Confederate States Population

Sequence	State	Capital	Flag	Seceded	White	Negro	Slave	Total	Percent
1	South Carolina	Charleston		12/20/1860	291388	9914	402406	703708	41%
2	Mississippi	Jackson		01/09/1861	353901	773	436631	791305	45%
6	Louisianna	Baton Rouge		01/26/1861	357629	18647	331726	708002	51%
4	Alabama	Montgomery		01/11/1861	526431	2690	435080	964201	55%
3	Florida	Tallahassee		01/10/1861	77747	932	61745	140424	55%
5	Georgia	Milledgeville		01/19/1861	591588	3500	462198	1057286	56%
10	North Carolina	Raleigh		05/20/1861	631100	30463	331059	992622	64%
8	Virginia	Richmond		04/17/1861	1047411	58042	490865	1596318	66%
7	Texas	Austin		02/01/1861	421294	355	182566	604215	70%
9	Arkansas	Little Rock		05/06/1861	324191	144	111115	435450	74%
11	Tennessee	Nashville		06/08/1861	826782	7300	275719	1109801	74%

Secession by Population

Secession occurred in essentially two phases. The first seven states seceded during the Winter of ’61, prior to Lincoln’s inauguration. The remainder joined the Confederacy, after Fort Sumter fell and Lincoln called for troops to suppress an insurrection. There are telling differences in the composition of states that seceded before and after war broke out.

The first six states to secede all had the lowest proportion of whites to total population. South Carolina and Mississippi both had minority white populations and the highest rates of slave ownership. None of the states seceding before Lincoln’s inauguration, except Texas, had white populations greater than 56%. In point of fact, the Deep South plantation states seceded first. They were geographically the furthest removed from the remainder of the Union.

States seceding after Lincoln’s call for troops to suppress insurrection all had large white majority populations, with low rates of slave ownership. Tennessee, the last state to secede had a majority white population of 74% and perhaps only 100 families with more than 100 slaves. Clearly, the call to suppress sister states by force of arms and not slave ownership, compelled these states to secede.

The four states which left the Union after Lincoln’s decision to contest secession by force of arms, more than doubled the white population of the Confederacy. They were also the states with the least to protect in defending slavery and the most to lose in leaving the Union. The territory of these states buffered the Deep South and presented natural corridors for invading Federal armies. It was State's Rights, not slavery, that caused them to risk all and secede.