Georgia Secedes

Georgia Delegation to Congress

150 years ago today, January 19th, Georgia voted to secede from the Union with a vote of 208 to 89. They were the fifth state to secede. Ten days later they also adopted a document in which they explained to the world their reasons for leaving the Union. You can read it here.

Georgia said that there had been a long disagreement over slavery, but they had ignored the problems because they wished to remain in the Union. The Constitution gave them the the right to have their escaped slaves returned, but the North refused to do so. All the debate was brought to a head with the choice of the North for Lincoln as their President.

Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia ... have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them.

The declared mission and purpose of the Republican party to which Lincoln belonged was to oppose slavery. Georgia did not wish to remain in a union that was seeking to overthrow them, so they voted to leave the Union:

For twenty years past the abolitionists and their allies in the Northern States have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions and to excite insurrection and servile war among us. They have sent emissaries among us for the accomplishment of these purposes. Some of these efforts have received the public sanction of a majority of the leading men of the Republican party in the national councils, the same men who are now proposed as our rulers