Showdown in Virginia

Several days ago I published a post on Showdown in Virginia: The 1861 Convention and the Fate of the Union, the newly-published book, edited by William W. Freehling and Craig M. Simpson, that contains extracts from the speeches given at the Virginia Secession Convention held between February and April 1861. Although I am not now and have never been a teacher, I ventured to suggest that the volume presented an excellent resource for educators who wanted to expose their students to the use of primary sources. Everyone speculates about the reasons for secession and the causes of the Civil War. Well, here's an opportunity to examine what the participants themselves said to explain and advance their positions.

I am pleased delighted thrilled to report that Prof. Freehling himself has posted a comment thanking me for the post and indicating that his co-editor and he are hoping that the book will be used by educators as I suggested.

As a huge Freehling fan - I think I've read everything he's published in book form - I happily pass on the news that the editors have established a website for use in conjunction with the book, http://showdowninvirginia.com. The site contains a Teacher resources section that may be particularly useful.

About the illustration:

A man, labeled "West Virginia," pulls a donkey, labeled "East Virginia," by the tail as it tries to jump off a cliff. White envelope with black ink. Image on left. "No folly 'neath the sun surpasses / The folly of these suicidal asses."

Immediate Secession: Were Southerners Afraid of Southerners?

Historians have puzzled over the reasons for immediate secession in the South in 1860-1861. Why did advocates believe that that it was imperative that their states secede even before Abraham Lincoln's inauguration? Why were they convinced that their States should not await specific evidence demonstrating Republican bad acts and bad faith – for example, refusal to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act?

A number of historians have posited that Southern fear of other Southerners was a substantial motivating factor among advocates of immediate secession. Immediate secessionists feared, so the argument goes, that the Republicans would use patronage and other devices to induce some southern whites to form the nucleus of a Republican party in their state. In other words, the South contained whites who formed a potentially disloyal fifth column that might later betray their States if secession were not promptly accomplished.

Historians making this argument usually contend that direct evidence of this motivation is hard to come by, because it was not the sort of thing advocates could state in so many words. Because they also maintained that all elements of southern society uniformly supported that society and southern institutions, they could not admit that differences among supposedly equal whites festered below the surface.

Editors William W. Freehling and Craig M. Simpson have produced a valuable new volume of excerpts of the speeches from the Virginia secession convention of 1861, Showdown in Virginia: The 1861 Convention and the Fate of the Union. As I began the book yesterday, I thought it would be a good opportunity to test the hypothesis described above (among others). As I read the arguments of advocates of immediate secession, could I find arguments that suggested that southerners were afraid of other southerners?

Remarkably, the very first speech in the volume seems to validate the hypothesis. Jeremiah Morton, a wealthy planter representing Orange and Greene Counties in the western Piedmont, was “the anomalous former Whig who was a prominent disunionist.” On February 28, 1861, Morton delivered a speech in favor of immediate secession. The speech includes a lengthy passage in which Morton argued that, without secession, “Black Republicans” would “spoils” and “public patronage” and “fat office” to lure southern whites into the Republican party:

They [the Black Republicans] will administer the Government for the strengthening of the party; they will make capital out of every appointment; and, Mr. President, with a Government, every Department of which shall be in the hands of the Black Republicans, administered upon the principles upon which William H. Seward and Abraham Lincoln will administer it, how long would our institutions be safe? . . . Whenever it comes to the administration of the spoils with the view to the advancement of party – and that for many years has been the general type of all administrations – what are the number that will be purchased up by the patronage of the Government? I do not mean to say, Mr. President, corruptly. But when there is a fat office which is tendered, and the aspirant for that office knows how important it may be that his opinions should be identical and should assimilate with the powers that be, how natural it is for a man under circumstances like these to satisfy himself that he once was a little wrong, and that the sober, second thought, is the best position. This is human nature. . . .

And I tell you, Mr. President, that Abraham Lincoln will seek to hold a power over all the Southern States. . . . If you stay . . . [in the Union] for the next twelve months there will be more beneficent showers of public patronage upon Virginia and Maryland and Tennessee – I think he would hardly go to North Carolina – but he will go to Kentucky and Missouri, sooner than to any other States.

And, Mr. President, when a man gets a rich office, how many friends circle around him to congratulate him. . . . The donee of a fat office – be it a Judgeship, be it a Collectorship, be it a Postmaster of this city – has much power, and each one will form a nucleus of sympathizing friends with the powers that be. . . . Let us acquiesce, and I tell you that in the next Presidential canvass – if not in the next, in the second; certainly in the third – you will find Black Republicans upon every stump, and organizing in every county; and that is the peace that we shall have from this “glorious Union.”

About the illustration at the top of the post, entitled Virginny:

An old woman is surprised by a skull coming out of a teapot. Cream envelope with blue ink. Image on left. Virginny, mother of "Old Dominion" presidents and other ([Henry A.] Wise) things, is asked by Mrs. [Varina] Davis to try a cup of secession tea – and finds death in the pot!

About the second illustration, entitled Secession Web:

[Jefferson] Davis as a spider catching the secession states in his web strung from the American flag. There is a skull and cross bones on his spider back and he is dripping blood and clutching Virginia. Cream envelope with red and blue ink. Image on left side. "Walk into my parlor," says the Spider to the Fly.

Guelzo on Freehling

The Claremont Review of Books has, at last, uncovered Allen Guelzo's balanced and penetrating review of William W. Freehling's The Road to Disunion, Volume I: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, and The Road to Disunion, Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861.

Well worth a read.

William Freehling on the Michael Holt Issue

There is no doubt in my mind that Michael Holt's The Political Crisis of the 1850s is one of the most important books written about the causes of the Civil War in the past thirty years. In it, Professor Holt posits that any theory about why the south seceded must explain why the seven lower southern States seceded based merely on President Lincoln's election, while the remaining slaveowning States did not do so.

Professor Holt argues that the traditional explanation -- that the middle and border southern states had fewer slaves, measured as a percentage of population or as a percentage of white slaveowning families -- is insufficient. (See, for example, the chart at page 229 of the Norton paperback edition and surrounding discussion.) He argues that the crucial determinant is the historical strength of two-party competition in each State. His analysis of interparty competition purports to show that, in the period immediately before the War, interparty competition substantially decreased in the "lower south" (the seven States that seceded before Lincoln's inauguration) but remained steady in the other slaveholding States.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that, as I read William Freehling's The Road to Disunion II, I would be on the lookout for any discussion of this issue. Although I am not quite finished with the book, it is apparent that Professor Freehling's primary interest lies with why and how the lower southern States seceded. That in itself is a fascinating story, and Professor Freehling sheds light on that story that I, at least, have never encountered, and that makes his book invaluable.

However, for better or worse, it appears that the eventual secession of four other slaveholding States is of less interest to him. (In addition, or in the alternative, a footnote suggests that that Professor Freehling was discouraged from re-ploughing the same ground so admirably trodden by Daniel Crofts.) As a result, he has little to say on Professor Holt's issue, and when he does discuss it he seems to sit squarely on the fence, suggesting that both differences in slave populations and differences in party competitiveness explain the different reactions to President Lincoln's election:

A solid South [in favor of secession] would have to transcend the social fact that 47 percent of the Lower South's peoples were slaves compared to 32 percent of the Middle South's and 13 percent of the Border South's, the political fact that that ex-Whigs (later Americans or Know-Nothings and yet later Oppositionists and still later Constitutional Unionists) had remained very competitive in the Upper South while becoming largely unelectable in the Lower South, and the later electoral fact that John Breckenridge had received 56 percent of the Lower South's 1860 popular presidential vote compared to 32 percent in the Border South.

Professor Freehling may well be right, but this stray sentence simply does not prove it. In particular, the statistics, while presumably perfectly accurate, evade the statistics that Professor Holt cites. If slaves and slaveholding are sufficient causes, why did Texas (28% white families owning slaves) secede, while Virginia (27.3%), North Carolina (29%), Tennessee (24.9%), and even Kentucky (23.5%) did not? Professor Freehling's impressionistic statement simply does not burrow sufficiently deep to grapple with the issues that Professor raises.

I am not, by the way, a member of the school that contends that slavery had nothing to do with secession. To the contrary, I think it had everything to do with it. But at the same time I think that Professor Holt has presented arguments that strongly suggest that the interaction is, somehow, far more complex than most consider it to be. My disappointment arises precisely from the fact that I was hoping that a historian of Professor Freehling's stature would give this issue his close attention.

More Thoughts on William Freehling: A Coda to the Footnotes

I feel somewhat guilty having criticized Professor Freehling in earlier posts. To make amends, I should emphasize that a review of the footnotes (I know, they're really endnotes) reveals an encyclopedic knowledge of both primary and secondary sources. Nor do titles appear solely for the sake of citing them. For example, several footnotes discuss and sometimes intelligently criticize books such as J. Mills Thornton's Politics and Power in a Slave Society, Lacy Ford's Origins of Southern Radicalism (both discussed here), William Barney's The Secessionist Impulse, and Charles Dew's Apostles of Disunion.

A surprising number of footnotes (in addition to the one I discussed earlier) use the word "guess" or otherwise acknowledge that historical interpretation is an uncertain task.

Perhaps, then, it's best to say that, in order to appreciate The Road to Disunion II and how carefully Professor Freehling has considered the alternatives before reaching his conclusions, the footnotes are required reading.

More Thoughts on William Freehling: A Footnote

I have previously expressed my admiration for Stephanie McCurry's Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum Lowcountry (New York: Oxford University Press 1997).

In The Road to Disunion II, William W. Freehling has a footnote (actually an endnote) discussing Professor McCurry's book that exemplifies the kind of writing that I admire in historians. It sets forth an issue as to which they disagree and explains why. It also explicitly acknowledges that his conclusion is an inference, not a certainty. In short, it uses precisely the sort of approach that I wish Professor Freehling had employed throughout the book.

The endnote appears at the end of a paragraph of text in which Professor Freehling is discussing why non-slaveowning white yeomen in the South Carolina lowcountry supported planters. Professor Freehling's typically frustrating prose (at 360-61) conveys more impression than fact:

Lowly whites as black belt political superiors had no qualms about elevating squires to the legislature or about ousting abolitionists from the neighborhood. In the paramilitary societies that patrolled the lowcounty in the fall of 1860, nonslaveholders paraded beside their richer neighbors, proudly keeping blacks ground under. The patriarchal obligation of all white men to guard their wives, gratifying to poor men's chauvinistic egos, included the necessity to keep a 90 percent black majority from murdering white dependents.

It is precisely this sort of passage that makes one feel queasy, because it presents what are presumably inferences without qualification or acknowledgment of uncertainty. It does not even acknowledge that they are inferences.

Then, in the endnote (at 569), Professor Freehling says precisely what you wish he had said in the text:

This may be a better (or worse) guess than Stephanie McCurry's speculation that white yeomen massed behind wealthier men's domination over dependent blacks in order to preserve white males' domination over dependent wives. We are all guessing from missing evidence about yeomen's motives; that is usually a difficulty with history from the bottom up. But I've seen no hint that South Carolina white males feared, or had the slightest reason to fear, female domination before the war. In contrast, I've seen much evidence that fear of racial unrest afflicted lowcountry whites -- and plenty of reason for that fear. Still, Professor McCurry's gender-based speculation is intriguing; her evidence of poorer whites' full participation in 1860 paramilitary pressures is irrefutable; and I applaud her success in making the hitherto invisible lowcountry white nonslaveholders highly visible in the secession story. . ..

You may or may not think that Professor Freehling characterizes Professor McCurry's thesis with absolute precision; you may or may not agree that Professor Freehling's "guess" is the better one; but at least you know what conclusion he draws, why he draws it, and why he believes that it's a better inference than Professor McCurry's. Even more significantly, he acknowledges with utter candor the uncertainty that characterizes so much of the historical art.

Some Thoughts on William Freehling

In The Road to Disunion, William Freehling employs a breathless "you are there" technique designed to increase the drama. Although a number of people have criticized his writing style as annoying, I've concluded that it creates a more fundamental problem.

Occasionally, this sort of "you are there" writing can be fun. Take, for example, his chapter on the Democratic convention held in Charleston, South Carolina in April 1860. I rather enjoyed the descriptions of the difficulties that travelers encountered just getting to Charleston and the discomforts that the conventioneers experienced after they arrived, from pickpockets to unexpectedly steamy weather that left attendants sleepless at night and sweat drenched during the day in the airless convention hall. Similarly, and on a somewhat different level, he does a good job giving you a real feel for the claustrophobic salons of Charleston that gave rise to hothouse dreams of secession.

But the negatives far outweigh the positives. First, Professor Freehling is, I regret to say, a leaden wordsmith. As a result, most of his attempts to create dramatic tension simply fall flat because the reader is too busy shaking his head in stunned disbelief at the overblown oratory and inappropriate word selection.

More seriously, I fear that Professor Freehling's tendency to present dramatic characters and incidents to illustrate points creates the suspicion, justified or not, that the casting and plotmaking is just a bit too neat. Compounding the problem, the "up close and personal" technique often makes it difficult for the reader to evaluate the lessons the author draws from and the arguments he makes based upon the dramatic incidents he recreates.

Together, these problems mean that, for me at least, the writing technique is not merely distracting; it is also substantively counterproductive, because the reader feels less confident about the conclusions drawn than he otherwise would.

This is no doubt unfair to Professor Freehling, who has lived and breathed the antebellum period and these issues most of his life. Some of his footnotes, which I hope to discuss in future posts, make clear that he has thought long and hard about the issues and considered competing views before reaching his conclusions. But I for one would have preferred more distance and a more overtly "academic" tone. I also would have liked more explicit discussion as to why he has rejected other interpretations of various events and issues.

Come to think of it, I guess this last complaint is a pet peeve I have about much historical writing. Too often, historians discussing an issue seem to pass each other in the night. I would prefer to see more acknowledgment and discussion of other views and why the author disagrees with them: "Professor A says the answer is X; Professor B says it's Y; I think they're both wrong and that the answer is Z. Here is why they disagree with each other, and here is how and why I come to the conclusion I do."

The Road to Disunion II: Secessionists Triumphant

I am wending my way through William Freehling's Road to Secession Volume II. After about 150 pages, my reaction is that this should not be the first book you should read on the period 1854-1861. Professor Freehling is too idiosyncratic a writer for that. Putting aside his offputting writing style, the good professor tends to zero in on particular topics that interest him -- for example, the tensions inherent in different southern justifications of slavery -- and then gives comparatively brief treatment to others.

His discussion of Kansas and Lecompton is a good example. You can tease out of the discussion the basic underlying facts, but Professor Freehling is really more interested in focusing on particular issues. Why were southerners so hell-bent on Kansas? Why did President Buchanan wind up supporting the Lecompton Constitution? I'm pretty sure that, if I did not already have the basic facts in hand, I would be looking for a more straightforward description of events and the supporting evidence.

That said, if you've got some background, Professor Freehling offers interesting insights, and you shouldn't miss his book. Take the last issue mentioned above, for example. Elsewhere, you can discover that the evidence is strong to the point of conclusive that, before he went to Kansas, Robert Walker sought and obtained assurances from President Buchanan that Buchanan would support him in demanding that any Kansas constitution be submitted to a popular referendum. Yet after Walker took this position, based on Buchanan's promise, Buchanan reversed course, disavowed his promise, supported the Lecompton Constitution, and went a long way to destroying his presidency, his party and the country in the process. Why on Earth did Buchanan pursue so destructive a course?

Professor Freehling paints a highly plausible picture of Buchanan torn by conflicting loyalties, personal and political. Buchanan's jovial good friend and trusted political confidant Howell Cobb, Secretary of the Treasury in Buchanan's cabinet, felt strongly both that the federal government should not reject an application for statehood simply because the work of a duly elected state convention was not ratified by a popular referendum, and that it was foolish and counterproductive for the state convention to refuse to submit its work to a referendum. With Buchanan's express or tacit consent, Cobb took up the laboring oar to try to insure that the Lecompton convention endorsed a referendum. However, because he believed that the federal government could not and should not dictate to a state on such a matter, he sought to persuade rather than order the convention to provide for a referendum.

When this tactic failed, Buchanan was left with an extremely awkward choice, on both the personal and political levels. If he repudiated the Lecompton Constitution, he would in effect be repudiating his friend Cobb's work and principles, risking mass resignations from the cabinet in the process. He therefore chose the alternate course, justifying his position to himself by relying on the fact that the Lecompton convention had provided for a partial referendum, and convincing himself that any negative political ramifications would be only temporary.

Professor Freehling frankly admits that the psychological picture he paints represents his best guess based on inferences from the available evidence and is not conclusive, but that refreshing admission only makes it the more convincing.

Was Slavery on the Way Out? Prof. Freehling Says No!

I've previously posted on whether slavery was on the way out in 1860. In my view, it clearly was not. Indeed, it's hard to imagine when slavery would have been abolished in the United States but for the Civil War.

I'm proud to report that Professor Freehling apparently agrees. At the end of his talk the other evening, he said that he guessed that it would have taken 100 years to abolish slavery but for the war.

William W. Freehling Talk: Part III

The question that Professor Freehling did not address was, Why did the lower south react so differently to -- whatever: Lincoln's election, the Star of the West Crisis or the mistaken belief that Buchanan was reinforcing all southern forts. Whatever they were reacting to, all of the southern States were reacting to the same events and phenomena; yet they reacted utterly differently.

Professor Freehling made an offhand comment about the blackness of the black belts in the cotton States, but I did not take that as definitive. I have sensed that Professor Freehing may be sympathetic to Michael Holt's argument that the difference lay, in whole or in part, in the fact that the cotton States lacked a history of competitive two-party systems, while the other southern States had at least fairly competitive Whig/American/Union party opposition traditions.

Hopefully, we we will find out when the book is published.

William W. Freehling Talk: Part II

South Carolina’s decision to secede, a military crisis and a misunderstanding dramatically changed the decision facing the other southern States. Professor Freehling stated that James Buchanan was one of the most misunderstood presidents. He was not a wimp. After South Carolina seceded, Buchanan decided to reinforce Robert Anderson, who had moved his men to Fort Sumter. As we know, The Star of West was shelled when it approached the fort and turned back. If it had not, the war would have started then. That was the military crisis.

The misunderstanding was that of the southern commissioners then meeting in Washington. They assumed that Buchanan’s reinforcement of Fort Sumter meant that he was reinforcing every federal fort and installation throughout the south. They sent out telegrams to this effect. The lower southern states responded by seizing every federal fort in their territories. Having done so, they no longer faced the simply the question, “Shall we support South Carolina?” Instead, they faced the question, Shall we support our troops, our boys, who were already in the field, as it were. The seizure of the forts “utterly changed the equation” in the lower south. Throughout the lower south, military engagements had, in effect, already taken place before votes for secession took place.

Even so, the mid- and upper-southern States did not secede. They still wanted to try to work things out. All this changed when Lincoln asked for 75,000 troops. This would have, for example, forced Virginia boys to fight against South Carolina boys. “All hell broke loose.” Just days earlier, the Virginia Convention was 2-1 against secession. All that changed. Immediately after, Henry Wise, an ex-governor with no authority, ordered troops to seize federal installations in Virginia, including Harper’s Ferry.

And even after that, the border south states did not secede. They thought secession was a terrible mistake. Where would the war be fought? On their soil. Whose slaves were most at risk? Theirs. They hated those South Carolina “hot heads.” In the end, States containing one-third of the southern white population did not secede.

Professor Freehling believes that the war was won in the West. The failure of the border States to secede was tremendously important. Think of Kentucky. Think of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

Returning to why the lower southern States, other than South Carolina, seceded, Professor Freehling stated that he did not believe that they did not do so simply to protect and preserve the institution of black slavery. They were also motivated by the desire not to be coerced. Their mistaken understanding that Buchanan was reinforcing all federal forts meant coercion, and coercion meant slavery. If white men did not resist, they would not be free; and if they were not free, they were slaves. This was probably the most important factor.

(I would add that, with the significant twist of the forts issue, Professor Freehling’s brief discussion of white perceptions of freedom and slavery as bearing on secession seemed to reflect agreement with the arguments of H. Mills Thornton in Politics and Power in a Slave Society: Alabama 1800-1850. You can read my post about that book here.)

William W. Freehling Talk: Part I

This evening I attended a talk given by William W. Freehling to the Civil War Roundtable of New York. As you may expect, Professor Freehling based his talk on his forthcoming book, The Road to Disunion, Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861 (Oxford University Press 2007). At the outset, it’s worth noting that the Professor seems to be a delightful person and a really nice guy. Before the talk, he circulated around the room, introducing himself to people. I heard some conversation that makes me think he’s an opera fan, although I didn’t get to ask who his favorite composer was.

It was also fun to see how genuinely excited he is about the Antebellum period and the Civil War. At several points, he got so wound up about his subject that he had to pause and take a drink of water to compose himself.

The Professor began by emphasizing “how difficult secession was.” “If there is one thing you should take away, it’s that secession was very hard.” First, white southerners loved the government. They had formed the Union and been in control of it since 1835 – witness the Gag Rule, the Fugitive Slave Act, Kansas-Nebraska and Dred Scott.

Second, Lincoln was no menace to slavery or the south. The Republicans did not have a majority in Congress or on the Supreme Court; they did not even control a majority of northern governorships. In his First Inaugural, Lincoln went out of his way to endorse the then-proposed Thirteenth Amendment, which would have created an unamendable Constitutional provision preventing the federal government from ever interfering with slavery in the States.

Third, southern Unionists had very cogent arguments. Among other things, they pointed out that secession would lead to civil war, and civil war posed a far greater threat to slavery than Lincoln did.

In short, in the south as a whole, a large majority said “WAIT.” If he had to guess, Professor Freehling thinks that 75% of white southerners wanted to wait and see what was going to happen. In this context, the Professor noted several times that the middle and upper south contained two-thirds of the white southern population. This did not mean that this majority was not prepared to secede if Lincoln took affirmative action against the south, but they did not want to secede merely because Lincoln was elected.

The idea of a southern convention had been the brainchild of secessionists, going back to John Calhoun. As recently as 1959, secessionists had sought a southern convention after John Brown’s raid. Ironically, however, the election of Lincoln caused a role reversal: southern Unionists urged a southern convention; secessionists sought to force a decision before a southern convention could be held. They needed a State to secede quickly – and the obvious candidate was South Carolina.

South Carolina was “scared to death” to secede by itself. It therefore started a “secret conspiracy” to try to get support. It secretly wrote to the governors of other southern states asking, “Will you help us” by agreeing to secede if South Carolina did. The southern governors uniformly responded that they would not. Georgia was particular adamant that it would not help.

South Carolina radicals, led by Robert Barnwell Rhett, were nonetheless desperate to secede. Professor Freehling believes that chance and coincidence play a large part in history – and here is a prime example. On November 9, 1860, the South Carolina Senate voted 44 –1 against convening a state secession convention. On November 10, 1860, the South Carolina legislature voted unanimously to convene the convention on December 17. The Professor said – and his body language confirmed – that his discovery of what had happened to cause this dramatic reversal was the most exciting event of his career.

It so happened that a railroad had just been completed between Charleston and Savannah. On November 3, a celebratory dinner was held in Savanna. At that dinner, Francis Bartow, Georgia’s foremost Unionist, gave a speech at which he urged that South Carolina not secede. Secession, Bartow said, was stupid – Lincoln was no menace, and secession put slavery at risk. But, Bartow said, if you do secede, we Georgians will have no choice but to follow you. It would be entirely unworkable for the South Carolina-Georgia border to be a border between two different countries. At the end of the evening, the South Carolinians invited the Georgians to a reciprocal celebratory dinner in Charleston – on the evening of November 9.

Meanwhile, the South Carolina Senate in Columbia voted 44–1 against a secession convention on November 9. That evening, Bartow gave the same speech at the dinner in Charleston. Telegrams immediately went out from Charleston to Columbia: “Georgia is with us!” Georgia’s leading Unionist had said that Georgia would secede if South Carolina did. A trainload of Charlestonians left for Columbia with the same message, arriving in the early afternoon on November 10.

At 4:30 p.m. on November 10, the South Carolina Senate voted unanimously to schedule a secssion convention. At 6:00 p.m., the South Carolina House did the same.

In analyzing why South Carolina seceded, Professor Freehing found that the overwhelming concern was that Republican patronage would give birth to a southern Republican party. That, in turn, would create agitation to abolish slavery. Slaves would hear that talk. That was intolerable – you can’t have discussion about slavery – because it created a risk that slaves would rise up and murder their masters in their beds.

Honor was also a factor. South Carolina had previously threatened to secede both in 1832-33 and in 1850. On both occasions, it had backed down. If South Carolinians backed down again, they would regard themselves as degraded.

Professor Freehling discounted other factors. “I looked hard for any mention of the tariff. There was none. I looked hard for any mention of States’ Rights. There was none.”