Decade of Disunion: How Massachusetts and South Carolina Led the Way to Civil War, 1849–1861

After the deaths of South Carolina’s John C. Calhoun (1782–1850) and Massachusetts’s Daniel Webster (1782–1852), enslavement opinions hardened in both states. Historian/journalist Merry (President McKinley: Architect of the American Century) notes these differences originated during the colonies’ founding. His book shows that in Massachusetts, a Puritan ethic informed the state’s opposition to enslavement and calls for abolition. South Carolina pursued high profits from enslaved labor and intensive crops. As old guard unionist politicians receded from their professional lives, their influence in tamping down calls for resistance to enslavement and secession became less effective. Fiery newspaper editors decried enslavement and the system that supported it in increasingly forceful tones. Meanwhile, fiery South Carolina politicians—Robert Barnwell Rhett, James Henry Hammond, and more—advocated for secession to protect their investments in enslavement. Frequently these two views came into open conflict, most notably in 1856 when South Carolina enslavement proponent Rep. Preston Brooks used a walking cane to brutally attack Massachusetts abolitionist Charles Sumner in the U.S. Senate chamber.