Antebellum South Carolina
Encyclopedia
Antebellum South Carolina is typically defined by historians as the period of between the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...

 and the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. Due to the invention of the cotton gin
Cotton gin
A cotton gin is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, a job formerly performed painstakingly by hand...

 in 1786, the economies of the Upcountry
The Upstate
The Upstate is the region in northwestern South Carolina, United States, also known as The Upcountry, which is the historical term. Although loosely defined among locals, the general definition includes the 10 counties of the commerce-rich I-85 corridor in the northwest corner of South Carolina. ...

 and the Lowcountry became fairly equal in wealth. The expansion of cotton cultivation in the Upcountry led to a great increase in labor demand, with a concomitant rise in the slave trade. In 1822, free black craftsman and preacher Denmark Vesey
Denmark Vesey
Denmark Vesey originally Telemaque, was an African American slave brought to the United States from the Caribbean of Coromantee background. After purchasing his freedom, he planned what would have been one of the largest slave rebellions in the United States...

 was convicted for having masterminded a plan to overthrow Charlestonian whites, and eventually murder all whites(including women and children) in South Carolina. In reaction, whites established curfews for blacks, and forbade assembly of large numbers of blacks and the education of slaves.

In 1828, John C. Calhoun decided that constitutionally, each state government within that state had more power than the federal government. Consequently, if a state deemed it necessary, it had the right to "nullify" any federal law within its boundaries. Calhoun resigned as vice president, as he planned to become a senator in South Carolina to stop its run toward secession. He also wanted to resolve problems inflaming his fellow Carolinians. Before federal forces arrived at Charleston in response to challenges on tariffs, Calhoun and Henry Clay
Henry Clay
Henry Clay, Sr. , was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives...

 agreed upon a compromise tariff to lower rates over 10 years.

The cotton gin's effect on South Carolina

In 1786, leaders of the state agreed to ease tensions between Upcountry
The Upstate
The Upstate is the region in northwestern South Carolina, United States, also known as The Upcountry, which is the historical term. Although loosely defined among locals, the general definition includes the 10 counties of the commerce-rich I-85 corridor in the northwest corner of South Carolina. ...

 and Lowcountry citizens by moving the capital from Charleston
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...

 to a location more convenient to both regions. With the capital in Charleston, Upcountry citizens had to travel two days simply to reach government
Government
Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

 offices and courts. The town of Columbia, the first city in America to take that name, was planned and erected. In 1790, the state's politicians moved in, although some state offices remained in Charleston until 1865. The Lowcountry and Upcountry even had separate treasury offices with separate treasurers. In 1800, the Santee Canal
Santee Canal
The Santee Canal was one of the earliest canals built in the United States. It was built to provide a direct water route between Charleston and Columbia, the new South Carolina state capital.- History :...

 was completed, connecting the Santee
Santee River
The Santee River is a river in South Carolina in the United States, long. The Santee and its tributaries provide the principal drainage and navigation for the central coastal plain of South Carolina, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean approximately from its farthest headwater on the Catawba River...

 and Cooper River
Cooper River (South Carolina)
The Cooper River is a mainly tidal river in the U.S. state of South Carolina. These cities are located along the river, Mt. Pleasant, Charleston, North Charleston, Goose Creek and Hanahan. Short and wide, it is joined first by the blackwater East Branch, then farther downstream, the tidal Wando River...

s. This made it possible to transport goods directly from the new capital to Charleston. In 1801, the state chartered South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina
University of South Carolina
The University of South Carolina is a public, co-educational research university located in Columbia, South Carolina, United States, with 7 surrounding satellite campuses. Its historic campus covers over in downtown Columbia not far from the South Carolina State House...

) in Columbia.

Settled first because of its coastal access, the Lowcountry had the greater population. It had achieved early economic dominance because of wealth derived from the cultivation of both rice
Rice
Rice is the seed of the monocot plants Oryza sativa or Oryza glaberrima . As a cereal grain, it is the most important staple food for a large part of the world's human population, especially in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and the West Indies...

 and long-staple cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

, a major crop. This was easier to process by hand than short-staple cotton. In the Upcountry's soil, only short-staple cotton could be cultivated. It was extremely labor-intensive to process by hand.

In 1793, Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin made processing of short-staple cotton economically viable. Upcountry landowners began to increase their cultivation of cotton and import increased numbers of enslaved Africans and free blacks to raise and process the crops. The Upcountry developed its own wealthy planter class and began to work with the Lowcountry to protect the institution of slavery.

The state's overreliance on cotton in its economy paved the way for post-Civil War poverty in three ways: planters ruined large swathes of land by overcultivation, small farmers in the upcountry reduced subsistence farming in favor of cotton, and greater profits in other states led to continued outmigration of many talented people, both white and black. From 1820-1860 nearly 200,000 whites left the state, mostly for Deep South
Deep South
The Deep South is a descriptive category of the cultural and geographic subregions in the American South. Historically, it is differentiated from the "Upper South" as being the states which were most dependent on plantation type agriculture during the pre-Civil War period...

 states and their frontier opportunities. Many of them took enslaved African Americans with them; other slaves were sold to traders for the Deep South plantations. In addition, because planters used up new lands in state or moved rather than invest in fertilizer or manufacturing, South Carolina did not begin much industrialization until much later.

The Nullification Crisis

In 1811, British ships plundered American ships, inspiring outraged "War Hawk" representatives into declaring the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...

. During the war, tariff
Tariff
A tariff may be either tax on imports or exports , or a list or schedule of prices for such things as rail service, bus routes, and electrical usage ....

s on imported goods were raised to support America's military efforts. Afterward, as the North began to create manufacturing centers, Northern lawmakers passed higher taxes on imports to protect the new industries. Because the South had an agricultural economy, it did not benefit from the tariffs and believed they interfered with the South's trade with Great Britain and Europe based on cotton and rice.

In the 1820s, many South Carolinians began to talk of seceding from the union to operate as an independent state with trade laws tailored to its own best interests. Even South Carolina-born John C. Calhoun, who had begun as a Federalist favoring a strong centralized government, began to change his views. He believed rights of his home state were being trampled for the "good" of the North, though he also recognized the political dangers of secession. In 1828, Calhoun decided upon the primacy of "states' rights
States' rights
States' rights in U.S. politics refers to political powers reserved for the U.S. state governments rather than the federal government. It is often considered a loaded term because of its use in opposition to federally mandated racial desegregation...

", a doctrine which he would support for the rest of his life. He believed that constitutionally, the state government of each state had more power within that state than did the federal government. Consequently, if a state deemed it necessary, it had the right to "nullify" any federal law within its boundaries.

To most South Carolinians, this sounded like a reasonable compromise. Some in the state, such as Joel J. Poinsett, novelist William Gilmore Simms
William Gilmore Simms
William Gilmore Simms was a poet, novelist and historian from the American South. His writings achieved great prominence during the 19th century, with Edgar Allan Poe pronouncing him the best novelist America had ever produced...

, and James L. Petigru
James L. Petigru
James Louis Petigru was a lawyer, politician, and jurist in South Carolina. He is best known for his service as the state's Attorney General, his juridical work that played a key role in the recodification of the state's law code, and his opposition to nullification and, in 1860, state...

, believed that while a state had the full right to secede from the Union if it chose, it had no right, as long as it remained part of the Union, to nullify a federal law. The federal government believed the concept of nullification was as an attack on its powers. When in 1832, South Carolina's government quickly "nullified" the hated tariffs passed by the full Congress, President Andrew Jackson declared this an act of open rebellion and ordered U.S. ships to South Carolina to enforce the law.

In December 1832, Calhoun resigned as Jackson's vice president. He was the only vice president to resign until Spiro Agnew
Spiro Agnew
Spiro Theodore Agnew was the 39th Vice President of the United States , serving under President Richard Nixon, and the 55th Governor of Maryland...

 did so, 141 years later. Calhoun planned to become a senator in South Carolina to stop its run toward secession. He wanted to work on solving the problems that troubled his fellow Carolinians. Before federal forces arrived at Charleston, Calhoun and Senator Henry Clay
Henry Clay
Henry Clay, Sr. , was a lawyer, politician and skilled orator who represented Kentucky separately in both the Senate and in the House of Representatives...

 agreed upon a compromise. They had often worked effectively together before. Clay persuaded Congress to pass the Compromise Tariff of 1833, which lowered the tariff gradually over 10 years (see copy on the page). The passage of this tariff prevented armed conflict.

The debate about the relative importance of states' rights versus federal power became a dividing line between the North and South. The political discussion was related to the differing rates of growth of the regions. Increased immigration to the North had meant a faster rate of growth in its population and gave it an advantage in representation, despite the 3/5 compromise that allowed the South to use its enslaved population in figuring Congressional representation.
The 19th century religious revival in the South had first been led by Methodist and Baptist preachers who opposed slavery. Gradually they began to adopt the Southern viewpoint. The Methodist and Baptist churches grew as their preachers accommodated slaveholding as a principle of continuity. Southern slaveholders looked to the Bible for language to control slaves. Southern slaveholders generally saw abolitionists as dangerous, self-righteous meddlers who would be better off tending to themselves than passing judgement on the choices of others. Pro-slavery apologists argued that the Northerners had no place in the debate over the morality of slavery, because they could not own slaves and would therefore not suffer the societal impacts that manumission would mean to the South.

The effect of bloody slave rebellions, such as the Vesey revolt of 1822 and John Brown's massacre at Harper's Ferry in 1859, was to reduce moderate abolitionists to silence, particularly in the South. These events inflamed fears and galvanized Southerners into an anti-abolitionist stance that effectively ended reasoned debate on the issue. South Carolinians had earlier tolerated slavery as a necessary evil. In an evolving concept, they came to proclaim slavery a positive good, a civilizing benefit to the enslaved, and a proper response to the "natural" differences between whites and blacks.

Apologists such as Thomas Harper argued that the wage-employee system of the North was more exploitive than slavery itself. So avid had this defense become that by 1856, Governor James Hopkins Adams recommended a resumption of the Foreign Slave Trade. A powerful minority of slaveholders had begun arguing that every white man should legally required to own at least one slave, which they claimed would give an interest in the issue and instill responsibility. The Charleston Mercury denounced the slave trade; a number of newly captured slaves were imported into Charleston against federal law.

The Vesey Plot and the Indian Removal Act

Since colonial times, South Carolina had always been home to a sizable population of free blacks. Many were descended from enslaved mulatto
Mulatto
Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...

es freed by their white fathers/owners. Others had been freed for faithful service. Some African Americans purchased their freedom with portions of earnings they were allowed to keep when being "hired out". As long as there had been free blacks, free blacks made the white population nervous.

In 1822, free black craftsman and preacher Denmark Vesey
Denmark Vesey
Denmark Vesey originally Telemaque, was an African American slave brought to the United States from the Caribbean of Coromantee background. After purchasing his freedom, he planned what would have been one of the largest slave rebellions in the United States...

 was convicted of having masterminded a plan for enslaved and free African Americans to overthrow Charlestonian whites. Afterward whites established curfews and forbade assembly of large numbers of African Americans. They prohibited educating enslaved African Americans, as they believed slaves' learning to read and write would make them unhappy and less compliant. Free African Americans posed a challenge to slavery by their very presence. South Carolina leaders prohibited slaveholders to free their slaves without a special decree from the state legislature. This was the same path that Virginia had taken when its slaveholders became uneasy about freedpeople.

Like Denmark Vesey, most of South Carolina's free blacks lived in Charleston, where there were opportunities for work and companionship. A free African-American subculture developed there. Charlestonian blacks performed more than 55 different occupations, including a variety of artisan and crafts jobs. Some African Americans, such as Sumter cotton gin-maker William Ellison, amassed great fortunes. He did so in the same fashion that most wealthy whites had - by using the labor of black slaves.

As settlers pressed against western lands controlled by Native Americans, violence repeatedly erupted between them. Andrew Jackson came to the office of President determined to pave the way for American settlers. In 1830 he signed the Indian Removal Act, by which he offered Native Americans land in unsettled areas west of the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...

, in exchange for their lands in existing states. While some tribes accepted this solution, others resisted.
By this time, the Cherokee Nation had been mostly pushed west and south out of South Carolina into Georgia.

The Mexican-American War

South Carolina strongly supported the Mexican War, as its leaders believed success would allow acquisition of additional lands open to slavery. They hoped for slaveholding states to acquire greater power in the U.S. Congress. The State raised a regiment of volunteers known as the Palmetto Regiment. The Palmetto Regiment was prepared and trained for the Mexican-American War by cadets and faculty at The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina in Charleston. The Citadel created a training system which is known today as "Boot Camp" or "Recruit Training" to prepare the men for combat. The Citadel Cadets that trained the Palmetto Regiment were known as "Drillmasters" a term which later evolved to be "Drill Instructors." Under Pierce M. Butler, J.P. Dickinson, and A.H. Gladden, the Palmetto Regiment's flag entered Mexico City before any other. Chiefly because of disease, however, only 300 returned alive of the 1,100 South Carolinian volunteers who fought in the war.

As the war drew to a close, the introduction of the Wilmot Proviso
Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso, one of the major events leading to the Civil War, would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War or in the future, including the area later known as the Mexican Cession, but which some proponents construed to also include the disputed...

 raised sectional tensions, this time over the issue of slavery. Introduced by a northern congressman as a rider on a war appropriations bill, the proviso specified that slavery would not be permitted in any territory obtained from Mexico. In the debate that followed, both national parties split along sectional lines. The South had furnished more men for the war (435,248 against the north's 22,136) and expected this sacrifice to be rewarded with new slave states carved out of the conquered territory. Although twice passed in the House, the proviso was defeated in the Senate. However, the debate over extending slavery into the new territories was far from over: it would eventually be a major cause of the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

.

Further reading

  • McCurry, Stephanie. Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
  • Susan Harbage Page and Juan Logan, Prop Master at Charleston's Gibbes Museum of Art, Southern Spaces, 21 September 2009.
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