Daniel W. Crofts, Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secessionist Crisis (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993).

SYNOPSIS:

Crofts' book focuses on the three "populous and pivotal states" of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, attempting to combine an analysis of the Upper South in late 1860 and early 1861 with an analysis of the Republican Party's response to Upper South Unionism. He concludes that "one must take into account both slaveholding and previous patterns of party allegiance to understand why the upper South and lower South took such different stances during the months after Lincoln's election (xvi)." Crofts identifies "three waves of change" that swept over and fundamentally reshaped the upper South's political contours. The first wave of the secessionist movement differed in the Upper South from the Lower South in that it did not "dislodge any state from the Union (xvii)." Rather, the call for secession created an "explicitly antisecession countermobilization," resulting in a second wave of change that "swept away the popular underpinnings of secession in February 1861 (xvii)." Unlike the Lower South, the persistence of the Whig opposition party in the upper South, Crofts asserts, "provided institutional barriers against secession." The third wave arose with Lincoln's proclamation calling for troops on April 15, which immediately engulfed Upper South Unionism. Crofts writes that "original and converted secessionists joined hands to defend southern honor and constitutional principles against what they perceived as corrupt, tyrannical opposition (xviii)."

EXCERPT:

"Those who consider North and South utterly distinct and antagonistic by the late antebellum period will find this book an unmistakable challenge. The evidence presented here shows that many northerners and southerners believed that sectional differences were negotiable and looked forward to peaceful perpetuation of the Union. Upper South Unionists, the particular focus of this study, often embraced northern values. They expected the upper South's economy to develop increasing resemblance to the North's rather than to the deep South's. To be sure, the outbreak of war in April galvanized irreconcilable nationalisms North and South, including a defiant sense of southern separateness. But until that fateful juncture, the upper South spurned secession. Moderates both North and South outnumbered the antagonistic minorities in each section who fed on each other, gradually eroding the center. An undoubted majority of Americans preferred that the center hold and expected it to do so." (xix)

"Although Breckinridge gained the support of most upper South Democrats, his nomination appeared to some the work of deep South extremists. In certain localities such as the Memphis area of southwest Tennessee and the famed Tenth Legion of the Virginia Democracy in the Shenandoah Valley, party organizers supported Douglas rather than Breckinridge." (77)

"The election returns revealed that voters in the upper South had clung to traditional party allegiances. . . John Bell carried traditional Whig strongholds such as Loudoun, Augusta, and Kanawha counties. Lincoln's vote was confined to a few counties in the far northwest. Several clusters of Douglas strength-around Petersburg and in parts of the Shenandoah Valley and the northwest-prevented Breckinridge from carrying normally Democratic Virginia." (81)

"Do the ossified voting patterns mean that people in the upper South regarded the election as routine? Certainly not. Many southerners feared that a Republican president would destroy southern rights or tarnish southern honor. Others feared that a reckless southern response to his election would prove self-fulfilling. But a conviction persisted among southerners of various persuasions that danger could be overcome by voting for familiar and trusted party nominees." (82, 86)

RELATIONSHIP:

We share Crofts' interest in the upper South unionists; however, we do not consider the constitutional principles as critical to their decision as Crofts does. Instead, our analysis emphasizes slavery's dominant and pervasive role in the Upper South and its importance in shaping the social logic of Upper South Unionism.

"In Augusta clusters of contiguous precincts gave their support in the 1860 presidential election in similar patterns."

"Whigs accounted for the most visible party activists in Augusta County, but activists in both parties exerted significant influence."

"Precincts in Augusta that supported Breckinridge at a high level in 1860 represented the extremes of wealth, as the wealthiest and the poorest precincts drew more support for Breckinridge than any other precincts."

"The precincts with high Bell support had average household wealth and farm value well below county averages. For these marginal places a vote for Bell represented a safe course, the least change."