Antebellum South Carolina

Antebellum South Carolina typically defined by historians as the period of between the War of 1812 and the American Civil War. Due to the invention of the cotton gin in 1786, the ecomomies of the Upcountry and the Lowcountry became fairly equal in wealth, although also triggering a massive rise in the slave trade. In 1822, free black craftsman and preacher Denmark Vesey was convicted for having masterminded a plan to overthrow Charlestonian whites by slaves and free blacks. Whites established curfews and forbade assembly of large numbers of African Americans 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, planning on becoming a senator in South Carolina to stop its run toward secession while solving the problems inflaming his fellow Carolinians. Before federal forces arrived at Charleston, Calhoun and Henry Clay agreed upon a compromise tariff that would lower rates over 10 years.

The cotton gin's effect on South Carolina

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Cotton gin

In 1786, the rulers agreed that to ease tensions between Upcountry residents and Lowcountry denizens, it made sense to move the capital from Charleston to a more convenient spot for both regions. Because the capital was in Charleston, Upcountry citizens had to travel two days to reach government 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 was completed, which connected the Santee and Cooper Rivers. This made it possible to transfer goods directly from the new capital to Charleston. In 1801, Columbia's South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina) was chartered.

Economic differences in South Carolina had been caused by the Lowcountry being able to grow long staple cotton, while the Upcountry's soil was only able to grow short staple cotton. The former was easier to separate by hand. In 1793, Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin made it possible for Upcountry residents to separate short staple cotton as fast as long staple cotton. The economies of the Lowcountry and Upcountry were fairly equal. The invention caused farmers to require a larger number of workers, and Upcountry planters began importing African and African-American men and women as slaves. The Upcountry now had its own wealthy planter class and began to work with the Lowcountry to protect the institution of slavery. However, the Upcountry received only three-fifths of a vote for every slave, so the Lowcountry still dominated state politics.

The Nullification Crisis

Main article: Nullification Crisis

An image of The Compromise Tariff of 1833 that would lower rates on tariffs over 10 years in an agreement between John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay.

In 1811, British ships plundered American ships, inspiring outraged "War Hawk" representatives into declaring the War of 1812. During the war, tariffs on imported goods were raised to support America's military efforts, but afterward Northern lawmakers continued to vote for higher and higher taxes on imports in hopes that Southerners would cease importing manufactured goods from Europe and instead purchase them from northern manufacturers. Southerners, however, perceived the tariffs on manufactured goods as punitive.

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 after he saw the rights of his home state trampeled for the "good" of the North, though he also recognized the political dangers of secession. In 1828, Calhoun decided upon the doctrine he would support for the rest of his life, the primacy of "states' rights." He believed that, constitutionally, the state government of each state 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.

To most South Carolinians, this sounded like a reasonable compromise. Some in the state, such as Joel J. Poinsett, novelist William Gilmore Simms, and James L. Petigru, 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 saw the whole idea as an attack upon its powers, and when in 1832, South Carolina's government quickly "nullified" the hated federally mandated tariffs, 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, making him the only vice president to resign until Spiro Agnew 141 years later. He planned on becoming a senator in South Carolina to stop its run toward secession while solving the problems inflaming his fellow Carolinians. Before federal forces arrived at Charleston, Calhoun and Henry Clay agreed upon a compromise tariff that would lower rates over 10 years. The passage of this tariff pacified everyone enough to prevent an armed conflict. The debate between the relative importance of states' rights versus federal power became a dividing line between the North, whose majority position gave it power over federal positions, and the South, which, because it featured a different economy and social structure from the North, knew it would rarely be the majority opinion on a federal vote.

Slavery in South Carolina

By this time, the fact that most of the slaves in the northern states had been freed made it much easier for Northerners to be intolerant toward the practices of their Southern neighbors. Most abolitionists were Christians who saw the protection of African-Americans, along with any other unfortunates, as a God-given responsibility. Ironically, Southern slaveholders also began embracing Christianity; however, unlike Northerners, Southern slaveholders viewed Christianity as a means of controlling slaves. Southern slaveholders generally saw their opponents 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, embarrassed more moderate abolitionists into silence, particularly in the South. Pro-slavery Southerners perceived these isolated incidents as indicative of the "true" ends and means of all abolitionists, inflaming and galvanizing Southerners into a reactionary and anti-abolitionist stance that effectively ended reasoned debate on the issue. South Carolinians had earlier tolerated slavery as a necessary evil, but largely in reaction to the continual sparring with abolitionists, proclaimed slavery a positive good, a 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 irresponsible and more exploitive than slavery itself. So avid had this defense become that by 1856, Governor James Hopkins Adams was recommending 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 of them descended from the mulattoes freed by their white fathers/owners. Others had been freed with faithful service or by buying themselves free with portions of their earnings they had been allowed to keep. As long as there had been free blacks, free blacks made the white population nervous. In 1822, free black craftsman and preacher Denmark Vesey was convicted for having masterminded a plan to overthrow Charlestonian whites by slaves and free blacks.

Whites established curfews and forbade assembly of large numbers of African Americans and the education of slaves. Since the mere presence of free blacks was seen as dangerous, South Carolina leaders also made it illegal for slaveholders to free their slaves without a special degree from the state legislature. Like Denmark Vesey, many of South Carolina's free blacks lived in Charleston, where their own subculture with its own caste system had developed. Charlestonian blacks performed more than 55different occupations, some as artisans. Some African Americans, such as Sumter cotton gin maker William Elison, amassed great fortunes, and did so in the same fashion that most wealthy whites had: through the labor of black slaves.

The Mexican-American War

The war with Mexico affected South Carolina considerably. For South Carolinians, what was at stake was the acquisition of additional lands open to slavery, and hence more representation in the U.S. Congress by slaveholding states. Under Pierce M. Butler, J.P. Dickinson, and A.H. Gladden, the Palmetto Regiment's palmetto flag entered Mexico City before any other flag. South Carolina's fighting prowess was once again proven in battle, but, largely because of disease, of 1,100 South Carolinian volunteers who fought in the war only 300 returned alive.

Even with a much smaller population, the South as a whole, in fact, sent and suffered the loss of more soldiers, furnishing 435,248 men in the Mexican-American War while the North, whose pundits had disapproved of the effort, sent along only 22,136 troops. Hence, the Wilmot Proviso, a proposal by a Pennsylvanian legislator to ban slavery within all territory acquired as a result of the Mexican-American War, struck the South as extremely unjust. Southerners who had risked their lives to win over the New Southwest were now being told they could not expect to bring their "property" with them if they settled there. John C. Calhoun attempted to rally the rest of the slaveholding states to oppose Wilmot's plan as yet another effort to tighten the noose around slavery's neck. The Southern-led Senate led the bill.

The South, which had held a hope that the territorial expansion and the spread of slavery might allow the South to ascend again to equality or even dominance in national politics, finally had to confront the fact that the North would never willingly let this happen, and that as long as it remained in the Union its interests would be overlooked. South Carolina had been telling the South this since the Nullification Crisis 20 years before.

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.