North Carolina’s Secession from the Union

North Carolina’s Secession from the Union

North Carolina first officially brought up the idea of secession from the Union on May 1, 1861. Delegates from each of its many counties met in Raleigh to decide, by vote, how the state would deal with the new upheaval that was taking place in the country. It took nineteen days, and on May 20 the state had voted to leave the Union, and join the Confederacy by a unanimous vote. Although it played a vital role to Confederacy, it was last to secede out of all of the states. The majority of North Carolina’s population at that time, as with many other states, was white farmers who did not own any laves. Politically, North Carolina as a state was very divided. This was due to the geographical divisions created by the three variations in geography. These are the coastal low areas, the piedmont, and the western mountains. Aside from slavery, which had in 1851 been a cause for a call to secede (which was quickly voted down), congress had tried to pass a bill to divide and hand out land in many states, including North Carolina. This infuriated many North Carolina citizens, who for the most part remained relatively conservative in ideals, especially when in comparison to northern states. An inequality among landowners and the lower class was also created by the system of taxation at the time, which burdened some much more than others. For all of these reasons, both slavery and others, North Carolina decided to secede from the Union at the start of the civil war.