Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War

Abraham Lincoln’s election in late 1860 sparked coordinated political action across the Deep South. In late November and early December, the governors of Alabama and Mississippi scheduled conventions to consider seceding. They appointed commissioners to rally other slave states across the South to join their cause. On December 13, a group of Southern congressmen met in Washington DC to discuss any remaining possibilities for compromise; they ultimately agreed to advocate for secession. They released a statement entitled “A Southern Manifesto” that articulated their insistence that the South must leave the Union. This unequivocal statement “drove a final nail into the coffin of unity […] and helped pave the way for the secession of South Carolina one week later” (24).

From December 17 to December 20, commissioners from Mississippi and Alabama traveled to South Carolina, Georgia, Maryland, and North Carolina. Both states’ governors chose distinguished public figures, many of whom were born in the states to which they traveled. Governor Andrew B. Moore of Alabama appointed members of both the radical Democratic and moderate Whig parties to send a message that the secession went beyond regional and party differences and would unite the South. The commissioners’ messages were similarly strategic: At the South Carolina Convention on December 17, commissioners Elmore and Hooker spoke briefly and cordially in support of the radical secessionist sentiment that already stood strong there.