William Lowndes Yancey

William Lowndes Yancey

William Lowndes Yancey (born August 10, 1814 near the falls of the Ogeechee River , Warren County , Georgia , † July 27, 1863 in Montgomery , Alabama ) was an American journalist , politician , public speaker, diplomat and lawyer and a leader of the secessionist movement .

Career

William Lowndes Yancey was the son of Benjamin Cudworth Yancey, a South Carolina attorney , and Caroline Bird. He attended Williams College and then studied law in Greenville , South Carolina. He was admitted to the bar in 1834 and then worked as a lawyer in Greenville. In 1836 he moved to Cahawba , Alabama, and initially worked as a cotton planter and editor of the Cahawba Democrat and Cahawba Gazette . In 1839 he moved to Wetumpka , also in Alabama, and resumed his practice there as a lawyer.

In 1841 he was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives, and in 1843 he served in the Alabama Senate . From December 2, 1844 to September 1, 1846, he served during the 28th and after his re-election during the 29th Congressional election period as a Democratic MP in the successor of the resigned MP Dixon Hall Lewis in the United States House of Representatives. As an advocate of slavery , he often got into arguments with MPs from the more northern states.

After his retirement, he moved to Montgomery and bought a dairy farm there. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1848, 1856 and 1860 . On January 7, 1861, he was a leader in the Montgomery Constituent Assembly. His sentence "The man and the hour have met. We now hope that prosperity, honor, and victory await his administration.", Which he gave in his introductory speech on the occasion of the inauguration of Jefferson Davis , the President of the Confederate States, became famous . Used February 1861.

As chairman of a commission, he traveled to Europe on behalf of Jefferson Davis in 1861 to present the idea of ​​the Confederate States to the governments of England and France . On February 21, 1862 he was elected to the first Senate of the Confederate States .

William Lowndes Yancey died on July 27, 1863 at his home near Montgomery and was buried in Oakland Cemetery .

literature

• John Witherspoon du Bose: Life and Times of WL Yancey , Birmingham, Alabama 1892 (Reprint 2004)
• Ralph Draughon: From Unionist to Secessionist 1814–1852. Dissertation, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 1968.
• Ralph Draughon: William Lowndes Yancey . In: Encyclopedia of Alabama . 2011.
• Charles M. Hubbard: The Burden of Confederate Diplomacy , 1998, ISBN 1-57233-092-9
• Eric H. Walther: William Lowndes Yancey: The Coming of the Civil War , 2006, ISBN 978-0-7394-8030-4

Web links

• William Lowndes Yancey in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Detailed biography ( Memento from August 20, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) ( English )
• Information to Yancey ( English )
• texashistory.unt.edu to Yancey ( English )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Eric Walther, William Lowndes Yancey , 2006, p. 295.