Slavery's Legalism: Lawyers and the Commercial Routine of Slavery

Abstract

Eugenius Aristides Nisbet played a critical role in Georgia's secession from the United States. Elected as a delegate to Georgia's 1861 secession convention, Nisbet introduced a resolution in favor of severing ties with the Union, and he led the committee that drafted his state's secession ordinance. Nisbet was a trained lawyer who had served on the Georgia Supreme Court, and his legal training shaped the way that he viewed secession. He believed that the Constitution did not give states the right to dissolve the Union; instead, this power rested solely in the people, and he framed the resolution and ordinance accordingly. Thanks in part to Nisbet, it was the “people of the State of Georgia” who “repealed, rescinded and abrogated” their ratification of the Constitution in 1788.