Sunday, January 28, 2007

Jacob Thompson (1810-1875): A Traitor?

Was Caswell County's Jacob Thompson a Traitor?

When serving as US Secretary of Interior Jacob Thompson was appointed by the State of Mississippi as a "secession commissioner" to North Carolina with the task of convincing that state to secede from the Union after Abraham Lincoln had been elected US President.

Thompson met with North Carolina Governor John W. Ellis in Raleigh. Thompson also wrote an open letter to Ellis that was published in the "Raleigh State Journal" December 20, 1860. In that letter Thompson stated the South faced "common humiliation and ruin" if it remained in the Union. He warned a Northern "majority trained from infancy to hate our people and their institutions" would overthrow slavery. The result would be "the subjugation of our people."

New-York Daily Tribune, January 9, 1861, p. 4.

Jacob Thompson (1810-1885), born in Leasburg, Caswell County, North Carolina.




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