Date

12-19-2023

Department

College of Arts and Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD)

Chair

Timothy D. Holder

Keywords

Howell Cobb, Georgia, Antebellum Georgia, Georgia History, Georgia Political History

Disciplines

History

Abstract

“The Political Evolution of Howell Cobb on the Road to Secession in Antebellum Georgia History” examines how Howell Cobb, the Southern Democratic politician who fiercely advocated for the preservation of the Union, eventually capitulated to the secession of Georgia. The five-term congressman, Georgia Governor, and Secretary of the Treasury was a key figure in the political history of Antebellum Georgia on the eve of secession. Cobb sought compromise through legislative solutions to sectional issues, argued against a state’s constitutional right to secession without just cause, and advocated for the doctrine of popular sovereignty with regards to the institution of slavery. Cobb viewed the Union as a mutually beneficial contract between the federal government and the states in which certain privileges and protections were guaranteed. A state possessed the right to secede, not on a whim, but rather only if the terms of that contract were violated. As the political tide toward secession fully shifted with the election of Lincoln in 1860, the pro-Union Cobb responded on behalf of disillusioned Southerners with a call for the secession of Georgia from his beloved perpetual Union.

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