State-Rights Associations

It was by men of this cast of mind that "Southern Rights" associations were formed, and were fostered for nearly thirty years before the Civil War, with disunion as their prime object. The feeling of contempt for the Northern masses among the "chivalric Southrons" was more intense in South Carolina than elsewhere. The self-constituted leaders of the people there, who hated democracy and a republican form of government, who yearned for the pomps of royalty and a republican form of government, who yearned for the pomps of royalty and the privileges of an hereditary aristocracy, and who had persuaded themselves and the "common people" around them that they were superior to all others on the continent as patterns of gentility, refinement, courtly manners, grace, and every characteristic of the highest ideal of chivalry, had for many years yearned for separation from the vulgar North. William H. Trescott, who was Assistant Secretary of State under Bachanan, and one of the most active members of the "Southern Rights Association" of South Carolina (the avowed object of which was the destruction of the unity of the Republic), said, in an address before the South Carolina Historical Society in 1859: "More than once has the calm self-respect of old Carolina breeding been caricatured by the consequential insolence of vulgar imitators."

This was the common tone of thought among the leading South Carolinians. Dr. Russell, writing to the London Times at the close of April, 1861, said: "Their admiration for monarchical institutions on the English model, for privileged classes, and for a landed aristocracy and gentry, is undisguised and apparently genuine. Many are they who say, 'We would go back to-morrow, if we could.' An intense affection for the British connections, a love of British habits and customs, a respect for British sentiment, law, authority, order, civilization, and literature, pre-eminently distinguish the inhabitants of this State, who, glorying in their descent from ancient families on the three islands, whose fortunes they still follow, and with whose members they maintain, not unfrequently, familiar relations, regard with an aversion which it is impossible to give an idea of to one who has not seen its manifestations, the people of New England and the population of the Northern States, whom they regard as tainted beyond cure with the venom of Puritanism." There was a prevailing voice, Dr. Russell wrote, that said, "If we could only get one of the royal race of England to rule over us, we should be content." That sentiment, he wrote, "varied a hundred ways, has been repeated to me over and over again."

So early as May, 1851, when there were active preparations in South Carolina for revolt, Muscoe R. H. Garnett, of Virginia, wrote to Mr. Trescott, then a leader of the "Southern Rights Association" in the first-named State, expressing his fears that Virginia would not consent to engage in the movement. The Legislature did not favor it, but he expressed the hopeful opinion that the law-makers did not reflect the sentiments of the people of the State. "In the East, at least," he said, "the great majority believe in the right of secession, and feel the deepest sympathy with Carolina in opposition to measures which they regard as she does. But the West--West Virginia--here is the rub !--only sixty thousand slaves to four hundred and ninety-four thousand whites ! When I consider this fact, and the kind of argument which we have heard in this body, I cannot but regard with the greatest fear the question, whether Virgina would assist Carolina in such an issue. I must acknowledge, my dear sir, that I look to the future with almost as much apprehension as hope. You will object to the term Democrat. Democracy, in its original philosophical sense, is incompatible with slavery and the whole system of Southern society. I do not hesitate to say that if the question is raised between Carolina and the Federal Government, and the latter prevails, the last hope of Republican government and, I fear, of Southern civilization is gone."

The restless spirits of South Carolina continued to confer secretly with the politicians of the slave-labor States on the subject of disunion; and finally, in November, 1859, the Legislature of that State openly resolved that "the commonwealth was ready to enter, together with other slave-holding States, or such as desire prompt action, into the formation of a Southern Confederacy." The Carolinians were specially anxious to secure the co-operation of the Virginians; and in January following, at the request of the Legislature, the governor of the State sent C. G. Memminger as a special commissioner to Virginia, for the purpose of enlisting its representatives in the scheme of disunion. With protestations of attachment to the Union, Mr. Memminger invited the Virginians to co-operate in a convention of delegates from slave-labor States to "take action for their defence;" in other words, to secede from the Union. He made an able plea, addressed to their reason, their passions, and their prejudices, and concluded by saying, "I have delivered into the keeping of Virginia the cause of the South." But the Virginians did not desire a Southern Confederacy wherein free-trade in African slaves would prevail, for it would seriously interfere with the profitable inter-state traffic in negroes. So they hesitated; and in an autograph letter before me, Mr. Memminger wrote to the editor of the Charleston Mercury, that the Democratic party in Virginia was "not a unit," that "Federal politics" made that "great State comparatively powerless," and that he saw "no men who would take the position of leaders in a revolution."