Beriah Magoffin (American National Biography)

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Lowell H. Harrison, "Magoffin, Beriah," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/04/04-00652.html.
Magoffin's administration was dominated by the secession crisis and the Civil War. Prosouthern in his sentiments, he accepted slavery and the right of a state to secede, but he believed that if the slave states presented collective demands the North would have to accept them. In a circular letter of 9 December 1860 to the slave state governors, he suggested calling a conference that would insist on strict enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, a division of the territories between slave and free at the thirty-seventh parallel, and a constitutional provision that would allow the South to protect its interests, perhaps by requiring a two-thirds Senate majority to pass legislation pertaining to slavery. If this proposal failed, Magoffin believed that Kentucky would join the other slave states in leaving the Union.

In response to a secessionist appeal from the Alabama governor, Magoffin replied on 28 December 1860 that "the mode and manner of defense and redress should be determined in a full and free conference of all the Southern States, and that their mutual safety requires full co-operation in carrying out the measures there agreed upon." This cooperative movement was to be completed before Abraham Lincoln's inauguration in March 1861.
    How to Cite This Page: "Beriah Magoffin (American National Biography)," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/20487.