EH IS .1 yxpS HOLUNGER pH 8.5 MILL RUN F3-1543 X E 415 .9 .Y2 P5 Copy 1 THE ALABAMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ^^ONXGOrvIERY Reprint No. 14 What will be the Final Estimate of Yancey? BY GEORGE PETRIE, Ph. D. [From the TRANSACTIONS 1899-1903, Vol. IV] MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA 1904 ^■. VII. WHAT WILL BE THE FINAL ESTIMATE OF YANCEY? By Gkorge; Pktrie/ Pii. D., Auburn. The time is rapidly comintj;' when men can ihink and speak of our Civil War without passion and without prejudice. Indeed considerable progress has already been made in this direction. Southern writers have shown a ready appreciation of the many admirable qualities of Lincoln, who was once known to us chietly as the leader of what we termed the "Black Republican Party." On the other hand Calhoun, the most influential of Southern statesmen, a man whose views have long been an incomprehensible riddle to our Northern friends, has received no fairer treatment or more graceful recognition than in the recent life of Webster written by Mr. Lodge, a senator from Massachusetts. These two cases are typical of a growing tendency toward fairness and even generosity on both sides in dealing with men and events connected with that period. Now is it not strange that in the dawn of this "era of good feel- ing," we should hear so little about a man who played so con- spicuous a role as Yancey? His name was never mentioned for ^ Dr. George Petrie, professor of History and Latin, Alabama Poly- technic Institute, Auburn, since i8gi, was born at Montgomery, Ala., April lo, 1866, and is the son of Rev. Dr. George Laurens and Mary (Cooper) Petrie, and grandson of Rev. Dr. G. H. W. and Mary J. (Prince) Petrie. His father was a distinguished teacher and Presbyterian preacher, and was chaplain of the 22nd Alabama regiment. C. S. A. Dr. Petrie graduated at the University of Virginia in 1887 with the A. AL degree, and in that year became adjunct professor of modem languages and history in the Agricultural and Mechanical College (A. P. L), Auburn, where he remained until 1889. In that year he entered Johns Hopkins University, where he completed his course for the Ph. D. degree in i8gi. Since that date he has been at the A. P. I. as above noted. Dr. Petrie is the author of Church and State in Early Maryland (J. H. Univ. Studies, loth series. No. 4, 1892) ; "Can the Teaching of American History be made Interesting?" in the Sewance Rcvieiv, May, 1896; "Montgomery Alabama," in Historic Tozims of the Southern States (1900). besides a number of articles in magazines and other journals. Dr. Petrie is a most enthusiastic student and teacher of history. Several of the best papers in this volume were prepared under his direction, notably those by Walter L. Fleming, Miss Toccoa Cozart, Shepherd H. Roberts, Gaius Whitfield, Jr., Miss Emma B. Culver, and J. E. D. Yonge.— Ehitor. (307) 3oS Alabama Historical Society. the Hall of Fame. Xo speech of his is to be found in any col- lection of American oratory. No statue has been raised to his memory. - Is there any significance in this omission? Is it an oversight due to a general lack of information and a consequent failure to appreciate his importance? Or is this omission partly intentional? Is it due to a feeling on the part of some that Yancey was thv^ embodiment of an unwise and disastrous policy, that he was the apostle of disunion and advocated the reopening of the African slave trade, and that even his eloquence depended on sectional passions and animosity? If thoughts of this kind be at all com- mon, will not Yancey's fame grow less and less as our national feeling of union grows stronger and stronger ; and will he not in time pass into that oblivion which awaits all who are merely un- successful agitators? The first question, therefore, which confronts the student who tries to determine the final estimate of Yancey is whether posterity will know him at all. Now I believe that his name will not be forgotten and that his reputation will last ; and the reasons that I assign for this view do not depend on any personal opinion as to the wisdom or the unwisdom of the course he pursued, or of the policy he advocated. Whatever one may think of these matters of policy, he must, if he has studied ante-bellum history, admit Yancey's ability and influence. For weal or for woe he played an important part. His name is inseparably linked with the series of events that terminated in the Confederacy; and the more fully their histoiy is written, the more attention will have to be paid to him. His association with the movement was in many ways an inti- mate one. He was the last great popular expounder of the doc- trine of State rights, upon which more and more Southerners of all schools came to base their theories of political rights, however much tliey might differ as to their practical policies. But, after all, few persons understand or care about constitu- tional theories and logical arguments. Even so great a jurist as Marshall is scarcely known outside the circle of lawyers. And I ' Since this was written a full life size oil painting of Yancey has been executed and placed in the porlrail Rallcry of the Alabama Department of Archives and History at the State capitol. Final Estimate of Yancey. — Pctric. 309 am inclined to think that tills is scarcely the i)hasc of Yancey's connection with the Southern movement which will appeal most to the imagination of posterity. To them he will be chiefly known as its impassioned leader, who by his boldness, his earnestness and his eloquence did more perhaps than any one else to make these State rights doctrines a powerful force in practical politics. But this suggests another reason why his name will not be forgotten ; and it is, too, independent of our personal views of the wisdom of his policy. I refer to the permanent value of his speeches. Without discussing just yet their excellence as speci- mens of the art of oratory, I think the point can be clearly made that they have qualities which must give them a permanent value. They combine, like Yancey himself, logic and emotion in an un- usual degree. While they present in a brief and pointed form the dominant political creed of the South, they do it not in the cool, detached manner of Calhoun, but with an earnestness and a tire that make us feel the passion of the times with a reality that is really w^onderful. Now this double quality is just what will always make them invaluable to the student, who in the quiet of his study finds a keen fascination in analyzing the problems connected with slavery and State sovereignty, and yet cannot quite understand why either side should fight about them. If then Yancey's name will live and men will continue to read and think about him, we may fairly ask : What will their opinion be? We cannot tell what it wall be in all of its details. On minor matters they probably will disagree, as men now do about Jefferson and even Cromwell or Julius Caesar. But there are some things, and they are important, about which we can safely venture a prediction. First of all, the final estimate will correct some errors which have arisen from an exaggeration or a distortion of his real views. For example, he has been considered a champion of the African slave trade and has suffered accordingly. This was an unfair inference from some words spoken with perhaps impolitic frankness at Montgomery in 1858. What he really said was that the congressional prohibition ought to be removed, first, because it went too far in terming the slave trade piracy and. second, be- cause, according to the State rights theory the whole question / 3IO Alabama Historical Society. properly should be left to the several States.-' As to whether its actual revival would be desirable he clearly admitted that he had as yet reached no definite conclusion. Perhaps he meant to hold in reserve the possibility of such a revival as a political weapon to be used against abolitionists anil free soilers if in his opinion their aggressions woukl require it. After secession Yancey was one of the first to urge the South- ern States to proliibit this same African slave trade. On Jan.. jS, 1861, he said in the Alabama convention: "But, sir, if such considerations induced a doubt under the old regime, they dispel all doubt under the new. * * * With no territories to people and no balance of power to strive for and to sustain, we shall need no other supply of labor than the ordinary laws of natural increase and emigration of owners with slaves will give us in abundance. * * * \t ti^^ proper time I shall move an amend- ment proposing that the Southern Confederacy shall prohibit the trade in slaves from any foreign quarters."* There is another important matter in regard to wdiich I think posterity will say that Yancey has sometimes been misunderstood. He has been called a disunionist and the term has been used in such a way as to imply that he regarded separation from the Union not merely as a last remedy for wrongs that could not be righted otherwise, but as a thing desirable in itself and preferable to a redress of grievances within the Union. This opinion prob- ably had its origin in the earnestness and vigor with which he repeatedly advocated secession ; but it overlooks the important fact that he did so only because he believed it no longer possible to get what he always preferred, constitutional rights, in the Union. The final estimate will, I think, recognize that Yancey and Webster were equally devoted to the Union under the con- stitution. But with Yancey the Union was desirable chiefly as giving the States the benefit of the constitution, while with Web- ster the constitution was valuable chiefly as perpetuating the Union. Yancey thought the time had come when either the Union or the constitution had to be given up, and he preferred to give up the Union. Two days after Lincoln's election he said: "In my opinion the * DuBosc's Life of Yancey, p. 358. ct. seq. The whole matter was much disciisscd in the MDiURomcry and Richmoird papers of 1858. ' \r.,ui^'n„,.-