John C. Carter
Secession convention
Thu May 3 15:15:34 2001


Deborah...

From the last line of you post, I would say you answered your own question. If Dr. Roberts was defeated by Nick Davis and Jeremiah Clemens in the 1860 election to decide on the delegates for the Secession Convention, he would not have gone to the Convention to vote. The cooperationists won in Madison and Limestone Counties and they were the only delegates who went to the convention and voted.

I think that is what happened. My gr-gr-gr-grandfather, Thomas Joyce McClellan, was elected as one of the delgates from Limestone County (along with Joshua Coman), defeating the two secessionist candidates from Limestone Co. in their 1860 election. They cast the only votes for Limestone County (not to secede).

See: Documenting the American South for the transcript of the entire secession convention: http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/smithwr/smith.html

If I made a typo and this doesn't get you to it, the site is at UNC Chapel Hill...First Person Narratives Documenting the American South....by William R. Smith. If you do a search for the secession convention on the American South web site it will bring up the file.

John