Civil Wars

John Jay II embodied the words of “Why We Resist, and What We Resist,” printed in the pages of a leading southern journal during the secession crisis. In February 1861, De Bow’s Review paired a sermon by a secessionist New Orleans minister with a speech delivered by the New York Republican on the eve of the fateful 1860 election. With the aid of incendiary subheadings inserted by the editors, Jay indicted President-Elect Lincoln and himself as zealots eager to inflict their shared abolitionist agenda. Jay’s plan of action was made clear to the readership of De Bow’s: today’s Republican voters