[Sidenote] Halstead, “Conventions of 1860,” pp. 5, 48.

It turned out in the end that Mr. Yancey was the master-spirit of the Charleston Convention, though that body was far from entertaining any such suspicion at the beginning.  In exterior appearance he did not fill the portrait of the traditional fire-eater.  He is described as “a compact middle-sized man, straight-limbed, with a square-built head and face, and an eye full of expression”; “a very mild and gentlemanly man, always wearing a genuinely good-humored smile, and looking as if nothing in the world could disturb the equanimity of his spirits.”  He had, besides, a marvelous gift of persuasive oratory.  He was the Wendell Phillips of the South, for, like his Northern rival, he was a born agitator.  Above all his colleagues, he was the brain and soul and irrepressible champion of the pro-slavery reaction throughout the Cotton States.  He was tireless and ubiquitous; traveling, talking, writing, lecturing, animating every intrigue, directing every caucus, making speeches and drafting platforms at every convention.  To defend, propagate, and perpetuate African slavery was his mission.  He was the ultra of the ultras, accepting the institution as morally right and divinely sanctioned, desiring its extension and inclined to favor, though not then himself advocating, the re-opening of the African slave-trade.  He held that all Federal laws prohibiting such trade ought to be repealed so that each State might decide the question for itself.  Still more, Mr. Yancey was not only an agitator and fire-eater, but for years an insidious, persevering conspirator to promote secession.  Occupying such a position, he was naturally the champion of the Cotton States at Charleston.  The defense of the ultra demands of the South was by common consent devolved upon him,[5] and it was understood long beforehand that he was prepared with the principal speech from that side.

In full consciousness of the fact that he and his colleagues were then at Charleston with a predetermination to force a programme of disruption expressly designed as a prelude to intended disunion, Mr. Yancey stood up and with smiling face and silvery tones assured his hearers that he and his colleagues from Alabama were not disunionists per se.  Then he proceeded with his speech.  Only its key-note was new, but the novelty was of startling import to Northern delegates.  The Northern Democrats, he stated, were losing ground and falling before their victorious adversaries.  Why?  Because they had tampered with, and pandered to, the anti-slavery sentiment.  They had admitted that slavery was wrong.  This was surrendering the very citadel of their argument.  They must re-form their lines and change their tactics.  They must come up to the high requirements of the occasion and take a new departure.  The remainder of his speech was an insinuating plea for the property doctrine and Congressional intervention, for which the galleries and convention rewarded him with long and earnest applause.  Even if the great Southern agitator’s speech had been wanting in point and eloquence, success was supplied by the unmistakable atmosphere and temper of this great Charleston audience.