InAmerican history, theFire-Eaters were a loosely aligned group of radical pro-secession Democrats in theantebellum South who urged the separation of theslave states into a new nation, in whichchattel slavery and a distinctive "Southern civilization" would be preserved. Some sought to revive American participation in theAtlantic slave trade, which had beenillegal since 1808.[1] After eleven southern states declared independence from the United States in 1861, several Fire-Eaters were outspoken critics of the newConfederate government during theAmerican Civil War.
Dubbed “Fire-Eaters” by critics, the group was not a cohesive political faction but a collection of radical democrats well known for their extreme rhetoric and nationalist demands for an independent southern nation. Among the best known Fire-Eaters wereEdmund Ruffin,Robert Rhett,Louis T. Wigfall, andWilliam Lowndes Yancey. By urgingsecession in the South, the Fire-Eaters aggravated the growth of divisivesectionalism in the U.S., and they materially contributed to the outbreak of theCivil War (1861–1865).
At an1850 convention inNashville, Tennessee, Fire-Eaters urged Southern secession, citing what they called irreconcilable differences between the North and the South, and they inflamed passions by usingpropaganda against the North. However, theCompromise of 1850 and other concessions isolated the Fire-Eaters for a while.
In the latter half of the 1850s, the group reemerged. During theelection of 1856, Fire-Eaters used threats of secession to persuade Northerners, who generally valued saving the Union over fighting slavery, to vote forJames Buchanan. They used several recent events for propaganda, among them "Bleeding Kansas" and thecaning of Charles Sumner, to accuse the North of trying to abolishslavery immediately. Using effective propaganda against1860 presidential candidateAbraham Lincoln, the nominee of the anti-slaveryRepublican Party, the Fire-Eaters were able to convince many Southerners of this. However, Lincoln, despite abolitionist sentiment within the party, had promised not to abolish slavery in the Southern states, but only to prevent its expansion into the Western territories.[2] They first targetedSouth Carolina, which passed anOrdinance of Secession in December 1860.Wigfall, for one, actively encouraged an attack onFort Sumter to promptVirginia and other upper Southern States to secede as well. The Fire-Eaters helped to unleash a chain reaction that led directly to the formation of theConfederate States of America and theCivil War. Their influence waned quickly after the start of major fighting.
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