William Lowndes Yancey

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William Lowndes Yancey (August 10, 1814 – July 27, 1863) was an American leader of the Southern secession movement as a journalist, politician and orator. He was seen by many as one of the most effective agitators for secession and rhetorical defenders of slavery.

Contents 1 Youth 2 Early career 3 Public office 4 Pro-slavery agitation 5 1860 6 Secession 7 His talent 8 Character 9 Footnotes 10 References 11 External links

[edit] Youth

Born near the falls of the Ogeechee River in Warren County, Georgia, Yancey was of Welsh descent. His father was Benjamin Cudworth Yancey, a lawyer in South Carolina. He had an unhappy childhood. After his father's death in 1817, his mother married a stern Presbyterian minister from New England, the Rev. Nathan Beman, who uprooted the family, taking it to Troy, New York. Beman beat Yancey's mother, locked her in a closet and even nailed shut her bedroom door at one point. He was also a staunch abolitionist.^[1]

Yancey attended Williams College in Massachusetts for one year, but left just before graduation—not terribly unusual at the time.^[1] He studied law at Greenville, South Carolina, and was admitted to the bar.

[edit] Early career

As editor of the Greenville (South Carolina) Mountaineer (1834-35), he ardently opposed nullification.

In 1835 he married a wealthy woman, and in the winter of 1836-1837 removed to her plantation in Alabama, near Cahaba (Dallas County), and edited weekly papers there and in Wetumpka (Elmore County), his summer home. The accidental poisoning of his slaves in 1839 forced him to devote himself entirely to law and journalism; he was now an impassioned advocate of States' Rights and supported Van Buren in the presidential campaign of 1840.

[edit] Public office

He was elected in 1841 to the Alabama House of Representatives, in which he served for one year; he became a state senator in 1843, and in 1844 was elected to the United States House of Representatives to fill a vacancy, being re-elected in 1845. In Congress his ability and his unusual oratorical gifts at once gained recognition. In 1846, however, he resigned his seat, partly on account of poverty, and partly because of his disgust with the Northern Democrats, whom he accused of sacrificing their principles to their economic interests.

[edit] Pro-slavery agitation

His entire energy was now devoted to the task of exciting resistance to anti-slavery aggression. He is generally included as one of several southerners referred to as "fire-eaters." (In fact, a reporter for the Cincinnati Commercial newspaper once called him a "prince of fire-eaters").^[1]

In 1848 he secured the adoption by the state Democratic convention of the so-called "Alabama Platform," which was endorsed by the legislatures of Alabama and Georgia and by Democratic state conventions in Florida and Virginia, declaring that it was the duty of Congress not only to allow slavery in all the territories but to protect it, that a territorial legislature could not exclude it, and that the Democratic party should not support for president or vice-president a candidate "not ... openly and unequivocally opposed to either of the forms of excluding slavery from the territories of the United States mentioned in these resolutions."

When the conservative majority in the national Democratic convention in Baltimore refused to incorporate his ideas into the platform, Yancey with one colleague left the convention and wrote an Address to the People of Alabama, defending his course and denouncing the cowardice of his associates. Naturally, he opposed the Compromise of 1850, and went so far as openly to advocate secession; but the conservative element was in control of the state.

Throughout the mid-1850s he also lectured on behalf of the Mount Vernon Ladies Association of the Union, an organization that eventually purchased Mount Vernon from John A. Washington in 1858.

Disappointment of the South with the results of "Squatter Sovereignty" caused a reaction in his favour, and in 1858 he wrote a letter advocating the appointment of committees of safety, the formation of a League of United Southerners, and the repeal of the laws making the African slave-trade piracy.

[edit] 1860

After twelve years' absence from the national conventions of the Democratic party, he attended the Charleston convention hv April 1860, and again demanded the adoption of his ideas. Defeated by a small majority, he again left the hall, followed this time by the delegates of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, and two of the three delegates from Delaware.

On the next day the Georgia delegation and a majority of the Arkansas delegation withdrew. In the Baltimore convention of the seceders he advocated the nomination of John Cabell Breckinridge, and he made a tour of the country on his behalf.

"We stand upon the dark platform of southern slavery, and all we ask is to be allowed to keep it to ourselves," he told a crowd in Wilmington, Delaware. "Let us do that, and we will not let the negro insult you by coming here and marrying your daughters."^[1]

[edit] Secession

In Alabama, he was the guiding spirit in the secession convention and delivered the address of welcome to Jefferson Davis on his arrival at Montgomery. He refused a place in President Davis's cabinet, however, on March 16, 1861, Davis and Secretary of State Robert Toombs appointed Yancey, Ambrose Dudley Mann and Pierre Adolphe Rost as the heads of a commission sent to secure recognition of the Confederate government in Europe. They set sail on March 31, 1861, but he returned in 1862, along with Rost, to take a seat in the Confederate Senate, in which he advocated a more vigorous prosecution of the war. On account of his failing health, he left Richmond early in 1863, and on the 27th of July died at his home near Montgomery.

Yancey's nephew, Joseph H. Earle, was a U.S. Senator from South Carolina.

[edit] His talent

Yancey was widely respected for his rhetorical talents, both in writing and especially oratory (he was said to have a "sweet" and "musical" voice), which even his opponents acknowledged:^[1]

• An opposing, Unionist newspaper in Alabama in 1851: "No one could have defended a bad cause better than did Mr. Yancey."
• One South Carolinian complained of his "evident want of leadership ... however great an orator and debater."
• A fellow secessionist wrote that Yancey was "a very eloquent & powerful speaker. But he is so fluent that he does not know when to stop."
• Another listener described Yancey's speeches as "seasoned with the salt of argument, the vinegar of sarcasm, the pepper of wit, and the genuine champagne of eloquence."
• One reporter claimed that Yancey could have led an audience in New Orleans right into the Mississippi.

[edit] Character

He had a streak of violence in him and, like many Southerners of the time, was sensitive to slights and ready to duel.

In 1838, he shot and killed his wife's uncle in a street brawl. In 1845, during his first term in the House of Representatives, he fought a duel with a fellow congressman, Thomas Lanier Clingman of North Carolina (in Yancey's maiden speech on the House floor, he had impugned his opponent's integrity). Both duelists missed. As a Confederate senator in Richmond, Yancey and Ben Hill of Georgia had to be separated by other members of that body after a bloody scuffle on the floor (inkstands flew).^[1]

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] References

• This article incorporates facts obtained from the public domain Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Du Bose, J.W., Life and Times of W. L. Yancey (Birmingham, Ala., 1892).
• Eric H. Walther. William Lowndes Yancey: The Coming of the Civil War University of North Carolina Press; 2006.

[edit] External links

• Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• William Lowndes Yancey at Find A Grave
• Speech of Hon. Wm. Lowndes Yancey, of Alabama, on the annexation of Texas to the United States, delivered in the House of Representatives, Jan. 7, 1845., hosted by the Portal to Texas History

Preceded by Dixon H. Lewis	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Alabama's 7th congressional district December 2, 1844 – September 1, 1846	Succeeded by James L. Cottrell
Preceded by (none)	Confederate States Senator from Alabama February 18, 1862 – July 27, 1863 Served alongside: Clement Claiborne Clay	Succeeded by Robert Jemison, Jr.

Confederate States Senators

Alabama: Clay • Jemison • Walker • Yancey • Arkansas: Garland • R. Johnson • Mitchel • Florida: Baker • Maxwell • Georgia: Hill • H. Johnson • Lewis • Kentucky: Burnett • Simms • Louisiana: Semmes • Sparrow • Mississippi: Brown • Phelan • Watson • Missouri: Clark • W. Johnson • Peyton • Vest • North Carolina: Davis • Dortch • Graham • Reade • South Carolina: Barnwell • Orr • Tennessee: Haynes • Henry • Texas: Oldham • Wigfall • Virginia: Caperton • Hunter • Preston