Webster's Seventh of March Speech and the Secession Movement, 1850

by Herbert Darling Foster

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]

In Kentucky, Crittenden's repeated messages against "disunion" and "entangling engagements" reveal the danger seen by a Southern Union governor. [35] Crittenden's changing attitude reveals the growing peril, and the growing reliance on Webster's and Clay's plans. By April, Crittenden recognized that "the Union is endangered", "the case... rises above ordinary rules", "circumstances have rather changed". He reluctantly swung from Taylor's plan of dealing with California alone, to the Clay and Webster idea of settling the "whole controversy". [36] Representative Morehead wrote Crittenden, "The extreme Southern gentlemen would secretly deplore the settlement of this question. The magnificence of a Southern Confederacy... is a dazzling allurement." Clay like Webster, saw "the alternative, civil war". [37]

In North Carolina, the majority appear to have been loyal to the Union; but the extremists—typified by Clingman, the public meeting at Wilmington, and the newspapers like the Wilmington Courier—reveal the presence of a dangerously aggressive body "with a settled determination to dissolve the Union" and frankly "calculating the advantages of a Southern Confederacy." Southern observers in this state reported that "the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law or the abolition of slavery in the District will dissolve the Union". The North Carolina legislature acquiesced in the Compromise but counselled retaliation in case of anti-slavery aggressions. [38] Before the assembling of the Southern convention in June, every one of the Southern states, save Kentucky, had given some encouragement to the Southern movement, and Kentucky had given warning and proposed a compromise through Clay. [39]

Nine Southern states-Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Florida, and Tennessee sent about 176 delegates to the Nashville Convention. The comparatively harmless outcome of this convention, in June, led earlier historians to underestimate the danger of the resistance movement in February and March when backed by legislatures, newspapers, and public opinion, before the effect was felt of the death of Calhoun and Taylor, and of Webster's support of conciliation. Stephens and the Southern Unionists rightly recognized that the Nashville Convention "will be the nucleus of another sectional assembly". "A fixed alienation of feeling will be the result." "The game of the destructives is to use the Missouri Compromise principle [as demanded by the Nashville Convention] as a medium of defeating all adjustments and then to... infuriate the South and drive her into measures that must end in disunion." "All who go to the Nashville Convention are ultimately to fall into that position." This view is confirmed by Judge Warner and other observers in Georgia and by the unpublished letters of Tucker. [40] "Let the Nashville Convention be held", said the Columbus, Georgia, Sentinel, "and let the undivided voice of the South go forth... declaring our determination to resist even to civil war." [41] The speech of Rhett of South Carolina, author of the convention's "Address", "frankly and boldly unfurled the flag of disunion". "If every Southern State should quail... South Carolina alone should make the issue." "The opinion of the [Nashville] address is, and I believe the opinion of a large portion of the Southern people is, that the Union cannot be made to endure", was delegate Barnwell's admission to Webster. [42]

The influence of the Compromise is brought out in the striking change in the attitude of Senator Foote, and of judge Sharkey of Mississippi, the author of the radical "Address" of the preliminary Mississippi Convention, and chairman of both this and the Nashville Convention. After the Compromise measures were reported in May by Clay and Webster's committee, Sharkey became convinced that the Compromise should be accepted and so advised Foote. Sharkey also visited Washington and helped to pacify the rising storm by "suggestions to individual Congressmen". [43] In the Nashville Convention, Sharkey therefore exercised a moderating influence as chairman and refused to sign its disunion address. Convinced that the Compromise met essential Southern demands, Sharkey urged that "to resist it would be to dismember the Union". He therefore refused to call a second meeting of the Nashville Convention. For this change in position he was bitterly criticized by Jefferson Davis. [44] Foote recognized the "emergency" at the same time that Webster did, and on February 25, proposed his committee of thirteen to report some "scheme of compromise". Parting company with Calhoun, March 5, on the thesis that the South could not safely remain without new "constitutional guarantees", Foote regarded Webster's speech as "unanswerable", and in April came to an understanding with him as to Foote's committee and their common desire for prompt consideration of California. The importance of Foote's influence in turning the tide in Mississippi, through his pugnacious election campaign, and the significance of his judgment of the influence of Webster and his speech have been somewhat overlooked, partly perhaps because of Foote's swashbuckling characteristics. [45]

That the Southern convention movement proved comparatively innocuous in June is due in part to confidence inspired by the conciliatory policy of one outstanding Northerner, Webster. "Webster's speech", said Winthrop, "has knocked the Nashville Convention into a cocked hat." [46] "The Nashville Convention has been blown by your giant effort to the four winds." [47] "Had you spoken out before this, I verily believe the Nashville Convention had not been thought of. Your speech has disarmed and quieted the South." [48] Webster's speech caused hesitation in the South. "This has given courage to all who wavered in their resolution or who were secretly opposed to the measure [Nashville Convention]." [49]

Ames cites nearly a store of issues of newspapers in Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, North Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia reflecting the change in public opinion in March. Even some of the radical papers referred to the favorable effect of Webster's speech and "spirit" in checking excitement. "The Jackson (Mississippi) Southron had at first supported the movement [for a Southern Convention], but by March it had grown lukewarm and before the Convention assembled, decidedly opposed it. The last of May it said, 'not a Whig paper in the State approves'." In the latter part of March, not more than a quarter of sixty papers from ten slave-holding states took decided ground for a Southern Convention. [50] The Mississippi Free Trader tried to check the growing support of the Compromise, by claiming that Webster's speech lacked Northern backing. A South Carolina pamphlet cited the Massachusetts opposition to Webster as proof of the political strength of abolition. [51]

The newer, day by day, first-hand evidence, in print and manuscript, shows the Union in serious danger, with the culmination during the three weeks preceding Webster's speech; with a moderation during March; a growing readiness during the summer to await Congressional action; and slow, acquiescence in the Compromise measures of September, but with frank assertion on the part of various Southern states of the right and duty of resistance if the compromise measures were violated. Even in December, 1850, Dr. Alexander of Princeton found sober Virginians fearful that repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act would throw Virginia info the Southern movement and that South Carolina "by some rash act" would precipitate "the crisis". "All seem to regard bloodshed as the inevitable result." [52]

To the judgments and legislative acts of Southerners already quoted, may be added some of the opinions of men from the North. Erving, the diplomat, wrote from New York, "The real danger is in the fanatics and disunionists of the North". "I see no salvation but in the total abandonment of the Wilmot Proviso." Edward Everett, on the contrary, felt that "unless some southern men of influence have courage enough to take grounds against the extension of slavery and in favor of abolition... we shall infallibly separate". [53]