OK. I admit it – my eyes bulged out of my head when I read this headline from The New-York Times. The main idea was that Southern medical students met to decide whether, given Lincoln’s election and the secessionist activities in the South, they should return home and withdraw their patronage from Northern medical schools. Here are excerpts from the article (The New-York Times. November 10, 1860):
SECESSION IN NEW-YORK.
Meeting of Southern Medical Students-
Resolutions to Return Home adopted. …
In the papers of Friday morning, Nov. 9, a call
appeared for the Southern Medical Students attending
lectures in this City, to meet at the hall of the Medi-
cal College, on Fourteenth-street; to take action as to
their course in remaining here or going home, since
the result of the election of Tuesday. The Faculty,
however, being unwilling that the hall should be used
for political purposes, refused to open it for the meeting, and consequently the place of meeting was
changed to the Democratic Head-quarters on Broad-
way, opposite Astor-Place.
The room was nearly filled with Southerners from
nearly every State south of Mason & Dixon’s line. …
Hon. Mr . CLINTON, of Mississippi, was then intro-
duced to the meeting, who prefaced his remarks by
saying that he would say nothing to them, that he
would not say to his brother or his only son. He
stated that before last Tuesday he was a firm Union
man, and that for three months he had been traveling
through the North, at his own expense, striving to
open the eyes of the people of the North, and
to lead them to a right decision, but that
since the election of ABRAHAM LINCOLN to the
highest office in the gift of the people he
was for disunion, and the sooner the better. The
Union at first contained but one free State, and twelve
slave States, and the slave States had been yielding
to the demands of the free States till they exposed
themselves to ridicule by further concessions. He
was ready to make sacrifice of his property, prospects,
and even his wife and children for the sake of South-
ern honor. He closed by advising the young gentle-
men immediately to return to their Southern homes,
and withdraw their patronage from Northern institu-
tions. …
Dr. MARION SIMS, of this City, next was called for.
He assured the gentlemen that he had a right to speak
to them, as he was bound by the tenderest ties to
nearly every Southern State. He did not wish to
talk politics, but to address them a few words of ten-
derness. He counseled the students to remain
here, as the opportunities for learning from actual
observation were much greater than in any Southern
city. They were surrounded by friends, not enemies.
Most of the Medical Faculty were Southern men, or
men with Southern preferences. He advised the
young men to wait till their respective States seceded,
and then be ready to go to their assistance. …
Col. DICK, of Maryland, was next Introduced as
“the man who gave BROOKS the cane to whip SUMNER
with.” He said the young men should not wait for
their States to secede, but should go home and urge
them to secede. …
The Commitee on Resolutions then presented the
following report :
Whereas, The people of the North, by the election
of ABRAHAM LINCOLN as President and HANNIBAL HAM-
LIN as Vice-President of these United States, have
signified their hostility to the South in thus elevating
to office sectional candidates—
Resolved, 1. That we withdraw our patronage from
Northern institutions.
2. That we leave immediately for our Southern
homes.
3. That we thank the people of this City for the
stand they have taken for the Union and the Constitu-
tion, and shall always remember them with gratitude. …
There was debate over South Carolina had already seceded and parliamentary maneuvers, but some sort of resolution was eventually passed.
Throughout the meeting, the speakers who advo-
ated disunion and secession, were loudly applauded,
while those advocating moderation and deliberate ac-
ion, were hissed, and in every manner embarrassed
in their speaking.
Southern honor trumped the chance to attend superior medical schools.
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J. Marion Sims - Central Park, New York
1) Apparently, the Dr. Marion Sims who advised the students to wait for actual secession was J. Marion Sims, who is considered the Father of American Gynecology. The Wikipedia article says Sims was born in South Carolina; also, “Sims used slaves as experimental subjects”.
2) As it turns out, the headline should not have surprised me as much as its timing. More New york secession in the future (in 1860s time, that is).
3) Trade is part of life. Nowadays foreign students attend universities all over the world. However, this story backs up the idea that the South was still mostly agricultural and not developing other parts of its economy as quickly as the North.
It’s no surprise that many people in NY — especially those with ties to slavery — were for secession. Why on earth would that surprise anyone?
First of all, if you were from the South, you heard all your life that slavery was from GOD ALMIGHTY. There was no other voice in the South, no legal voice. Opposition to slavery was strong in the South before 1820, but had been systematically oppressed since then. Men could be, and were, tortured, just for owning the wrong book.
The violent suppression of free speech after 1820 is a topic unto itself, and is astonishingly neglected by most historians, but was very much a way of life in the South. Even preaching in a way that QUESTIONED slavery was a crime in the South. One man who was arrested, and nearly tortured, for owning a book that questioned slavery, was a preacher.
Debow, editor and founder of Debow’s review, wrote joyfully that “Opposition to slavery has been silenced by Almighty God through his Holy Word”. Actually it wasn’t God, it was the violent, and enforced, anti-incendiary laws in the South that forced all anti slavery publications to close, and anyone foolish enough to violate those laws were punished by physical torture. Crowds would gather, like a county fair, and watch the torture.
Ships were searched for “contraband” books and pamphlets, mail was searched, and if you were accused of owning the wrong book, your person and house was searched. From 1830’s to 1861, the South was very much a Nazi like totalitarian nation unto itself.
So these men who grew up from 1820 on, knew no opposition to slavery. They only knew the bombastic, virtually isane, preaching of men like Jefferson Davis who insisted often that slavery was “A Divine Gift” and that “the Negro was delivered unto us… fit only for servitude”.
Who was the evil ones? Those who dared “whisper the lie of freedom” into the ears of the slave, Davis said. Who would whisper those filthy lies, according to Davis? Easy — the “evil serpent”.
This is the crazed atmostphere these men grew up in. When they went North, that mindset didn’t vanish.
In fact, the insanity of the religious mind set of the South has yet to be exposed, especially in “popular” history, of movies, TV shows, ect. We don’t see Lee torturing his slave girls, while screaming at them. We see the myth of Lee praising God for the recovery of a brave southern lad, shot by the heathen Yankees.
George Mason, a slave owner and contemporary of George Washington, a member of the Constitution convention in 1776, nailed the mind set of slave owners — and predicted exactly what was to become.
Mason called slavery a “slow poison” that rots the mind of the “gentleman” born into slavery. The gentleman learn all the mannerisms and dress that so impresses those around him, but is a seething tyrant. Mason called their upbringing, in our terms “the school from hell” or as he called it – “the infernal school”.
Let Mr Mason speak — here quoting him: ” Every master of slaves is born a petty tyrant. [Slaves] bring the judgment of heaven on a Country. As nations can not [sic] be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes & effects[,] providence punishes national sins, by national calamities”
Slavery rots the minds of the slave owners. It can not be otherwise.
If you were told from youth that God gave you blacks to do your work, to whip when they didn’t please you, to sell when you needed money, you would do what these men did. They heard nothing else in the South, and took deep offense when they went North and were subject to other opinions.
So it’s no surprise that many in the North would think the same thing, especially if they were from the South.
Thank you for your feedback, Mark