An Alabama Senator Explains Why His State Left the Union: The Lost Cause

Pat Young

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
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c.c. clay.JPG

C.C. Clay served as a United States Senator and a Confederate Senator.

I am reading Pollard's 1866 book The Lost Cause. This is considered the seminal work in the creation of the "Lost Cause" paradigm. I hope to write a long review of the book when I finish it, but I will put up a few posts based on what I am learning from the book.

Pollard spends about 10% of The Lost Cause explaining why the South left the Union and discussing the legality of secession. In this section, he provides a substantial excerpt from the speech given by C.C. Clay when he took his leave of the Senate in 1861 after his state seceded. Clement Claiborne Clay was a senator from Alabama. Here is what Pollard says:

Mr. C. C. Clay of Alabama was more violent. In severing his connection with the Senate, he took occasion to make out a very full bill of indictment against the Republican party, and to recount the grievances that impelled the South to separate herself from the Union. A portion of his speech is interesting here as the historical statement on the side of the South of the causes and necessity of Disunion, made by one of her leading statesmen, and reflecting much both of the intelligence and passion of his countrymen.

[Source: Edward Alfred Pollard. The Lost Cause; a New Southern History of the War of the Confederates (Kindle Locations 1210-1211). Waxkeep Publishing. Kindle Edition.]
 
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