Staunton hosted secession debate in 1861
By the middle of March 1861, tensions between the North and the South were rapidly mounting. Seven Southern states—South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas—had already seceded from the Union.
In Virginia, the question of unionism or secession was hotly debated. While most of Staunton and Augusta County were against secession, some notable residents were in favor of it. One of these was prominent Staunton attorney James H. Skinner who, in 1861, sought to secure the Democrat party’s nomination to run for Congress.
Opposing him was the incumbent, pro-Union Democrat John T. Harris, a lawyer from Harrisonburg. In February, Harris had made an impassioned speech to the House of Representatives about the folly of secession and how sectional differences—even those regarding slavery—could be solved.
A debate between the two men was held in Staunton on March 25, 1861, at the Augusta County Courthouse. The Staunton Spectator reported that Skinner—a native of Norfolk—“seems to calculate with great certainty upon receiving the nomination,” and then wryly noted that:
“Some over hopeful persons ‘count their chickens before they are hatched.’”
The courthouse was packed that day; before Skinner and Harris spoke, a cry went up to hear from Staunton lawyer Robert L. Doyle, whom the Vindicator had publicly urged to seek the Democrat nomination. Doyle took the podium and declared that although he had been a lifelong Whig, the paramount issue for him was union or disunion. He said he would support a pro-union democrat but would not seek the nomination.
The Vindicator reported that the debate between Skinner and Harris was acrimonious on a personal level.
“The discussion between Harris and Skinner partook rather too much of personal asperity to comport with that dignity which should characterize discussions between candidates for the office of Congressional Representative,” wrote editor W.H.H. Lynn.
Skinner, as the secession candidate, firmly believed in the sovereignty of the states and their right to withdraw from the Union if they felt it had become onerous or tyrannical. For him, too many people were trying to compromise on the many issues over which the North and the South were at odds. The only real solution was secession and the formation of a new confederacy that would protect Southern interests, including slavery.
Harris presented the opposite view, that secession was economically foolhardy and would only result in further secessions—one state after another seeking independence until the continent seethed with hundreds of small principalities warring with one another.
Keeping the Union together, he said, was possible through negotiation. The big sticking point of slavery, said Harris, was solvable through a proposed Constitutional amendment that had been approved by every member of Congress in a Feb. 11, 1861, vote:
“Resolved, That neither the Federal Government, nor the people or the governments of the non-slaveholding States, have the right to legislate upon or interfere with slavery in any of the slaveholding States in the Union.”
Both men received enthusiastic applause, demonstrating the very real political divisions that plagued the United States at the time.
But neither Harris nor Skinner received the Democrat nomination, and the Constitutional amendment that would have protected slavery where it existed never made it out of the halls of Congress. On April 12, South Carolina attacked Fort Sumter; three days later President Abraham Lincoln called for volunteers to put down the rebellion; and on April 17, Virginia seceded to join the Confederacy. The amendment, and the political aspirations of Harris and Skinner, were quashed by the advent of war.
Harris served in the Confederate House of Representatives and, after the Civil War, eventually made it back into the U.S. Congress as a Democrat. He also was commonwealth’s attorney for Rockingham County and later served as chairman of the Virginia Democratic Convention. He was named a commissioner to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago.
Harris died in Harrisonburg on Oct. 14,1899, and is buried in Woodbine Cemetery.
Skinner went on to serve with distinction as a colonel in the Confederate army, seeing action in some of the war’s most savage battles. He was severely wounded three times, at Second Manassas, Gettysburg and, finally, at Spotsylvania Courthouse where a bullet pierced his temple and passed out just below his right eye.
Incredibly, he lived, and regained the sight in his right eye. He served as post commander at Staunton until the end of the war, when he returned to his practice as a lawyer. He was president of the Augusta Memorial Association, a member of the Stonewall Jackson Confederate Veterans and eventually was camp commander.
Skinner died at his home in Staunton on May 19, 1898. He is buried at Cedar Grove Cemetery in Norfolk, Virginia.
Reach Charles Culbertson at email@example.com.