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Fire-Eaters
In American history, the Fire-Eaters were a group of pro-slavery Democrats in the Antebellum South who urged the separation of Southern states into a new nation, which became the Confederate States of America. The dean of the group was Robert Rhett of South Carolina. Some sought to revive America's participation in the Atlantic slave trade, which had been illegal since 1808. Impact By radically urging secession in the South, the Fire-Eaters demonstrated the high level of sectionalism existing in the U.S. during the 1850s, and they materially contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War (1861–1865). As early as 1850, there was a Southern minority of pro-slavery extremists who did much to weaken the fragile unity of the nation. Led by such men as Edmund Ruffin, Robert Rhett, Louis T. Wigfall, and William Lowndes Yancey, this group was dubbed "Fire-Eaters" by Northerners. At an 1850 convention in Nashville, Tennessee, the Fire-Eaters urged Southern secession, citing irrevoc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Act Prohibiting Importation Of Slaves
The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 (, enacted March 2, 1807) is a United States federal law that provided that no new slaves were permitted to be imported into the United States. It took effect on January 1, 1808, the earliest date permitted by the United States Constitution. This legislation was promoted by President Thomas Jefferson, who called for its enactment in his 1806 State of the Union Address. He and others had promoted the idea since the 1770s. It reflected the force of the general trend toward abolishing the international slave trade which Virginia, followed by all the other states, had prohibited or restricted since then. South Carolina, however, had reopened its trade. Congress first regulated against the trade in the Slave Trade Act of 1794. The 1794 Act ended the legality of American ships participating in the trade. The 1807 law did not change that—it made all importation from abroad, even on foreign ships, a federal crime. The domestic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Lowndes Yancey
William Lowndes Yancey (August 10, 1814July 27, 1863) was an American journalist, politician, orator, diplomat and an American leader of the Southern secession movement. A member of the group known as the Fire-Eaters, Yancey was one of the most-effective agitators for secession and rhetorical defenders of slavery. An early critic of John C. Calhoun at the time of the Nullification Crisis of 1832–33, Yancey began to identify with Calhoun and the struggle against the forces of the anti-slavery movement by the late 1830s. In 1849, Yancey was a firm supporter of Calhoun's "Southern Address" and an adamant opponent of the Compromise of 1850. Throughout the 1850s, Yancey demonstrated an ability to hold large audiences under his spell for hours at a time and was sometimes referred to as the "Orator of Seccession". At the 1860 Democratic National Convention, he was instrumental in splitting the party into Northern and Southern factions as a leading opponent of Stephen A. Douglas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edmund Ruffin
Edmund Ruffin III (January 5, 1794 – June 18, 1865) was a wealthy Virginia planter who served in the Virginia Senate from 1823 to 1827. In the last three decades before the American Civil War, his pro-slavery writings received more attention than his agricultural work. Ruffin, a slaveholder, staunchly advocated states' rights and slavery, arguing for secession years before the Civil War, and became a political activist with the so-called Fire-Eaters. Ruffin is given credit for "firing the first shot of the war" at the Battle of Fort Sumter in April 1861 and fought as a Confederate soldier despite his advanced age. When the war ended in Southern defeat in 1865, he committed suicide rather than submit to "Yankee rule." Ruffin is also known for his pioneering work in methods to preserve and improve soil productivity. He recommended crop rotation and additions to restore soils exhausted from tobacco monoculture. Early in his career, he studied bogs and swamps to learn how to correc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Wigfall
Louis Trezevant Wigfall (April 21, 1816 – February 18, 1874) was an American politician who served as a Confederate States Senator from Texas from 1862 to 1865. He was among a group of leading secessionists known as Fire-Eaters, advocating the preservation and expansion of an aristocratic agricultural society based on slave labor. He briefly served as a Confederate Brigadier General of the Texas Brigade at the outset of the American Civil War before taking his seat in the Confederate Senate. Wigfall's reputation for oratory and hard-drinking, along with a combative nature and high-minded sense of personal honor, made him one of the more imposing political figures of his time. He was also a slave owner. Early life and career Youth Wigfall was born on a plantation near Edgefield, South Carolina, to Levi Durant and Eliza Thomson Wigfall. His father, who died in 1818, was a successful Charleston merchant before moving to Edgefield. His mother was of the French Huguenot T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Rhett
Robert Barnwell Rhett (born Robert Barnwell Smith; December 21, 1800September 14, 1876) was an American politician who served as a deputy from South Carolina to the Provisional Confederate States Congress from 1861 to 1862, a member of the US House of Representatives from South Carolina from 1837 to 1849, and US Senator from South Carolina from 1850 to 1852. As a staunch supporter of slavery and an early advocate of secession, he was a "Fire-Eater". Rhett published his views through his newspaper, the ''Charleston Mercury''. Early life He was born Robert Barnwell Smith in Beaufort, South Carolina, United States. He later studied law. Early career He was a member of the South Carolina legislature in 1826 until 1832. He was extremely pro-slavery in his views. At the end of the Nullification Crisis in 1833, he told the South Carolina Nullification Convention: In 1832, Rhett became South Carolina attorney general and served until 1837. He was then elected US Representative an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slavery In The United States
The legal institution of human chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominantly in the South. Slavery was established throughout European colonization in the Americas. From 1526, during early colonial days, it was practiced in what became Britain's colonies, including the Thirteen Colonies that formed the United States. Under the law, an enslaved person was treated as property that could be bought, sold, or given away. Slavery lasted in about half of U.S. states until abolition. In the decades after the end of Reconstruction, many of slavery's economic and social functions were continued through segregation, sharecropping, and convict leasing. By the time of the American Revolution (1775–1783), the status of enslaved people had been institutionalized as a racial caste associated with African ancestry. During and immediately ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1856 United States Presidential Election
The 1856 United States presidential election was the 18th quadrennial United States presidential election, presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 1856. In a three-way election, History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democrat James Buchanan defeated History of the Republican Party (United States), Republican nominee John C. Frémont and Know Nothing nominee Millard Fillmore. The main issue was the expansion of slavery as facilitated by the Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854. Buchanan defeated President Franklin Pierce at the 1856 Democratic National Convention for the nomination. Pierce had become widely unpopular in the North because of his support for the pro-slavery faction in the ongoing Bleeding Kansas, civil war in Kansas Territory, territorial Kansas, and Buchanan, a former Secretary of State, had avoided the divisive debates over the Kansas–Nebraska Act by being in Europe as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Ambassador to the United Ki ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Confederate States Of America
The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confederacy comprised U.S. states that declared secession and warred against the United States during the American Civil War: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Kentucky and Missouri also declared secession and had full representation in the Confederate Congress, though their territory was largely controlled by Union forces. The Confederacy was formed on February 8, 1861, by seven slave states: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. All seven were in the Deep South region of the United States, whose economy was heavily dependent upon agriculture—particularly cotton—and a plantation system that relied upon enslave ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bleeding Kansas
Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, or the Border War was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, and to a lesser extent in western Missouri, between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the legality of slavery in the proposed state of Kansas. The conflict was characterized by years of electoral fraud, raids, assaults, and murders carried out in the Kansas Territory and neighboring Missouri by proslavery " border ruffians" and antislavery " free-staters". According to ''Kansapedia'' of the Kansas Historical Society, 56 political killings were documented during the period, and the total may be as high as 200. It has been called a Tragic Prelude, or an overture, to the American Civil War, which immediately followed it. The conflict centered on the question of whether Kansas, upon gaining statehood, would join the Union as a slave state or a free state. The question was of national importance because Kansas's two new senators ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Buchanan
James Buchanan Jr. ( ; April 23, 1791June 1, 1868) was an American lawyer, diplomat and politician who served as the 15th president of the United States from 1857 to 1861. He previously served as secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and represented Pennsylvania in both houses of the U.S. Congress. He was an advocate for states' rights, particularly regarding slavery, and minimized the role of the federal government preceding the Civil War. Buchanan was the last president born in the 18th century. Buchanan was a prominent lawyer in Pennsylvania and won his first election to the state's House of Representatives as a Federalist. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1820 and retained that post for five terms, aligning with Andrew Jackson's Democratic Party. Buchanan served as Jackson's minister to Russia in 1832. He won the election in 1834 as a U.S. senator from Pennsylvania and continued in that position for 11 years. He was appointed to serve as Presi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City. Paleo-Americ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caning Of Charles Sumner
The Caning of Charles Sumner, or the Brooks–Sumner Affair, occurred on May 22, 1856, in the United States Senate chamber, when Representative Preston Brooks, a pro-slavery Democrat from South Carolina, used a walking cane to attack Senator Charles Sumner, an abolitionist Republican from Massachusetts. The attack was in retaliation for a speech given by Sumner two days earlier in which he fiercely criticized slaveholders, including South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, a relative of Brooks. The beating nearly killed Sumner and contributed significantly to the country's polarization over the issue of slavery. It has been considered symbolic of the "breakdown of reasoned discourse" and the use of violence that eventually led to the Civil War. Although Sumner was unable to return to the Senate until December of 1859, the Massachusetts legislature refused to replace him, leaving his empty desk in the Senate as a public reminder of the attack. Background In 1856, during the "Ble ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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