The Lower South in American History (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1903. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... We all know who the leaders of the compromise movement were; we all know who the leaders of the popular movement against compromise in the North were; few of us can now recall even the names of the men who led the movement against compromise in the South. The peacemakers and the abolitionists have their place in history fixed; the fire-eaters are forgotten. Yet the pen of Garrison and the voice of Phillips had their counterparts in the Cotton states. William Gilmore Sims, Beverly Tucker, and a host of others, defended slavery in the press. Calhoun, on the brink of the grave, muttered fearful prophecies of coming disaster. When he passed from the scene, Davis and Toombs and Quitman took up the cause. But of all these voices of the South, the clearest and the fiercest came from the heart of the Cotton Empire, from Alabama, from William L. Yancey. Neglected by historians, his was yet a leading r61e in the action behind the scenes: for he spoke, not to legislatures nor to Congress, but to the people themselves. If Wendell Phillips was the orator of abolition, if Clay was the orator of compromise, Yancey was the orator of secession. More clearly, more eloquently, and more effectively than any other, he urged that the Cotton states could not compromise, for compromise was surrender. Slavery must have room or perish. The South must have what it felt to be its right, or lose its honor. Garrison and Phillips never had their way. The territorial controversy was compromised in 1850 by a plan of Clay's that proposed to leave the settlement of the question to the people of the territories themselves when they should be ready to come into the Union. A more effective fugitiveslave law was passed. Neither New England nor any other part of the country acted on t...