366 Chapter 13 The Coming of the Civil War
One reason why the South rejected this line of
thinking was the tremendous economic energy gener-
ated in the North, which seemed to threaten the
South’s independence. As one Southerner com-
plained at a commercial convention in 1855,
From the rattle with which the nurse tickles the ear
of the child born in the South to the shroud which
covers the cold form of the dead, everything comes
from the North. We rise from between sheets made
in Northern looms, and pillows of Northern feath-
ers, to wash in basins made in the North....We
eat from Northern plates and dishes; our rooms are
swept with Northern brooms, our gardens dug with
Northern spades... and the very wood which feeds
our fires is cut with Northern axes, helved with
hickory brought from Connecticut and New York.Secession, white Southerners argued, would “lib-
erate” the South and produce the kind of balanced
economy that was proving so successful in the North.
Moreover, the mere possibility of emancipation was a
powerful force for secession. “We must either submit
to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four
billions,” the Mississippi convention declared, “or we
must secede.”
Although states’ rights provided the rationale for
leaving the Union, and Southerners expounded the
strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution
with great ingenuity, the economic and emotional fac-
tors were far more basic. The lower South decided to
go ahead with secession regardless of the cost. “Let
the consequences be what they may,” an Atlanta news-
paper proclaimed. “Whether the Potomac is crim-
soned in human gore, and Pennsylvania Avenue is
paved ten fathoms in depth with mangled bodies...
the South will never submit.”
Not every slave owner could contemplate seces-
sion with such bloodthirsty equanimity. Some
believed that the risks of war and slave insurrection
were too great. Others retained a profound loyalty to
the United States. Many accepted secession only after
the deepest examination of conscience. Lieutenant
Colonel Robert E. Lee of Virginia was typical of thou-
sands. “I see only that a fearful calamity is upon us,”
he wrote during the secession crisis. “There is no sac-
rifice I am not ready to make for the preservation ofAgainst secession
Convention delegation divided
For secession
No return availableLOUISIANATEXASARKANSASMISS.ALABAMAFLORIDAGEORGIASOUTH
CAROLINANORTH
CAROLINAVIRGINIATENNESSEEGulf of
MexicoATLANTIC
OCEANSecession of the South, 1860–1861A comparison of this map with the one on page 323 shows the minimal support for secession in the
nonslave mountain areas of the Appalachians. The strong antisecession sentiment in the mountainous areas of Virginia eventually led several
counties there to break from Virginia in 1863 and form the new state of West Virginia.