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Re: The Crisis
In Response To: Re: The Crisis ()

Whoa, now I'm not putting the total idea of disunion upon the South. In the years between 1835 and 1860, the idea seems to have been a collaboration between both sides on this issue, neither side actually caring about the welfare of slavery institution as much as the effort for disunion. Calhoun's Northern equals seems to be men like John Quincy Adams, who actually promoted disunion although he said he never actually wanted it. In 1841, citizens from Haverhill petitioned Congress for dissolution of the Union, on the grounds that Northern resources were being used to maintain slavery. John Quincy Adams presented the Haverhill Petition on 24 January 1842 to Congress and was quickly censored. John Quincy Adams argued in Congress that there was a nefarious design, by Calhoun and others to exaggerate the influence of abolitionist in order to galvanize the slaveholders against the North and the abolitionist against the South. By what ever means, the environment was such in 1837, that the president of the American Anti-Slavery Society, James Birney stated [that Northerners could not accept the annexation of Texas] "Annexation ought to persuade us to look forward to the dissolution of the Union as an event which will in all probability take place, and for which we ought to prepare". In the South, in the city of Nashville, Tenn., a disunion convention was held in 1850, and was represented by the states of Mississippi and South Carolina.

The idea of disunion and secession as a legal means to create two independent nations, North and South, was favored by leading men on both sides. After the Civil War, when Jefferson Davis was being threatened with trial and punishment for treason for leading the seceding states, some of his biggest supporters were radical abolitionist.

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David Upton

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