Secessionist Impulse

The classic study of the cultural and economic politics that allowed "fire-eaters" to triumph over Unionists in the Deep South

In The Secessionist Impulse William L. Barney explores the forces and individuals behind both the 1860 presidential election and the subsequent push for secession. Barney contends that, despite the efforts of revisionist historians to show otherwise, pro-slavery factions existed among all of the major presidential candidates supporters.
 
The most vociferous and important faction of politics in Mississippi and Alabama were the supporters of Breckinridge. These men tended to be far younger in age and had either just recently joined or where on the cusp of joining the slave holding planter class. These young men would be most affected by increased restriction of slavery, and as such not only sought for its continued existence, but its expansion in the form of Caribbean annexations and the reopening of the Atlantic slave trade. When Lincoln won the election, it was also these young men that lead the charge for Secession. To further their cause they resorted to scare tactics about abolition and upheaval of the existing social order and Southern culture that would take place at the hands of a Lincoln presidency.
 
For the most part the proponents of secession targeted the individuals that had supported Bell. These men tended to be older, more conservative, and already established.  They had voted for Bell as a compromise candidate that sought simply to maintain the status quo and avoid the major divisive issues for as long as possible.  With Lincoln soon to be in office though, supporters of secession could resort to simple scare tactics to motivate the Bell supporters to their side. Thus while the more to secession was largely supported by supporters of slavery, those that held slaves already and those that wished too in the future, the election of 1860 was far more diverse in its political geography.
 
Barney builds his argument through voluminous quantitative studies of manuscript collections, census reports, and newspaper accounts.  The result is a detailed topography of the political leanings of Mississippi and Alabama. It is certainly a product of its time in the 1970’s when cliometrics and statistical examination of evidence were en vogue.