Born
at Ogeechee Falls, Georgia in 1814, educated at academies in New York
and New England, South Carolina and later Alabama editor, William
Lowndes Yancey prophetically predicted the rise of the consolidationist
Republican party. He foresaw the States becoming “but tributaries to
the powers of the General Government,” and their sovereignty enfeebled.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
William Lowndes Yancey’s Prophetic Insight
“.
. . Yancey had been an unconditional Unionist . . . But in 1838
disturbing reports, which led him to pause, study the Constitution, and
consider the nature of the Union, began to reach his desk. His
indignation and fears seem to have been first aroused by the
abolitionist petitions which were agitating Congress and the country,
and in one of his editorials declared:
“The
Vermont resolutions have afforded those deluded fanatics – the
Abolitionists – another opportunity for abusing our citizens, and
endeavoring to throw firebrands into the South, to gratify a malevolent
spirit. They well know that they have no right to . . . meddle with our
rights, secured to us by the Constitution; but to gratify the worst of
feelings, while at the same time and in many instances, the endanger our
safety, they press upon Congress the consideration of this subject.”
This
editorial went on to express a fear that there was “a settled
determination, on the part of those fanatics, to form themselves into a
small band of partisans,” and thereby to gain the balance of power and
determine elections.
Yancey’s
fears of despotism under the cloak of the Federal Union were
intensified by the election of the friends of the United States Bank.
He reported a series of resolutions condemning the bank, The second resolution [declared]:
“We
deem the struggle now going on between the people, and the United
States Bank partisans, to be a struggle for pre-eminence between the
State-Rights principles of 1798, and Federalism in its rankest state;
and that in the triumph of the Bank, if destined to triumph, we would
mournfully witness the destruction of the barriers and safeguards of our
Liberties.”
In
the spring of 1839 Yancey and his brother bought and consolidated the
Wetumpka (Alabama) Commercial Advertiser and the Wetumpka Argus. The
next spring when Yancey took personal charge of the newspaper, he
announced that it would support a policy of strict construction in
national politics and a State policy of reform in banking, internal
improvements, and public education within reach of every child.
[With
the] opening of the presidential campaign of 1840, [Yancey] believed
the issue between State rights and consolidation to have been clearly
drawn. Twelve years of Jacksonian democracy had destroyed the bank,
provided for the extinction of the protective features of the tariff,
and checked internal improvements at federal expense. Therefore, if the
friends of the bank, the protective tariff, and internal improvements
expected to enjoy the beneficence of a paternalistic government, they
must gain control of the administration at Washington, and consolidate
its powers. Thus to them the selection of a Whig candidate for the
presidency was an important question, and from their point of view Henry
Clay seemed to be the logical choice.
[Yancey
editorialized] to show that the abolitionists, having defeated [Henry]
Clay in the convention, now contemplated using their power to defeat
Martin Van Buren in the election, disrupt the Democratic party, and
absorb the Whigs. To Yancey it seemed clear that [a] coalition of Whigs
and abolitionists would put the South in a minority position . . . that
the minority position of the South demanded “of its citizens a strict
adherence to the States Rights Creed.”
He declared:
“Once
let the will of the majority become the rule of [Constitutional]
construction, and hard-featured self-interest will become the presiding
genius in our national councils – the riches of our favored lands
offering but the greater incentive to political rapacity.”
Furthermore,
he foresaw with inexorable logic that once the general government was
permitted to exercise powers, not expressly given to it, for subsidies
to industry and for the building of roads and canals, it was as
reasonable to claim constitutional authority for subsidies for
agriculture and labor.
Yancey
foretold with prophetic insight the consequences of the application of
the consolidationists creed. He said it would result in a “national
system of politics, which makes the members of the confederacy but
tributaries to the powers of the General Government – enfeebling the
sovereign powers of the States – in fact forming us into a great
consolidated nation, receiving all its impulses from the Federal
Capitol.”
And
in strikingly modern language he warned the people that, if the
tendencies toward consolidation continued, the Constitution would “have
its plainly marked lines obliterated, and its meaning . . .left to be
interpreted by interested majorities – thus assembling every hungry and
greedy speculator around the Capitol, making the President a King in all
but name – and Washington a “St. Petersburg,” – the center of a vast,
consolidated domain.”
(William
L. Yancey’s Transition from Unionism to State Rights, Austin L.
Venable, Journal of Southern History, Volume X, Number 1, February 1944,
pp. 336-342)
