Address of the Southern Delegates

In response to a series of antislavery resolutions, southern delegates called a caucus for 23 December 1848. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina submitted an address "moderate in manner" but calculated to unite the South. The proposal was adopted on 22 January 1849. Calhoun's address recounted acts of northern "aggression," including the nullification of constitutional guarantees for the return of fugitive slaves and the exclusion of slavery and Southerners from the common territories. Calhoun concluded that the abolitionist movement intended to over-throw white supremacy in the South. Fewer than half of the southern delegates signed the address, however, and it only intensified sectional rancor.

Bibliography

Ford, Lacy K., Jr. Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry, 1800–1860. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Niven, John. John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union: A Biography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.

Wiltse, Charles M. John C. Calhoun. 3 vols. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1944–1951.

—Fletcher M. Green/A. G.