Webster's Seventh of March Speech and the Secession Movement, 1850Foster, Herbert Darling
History
Webster's Seventh of March Speech and the Secession Movement, 1850
Foster, Herbert Darling
Secession; Webster, Daniel, 1782-1852. Seventh of March speech
The attitude of the Southern states toward disunion may be followed
closely in their action as to the Nashville Convention. Nine Southern
states approved the Convention and appointed delegates before June,
1850, six during the critical month preceding Webster's speech: Georgia,
February 6, 8; Texas and Tennessee, February 11; Virginia, February 12;
Alabama, just before the adjournment of the legislature, February
13; Mississippi, March 5, 6. [31] Every one of the nine seceded in
1860-1861; the border states (Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri) which kept
out of the Convention in 1850 likewise kept out of secession in 1861;
and only two states which seceded in 1861 failed to join the Southern
movement in 1850 (North Carolina and Louisiana). This significant
parallel between the action of the Southern states in 1850 and in 1860
suggests the permanent strength of the secession movement of 1850.
Moreover, the alignment of leaders was strikingly the same in 1850
and 1860. Those who headed the secession movement in 1850 in their
respective states were among the leaders of secession in 1860 and 1861:
Rhett in South Carolina; Yancey in Alabama; Jefferson Davis and Brown
in Mississippi Garnett, Goode, and Hunter in Virginia; Johnston in
Arkansas; Clingman in North Carolina. On the other hand, nearly all the
men who in 1850 favored the Compromise, in 1860 either remained Union
men, like Crittenden, Houston of Texas, Sharkey, Lieber, Petigru, and
Provost Kennedy of Baltimore, or, like Stephens, Morehead, and Foote,
vainly tried to restrain secession.
In the states unrepresented at the Nashville Convention-Missouri,
Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, and Louisiana--there was much
sympathy with the Southern movement. In Louisiana, the governor's
proposal to send delegates was blocked by the Whigs. [32] "Missouri", in
case of the Wilmot Proviso, "will be found in hearty co-operation with
the slave-holding states for mutual protection against... Northern
fanaticism", her legislature resolved. [33] Missouri's instructions to
her senators were denounced as "disunion in their object" by her
own Senator Benton. The Maryland legislature resolved, February 26:
"Maryland will take her position with her Southern sister states in
the maintenance of the constitution with all its compromises." The Whig
senate, however, prevented sanctioning of the convention and sending of
delegates. Florida's governor wrote the governor of South Carolina
that Florida would co-operate with Virginia and South Carolina "in any
measure in defense of our common Constitution and sovereign dignity".
"Florida has resolved to resist to the extent of revolution", declared
her representative in Congress, March 5. Though the Whigs did not
support the movement, five delegates came from Florida to the Nashville
Convention. [34]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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