What is all this talk about secession? Is it for real or can we write it off as post-election bitterness? Even those of us who yawned through history in high school remember South Carolina seceding from the Union. It may come as a surprise, but the South was not the first section of the country to come up with the idea. During the War of 1812, wealthy New Englanders threatened to secede from the United States.
“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Santayana
If you, as an informed citizen, want to know more about secession, our political parties and the foundations of our economy, you are invited to meet figures who did not make it into your high school history textbook. They played important roles forming our political parties, yet they have been relegated to obscurity. You will not find their portraits on our currency, yet they shaped America’s economic policies.
One of them wrote a book, if not the book, about secession and national unity. His name was Mathew Carey, and he lived in Philadelphia. He was a printer, publisher, bookseller, and political economist.
During the War of 1812, Carey observed economic distress in New England with intense concern. He feared those states would secede from the Union, and the nation would erupt in a civil war. He wrote the Olive Branch to preserve the Union.
During the Nullification Crisis, Carey once again foresaw dissolution of the Union, and spent his retirement campaigning in vain for policies he believed would preserve it. Southerners, opposed to the protective tariffs he advocated, burned him in effigy in Columbia, South Carolina.[1]
What do you think? Does an informed citizen need to know about the history of our country? Does that knowledge improve political discussions?
Coming up Tuesday, November 20:
Why did New England want to secede from the Union during the War of 1812?
[1] Mathew Carey, “The Crisis,” (Philadelphia: Printed by William F. Geddes for Mathew Carey, July 26, 1832) 19.
