroyed the United States. Theirs was a perfect paradox: a conservative revolution. Rather than tear down the old regime and replace it with something new, they simply wanted to preserve the slave-driven society they were losing. As a Richmond editor put it, “to stand still is revolution—revolution already inflicted on us by our fanatical, unrelenting enemies.” But the delegates had hazy ideas of what sort of government they wanted to build. Most expected only to draft a provisional constitution and elect interim leaders until their legislatures could draft and ratify a permanent document.

However, as they arrived in Montgomery, the delegates began an informal “conversational parliament” in the city’s lobbies and high-society homes; it would become the convention’s driving force. The delegates from Georgia convinced the majority on February 3 that they must assume the authority of a Congress. Time was of the essence. The lame-duck President James Buchanan believed he lacked the authority to coerce a seceded state back into the Union, leaving the states a month before Lincoln’s inauguration to form a government that could contend with federal force. They couldn’t wait around for a lengthy ratification process, much less risk a popular referendum with an unpredictably unionist electorate. To raise funds, invite foreign recognition, and negotiate or battle with the Union—even to establish a postal system—they had to become a legislature now. Robert Smith of Alabama reflected the night before the first session that “I feel really like I was called on to build a great edifice in a short time without any tools or materials to work with.”

So just before noon on February 4, 1861, 37 delegates (of an eventual 43) mingled with reporters and spectators in a packed hall ringed with pictures of Washington, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun. William Chilton, leader of the host delegation, called them to order at 12:30, after which a minister blessed the gathering: “We are pursuing those rights which were guaranteed to us by the solemn covenants of our fathers, and which were cemented by their blood. . . . Let truth, and justice, and equal rights be decreed to our government.” The body elected a president, Howell Cobb of Georgia, by acclamation; he delivered a brief speech, announcing to thunderous applause that the separation from the Union “is perfect, complete and perpetual.” The group then chose a secretary, doorkeeper, messenger, and committee to write rules for the proceedings. Without rules, they could go no further, so after only an hour of official meeting, the convention adjourned for the day.

The work, however, continued. Chaired by Stephens, who had an encyclopedic knowledge of Congressional procedure, the committee had a printed copy of its new rules on each delegate’s table by noon the next day. The delegates had already agreed to an informal rule to maintain the appearance of harmony, to impress both the border states and the Union. Beneath that façade, however, the convention was deeply divided, by both personality and politics. But their disagreements and debate took place in secret sessions or over dinner, and all final votes, from approving documents to electing officers, were to be unanimous. Once the rules passed (unanimously), the congress—for that is how most members thought of it now—got down to business. Each state selected two delegates to draft the provisional constitution. By midnight the next night, they would have a finished document.

The speed with which they worked belied the complexity of their task. Over this, as over all the decisions in Montgomery, loomed the specter of the border states. With only six members, the Confederacy would be easy prey for the Union. But if it could entice the border states to join up, the Union might think twice about starting a war. The committee had to craft a clear, decisive document from cloudy ideas about what it and the border states wanted. It chose the safest route, adapting the U.S. Constitution, right down to the first 11 amendments. The “Constitution for the Provisional Government of the Confederate States of North America” passed unanimously on February 8 after a day of debate and amendment—including the removal of “North” from the country’s name to lure potential Latin American converts. The Mississippian Alexander Clayton called the day’s work “the most momentous event of the century upon this continent.”

The delegates, while being wined and dined by Montgomery’s elite, had begun speculating about who would be chosen president almost as soon as they arrived in the city. Electioneering was unseemly, so power plays had to be subtle. At first all eyes were on the delegates from Georgia, the most populous, resource- and industry-rich state in the Deep South. Robert Toombs, an early front-runner, had an unfortunate inability to hold his liquor and made enough of an ass of himself the first week to take himself out of the running. Tom Cobb ruined his brother Howell’s chances by announcing haughtily—and falsely—to the other delegations that Georgia had decided for Howell. On February 9 the only name put forth was that of the moderate Mississippian Jefferson Davis.

By the time Davis rode down Market Street to his inauguration, on February 18, a committee was drafting a permanent constitution, and the provisional congress, joined by a delegation from the newly seceded Texas, had assumed control of the states’ fortifications and named a commission to negotiate with the Union. The permanent constitution was ratified in April, ten days after the opening shots of the Civil War. But the die had been cast two months earlier. By the end of that first week in February, the decades-old conflict was no longer between the Union and a few rogue states. It was between the United States of America and the Confederate States of America.

The Men of Secession and the Civil War This compelling book focuses on the central characters that shaped the events that led to secession and the Civil War, tracing the period from John Brown's 1859 Harpers Ferry Raid to the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter and the subsequent secession of the Upper South states in April 1861.

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