CHAPTER II
SECESSION FROM THE UNION
On November 12, 1860, a committee of prominent citizens, appointed by a convention of the people of several counties, asked the governor whether he intended to call the state convention immediately after the choice of presidential electors or to wait until the electors should have chosen the President. They also asked to be informed of the time he intended to order an election of delegates to the convention.[41] Governor Moore replied that a candidate for the presidency was not elected until the electors cast their votes, and until that time he would not call a convention. The electors would vote on December 5, and as he had no doubt that Lincoln would be elected, he would then order an election for December 24, and the convention would assemble in Montgomery on January 7, 1861. The date, he said, was placed far ahead in order that the people might have time to consider the subject. He summed up the situation as follows: Lincoln was the head of a sectional party pledged to the destruction of slavery; the non-slaveholding states had repeatedly resisted the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law, even nullifying the statutes of the United States by their laws intended to prevent the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law; Virginia had been invaded by abolitionists and her citizens murdered; emissaries had burned towns in Texas; and in some instances poison had been given to slaves with which to destroy the whites. With Lincoln as President the abolitionists would soon control the Supreme Court and then slavery would be abolished in the Federal district and in the territories. There would soon be a majority of free states large enough to alter the Constitution and to destroy slavery in the states. The state of society, with four million negroes turned loose, would be too horrible to contemplate, and the only safety for Alabama lay in secession, which was within her right as a sovereign state. The Federal government was established for the protection and not the destruction of rights; it had only the powers delegated by the states and hence had not the power of coercion. Alabama was devoted to the Union, but could not consent to become a degraded member of it. The state in seceding ought to consult the other southern states; but first she must decide for herself, and coöperate afterwards. The convention, the governor said, would not be a place for the timid or the rash. Men of wisdom and experience were needed, men who could determine what the honor of the state and the security of the people demanded, and who had the moral courage to carry out the dictates of their honest judgment.
The proclamation, ordering an election on Christmas Eve and the assembly of the convention at Montgomery, on January 7, 1861, was issued on December 6, the day after the choice of Lincoln by the electors. On January 7, every one of the one hundred delegates was present. It was a splendid body of men, the best the people could send.
There were the “secessionists,” who wanted immediate and separate secession of the state without regard to the action of the other southern states; the “coöperationists,” who were divided among themselves, some wanting the coöperation of the southern states within the Union in order to force their rights from the central government, and others wanting the southern states to come to an agreement within the Union and then secede and form a confederacy, while a third class wanted a clear understanding among the cotton states before secession. It was said that there were a few “submissionists,” but the votes and speeches fail to show any.
At first both parties claimed a majority, but before the convention opened it was known that the larger number were secessionists. A test vote on the election of a presiding officer showed the relative strength of the parties. William M. Brooks of Perry was elected over Robert Jemison of Tuscaloosa by a vote of 54 to 46, north Alabama voting for Jemison, central and south Alabama for Brooks. And thus the parties voted throughout the convention.
It is probable that the majority of the delegates were formerly Whigs, and a majority of them was still hostile to Yancey, who was the only prominent agitator elected. His colleague, from Montgomery County, was Thomas H. Watts, formerly a Whig. Other prominent secessionists were J. T. Dowdell, John T. Morgan, Thomas H. Herndon, E. S. Dargan, William M. Brooks, and Franklin K. Beck. The opposition leaders were William R. Smith, Robert Jemison, M. J. Bulger, Nicholas Davis, Jeremiah Clemens, Thomas J. McClellan, and David P. Lewis. Yancey, Morgan, and Watts excepted, the opposition had the more able speakers and debaters and the more political experience. The advantage of representation was with the white counties, which sent 70 of the 100 delegates.
