the slaves, suggested that Massachusetts lead a secession movement.

Acting on her constitutional right, as Southerners construed it, South Carolina, on December 20th, 1860, withdrew from the Union. In the following month Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas followed South Carolina out of the Union. The other Southern states, namely, Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee, at this time refused to withdraw from the Union, although all of them asserted that they had the constitutional right to withdraw if they so desired. They felt that it would be much better for all if the slave problem could be solved without breaking the Union.*

Isham G. Harris was governor of Tennessee at the time, and he was strongly in favor of secession. He called an extra session of the legislature in December, 1860, just after Lincoln's election, for the purpose of considering the question of secession. The legislature met on January 7th, 1861, and arranged for the people of Tennessee to vote on the question of calling a convention to consider secession, and for electing delegates to this convention. The date of the election was fixed for February 9th, and on that date the election was held. The result was that Tennessee voted overwhelmingly against secession. The majority for the Union in this election was 64,914. Davidson County gave a majority of 2,548 against secession, and Shelby County, in West Ten* Brooks, History of Georgia.

nessee, gave a majority of 5,492 against secession. In Shelby County only 197 votes were cast for secession. Knox County cast more votes against the Union than did Shelby. The majority for the Union in this election in Middle Tennessee and West Tennessee was 38,582. So in February, 1861, after several Southern states had withdrawn from the Union, the great majority of the people of Tennessee were opposed to secession.

At this time there were some United States soldiers in charge of Fort Sumter in South Carolina. After South Carolina had withdrawn from the Union, she asked the Federal government to withdraw these soldiers from her borders. This the government refused to do. The result was that on April 12th, 1861, these United States soldiers were bombarded by some Confederates. On this day was fired the first gun of the Civil War. Three days later, on the 15th of April, President Lincoln called for 75,000 soldiers to put down all resistance to national authority, and to force back into the Union all the states that had seceded. Tennessee was called upon to furnish a portion of the troops asked for by the president.

When the proclamation of the president was issued, it caused a great change in sentiment in Tennessee and other Southern states which up to this time had refused to leave the Union. While they believed that South Carolina and the other seceding states made a mistake in withdrawing from the Union, they believed also that the Federal govern

ment, under the constitution, had no right to force them to come back.

Immediately after the president's proclamation, another election was called in Tennessee to vote again on the question of secession. The election was held on June 8th, 1861. This time the vote for secession was 104,913; and the vote against secession was 47,238. In East Tennessee the vote was 34,023 against secession, and 14,829 for secession. In the election held in February of this year, there was not much difference in sentiment on the question of secession in East Tennessee, Middle Tennessee, and West Tennessee. But in June, Middle Tennessee and West Tennessee voted overwhelmingly for secession, and East Tennessee voted more than two to one for the Union.

CHAPTER XVI

EAST TENNESSEE AND THE CIVIL WAR

East Tennessee voted against secession by more than two to one, and then sent more than 30,000 soldiers into the Union army to take up arms against the Confederacy. The stand taken by East Tennessee in the Civil War has been very far-reaching in its effects; it produced serious problems of life and government in the state which are as yet largely unsolved. The unusual action of East Tennessee in this great conflict has been attributed to many causes, but perhaps has not been correctly explained by any. In part it was due to the peculiar economic condition of East Tennessee. There were not a great many slaves in this section in 1860. However, the economic conditions in East Tennessee and in southwest Virginia were very much the same, and southwest Virginia was loyal to the Confederacy. If Washington County, Tennessee, be compared with Washington County, Virginia, just across the Tennessee line, it will be seen that there was no particular difference in slave ownership and in other economic conditions in the two counties. This is true of southwest Virginia, as a whole, and of East Tennessee. Political conditions in East Tennessee up to the time of the Civil War were similar to the political conditions in Middle Tennessee and West Tennessee. There were two political parties in the

state then, as there are now, and these parties were nearly equally divided in strength. In 1853, the Whigs carried only twelve out of twenty-eight counties in East Tennessee. The total vote was: Whigs 19,444, Democrats 19,499. The vote in the whole state was: Whigs 61,163, Democrats 63,413. In 1857, the vote in East Tennessee was: Whigs 3,390, Democrats 22,121. Most of the counties in East Tennessee were Democratic; but the big Whig majorities in a few counties kept the vote close between Whigs and Democrats in state elections.

The idea that East Tennessee's attitude was due to Scotch-Irish influence can hardly be sustained, since virtually all of the towns of this section, with the exception of Knoxville, went with the Confederacy; and in these towns the Scotch-Irish were as strong, if not stronger, than anywhere else. While many East Tennesseans were opposed to slavery in principle, and the first abolitionist paper in this country was established in East Tennessee, these facts do not account for the attitude of this section in the Civil War. Many people in Middle Tennessee and West Tennessee also opposed slavery. Some, if not all, of the union leaders in East Tennessee were slave owners. Thomas A. R. Nelson, Judge Temple, and others, owned slaves.

Some have tried to show that East Tennessee had an inferior type of population from the beginning. This is totally without foundation. Perhaps no purer stock of the Anglo-Saxon is to be found anywhere in all the world than is found in East Ten