Delaware state legislature votes overwhelmingly to stay in the Union

Southern commissioners had been pressuring Delaware, as a nominal slave state, to make a decision concerning secession.  On January 3, 1861, the Delaware state legislature voted overwhelmingly to remain in the Union, stating famously that "as Delaware was the first to adopt so will she be the last to abandon the Federal Constitution."  State leaders, among them Willard Saulsbury, the junior U.S. senator and Dickinson College class of 1842, then began to support efforts at compromise.  (By John Osborne)    
Source Citation
 Patience Essah, A House Divided: Slavery and Emancipation in Delaware, 1638-1865 (Charlotesville, VA: University of Virginia, 1996), 161.
    Date Certainty
    Exact
    Type
    Lawmaking/Litigating
    How to Cite This Page: "Delaware state legislature votes overwhelmingly to stay in the Union," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/34831.