With all of her people in a state of fear and distrust, South Carolina was frustrated and, according to Channing, was inevitably heading toward secession. John Brown's raid of Harpers Ferry, the fear of emancipation, and the threat of a Republican getting the presidency all more or less pushed South Carolina to secede from the Union and seek safety in a new confederacy where she would rule and her way of live would be secure. For South Carolina, it was a matter of survival.

John Brown's raid of Harpers Ferry in 1859 threw South Carolina into a panicked state. There was no need for "artificial stimulation" because John Brown "struck at the deepest and most intimate anxieties of the white South."⁽²⁾ The South has always feared slave insurrections, especially in places such as South Carolina, where the slave population exceeded the white population. South Carolinians viewed the raid as a plot of the Northern Abolitionists and as only part of a great scheme.⁽³⁾ Their fears were enforced as they read newspaper articles describing the census figures on Brown's maps, figures which could have only come from some sort of governmental source.⁽⁴⁾ The raid was also responsible for the formation (or re-awakening in a sense) of the vigilance teams in which radical South Carolinians began expelling people from communities based solely on a Southerner's suspicion that they were an abolitionist.⁽⁵⁾ These teams were later reorganized by Barnwell Rhett to be just and hold fair trial for possible suspects.⁽⁶⁾ The vigilance teams boiled down to be nothing more than the "institutionalization of the white man's fears."⁽⁷⁾ Although some Northerners tried to demonstrate that the majority of the North was indifferent, these Northerners were seen as a "'powerless"' and "distinct minority."⁽⁸⁾ The raid of Harpers Ferry only fueled the distrust that South Carolina had for the North.

Everything the abolitionists stood for was wrapped up in one word: emancipation. This word sent chills down the spine of every South Carolinian. Slavery itself was seen to give "tone and character to the South."⁽⁹⁾ More than that, it was the back on which the South was built. To threaten to abolish slavery was a threat to abolish the South as it was known. Emancipation would surely bring about economic disaster in the South without having much affect on the North.⁽¹⁰⁾ It posed a threat to white political control which jeopardized the social guarantees of slavery: the guarantee which insured that the Negro would never rise above any white man."⁽¹¹⁾ Southerners saw the fruit of emancipation to be rebellion and race wars as surely the two races would battle over their social and political places.⁽¹²⁾ The question arose whether or not the Union and slavery could co-exist and the answer began to appear more clearly to all that indeed they could not.⁽¹³⁾ "[A]bolition had to be perceived as a practical political threat before it would provide the full measure of anxiety for slave holders."⁽¹⁴⁾ As talk of emancipation grew, South Carolinians realized the threat it was even to the power structure of their politics.

Finally, Channing describes the importance of the election of 1860 and especially of the time leading up to the fateful election. With the installment of the vigilance groups came a split within South Carolina. For some white Carolinians it was business as usual, and they saw no real need for such an uproar.⁽¹⁵⁾ The state split as the Radicals called for immediate secession and the Unionists sought to calm everyone and everything down and to remain a part of the Union. There was, in a sense, a holy fear of secession on both sides in which neither dealt with the subject lightly.⁽¹⁶⁾ The Radicals viewed secession as "essential to the very existence of the Southern states as civilized communities."⁽¹⁷⁾ In their minds there was no way around secession. For South Carolina to survive they would have to secede from the Union. "Secession had long seemed to offer the only guarantee of security for the kind of Southern civilization they idealized."⁽¹⁸⁾ These "Radicals" did not just want to keep their slaves; they wanted to keep their ways of life. They dreamed of a government, post office, police, and military that they could control.⁽¹⁹⁾ The Unionists were on a "tightrope" during the election of 1860. They knew that if a Republican was elected to the Presidency, South Carolina would definitely secede. All agreed that the "Presidential election [was] a final verdict upon slavery."⁽²⁰⁾ The arguing within the South on how to handle the situation kept the South divided. The Southern states could not unify under one candidate for the Presidency. On April 30, 1860, the Democratic Party split as all but three men walked out of Institute Hall in Charleston and left the Democratic Party.⁽²¹⁾ This resulted in the South being split in the election and the little known Abraham Lincoln, a "Black" Republican, being elected to the Presidency in 1860. The South was sure to secede.

I find Channing's argument convincing. I would go as far as to say the South was forced to secede. Slavery is morally wrong, but in a sense, it was not slavery itself they were fighting for. They were fighting for their rights to live in the only way they knew to live. Channing illustrates that they were in danger of losing their political system. Their economy would surely fall with the emancipation of the slaves. They would enter into a foreign social structure in which they would compete with their former slaves for jobs. Channing portrays the desperate plight of the Southerner and focuses not on slavery itself, but how slavery affected the life of every Southerner. Southerners were living in such a state of fear that it is a wonder they waited as long as they did. Channing depicts the way the abolitionists appeared to the South. It was not from a panic-frayed mind that Southerners thought that abolitionists were behind John Brown's raid, but it was from clear, level-headed thinking and viewing of the facts that they came to the conclusion. For example, the reporting of the census statistics on John Brown's maps could only have come from a higher source and a well planned scheme. Whether the abolitionist involvement is accurate or not, one can see how a level headed Southerner could perceive that there was some.

Channing could have spent more time focusing on some of the more national events that were going on that were shaping Southern thoughts, fears, and perceptions. Channing focuses a lot attention on how the issue was not so much slavery that was being threatened, but the Southern way of life. He could have spent more time and been more specific in describing what the Southern way of life is.

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1. Steven A. Channing, Crisis of Fear: Secession in South Carolina, (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1974), p. 147.

2. Ibid. p. 20.

3. Ibid. pp. 19-20.

4. Ibid. p. 20.

5. Ibid. p.33.

6. Ibid. p. 35.

7. Ibid. pp. 26-27.

8. Ibid. pp. 89, 92.

9. Ibid. p. 66.

10. Ibid. p. 62.

11. Ibid. p. 66.

12. Ibid. p. 59.

13. Ibid. p. 69.

14. Ibid. p. 76.

15. Ibid. p. 21.

16. Ibid. p. 93.

17. Ibid. p. 100.

18. Ibid. p. 142.

19. Ibid. p. 142.

20. Ibid. p. 176.

21. Ibid. p. 204.