YANCEY, William Lowndes, (uncle of Joseph Haynsworth Earle), a Representative from Alabama; born at the Falls of the Ogeechee, Warren County, Ga., August 10, 1814; attended preparatory school and Williams College, Williamstown, Mass.; studied law in Sparta, Ga., was admitted to the bar in 1834 and commenced practice in Greenville, S.C.; moved to Cahawba, Ala., in 1836; temporarily abandoned the practice of law and became a cotton planter; editor of the Cahawba Democrat and the Cahawba Gazette; moved to Wetumpka, Ala., in 1839 and resumed the practice of law; member of the State house of representatives in 1841; served in the State senate in 1843; elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-eighth Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Dixon H. Lewis; reelected to the Twenty-ninth Congress and served from December 2, 1844, to September 1, 1846, when he resigned; moved to Montgomery, Ala., in 1846; delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1848, 1856, and 1860; member of the State constitutional convention which convened in Montgomery January 7, 1861; appointed chairman of the commission sent to Europe in 1861 to present the Confederate cause to the Governments of England and France; elected to the first Confederate States Senate February 21, 1862; died at his plantation home, near Mongtomery, Ala., July 26, 1863; interment in Oakwood Cemetery.
View Record in the Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress
[ Top ]Draughon, Ralph Brown, Jr. "William Loundes Yancey: From Unionist to Secessionist 1814-1852." Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1968.
___. "The Young Manhood of William L. Yancey." Alabama Review 19 (January 1966): 28-40.
Dubose, John Witherspoon. The Life and Times of William Lowndes Yancey. A History of Political Parties in the United States, from 1834 to 1864. 2 vols. Birmingham, Ala.: Roberts and Son, 1892. Reprint, New York: P. Smith, 1942.
Eaton, Clement. "The Voice of Emotion." The Mind of the Old South. Rev. ed. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967), 267-87.
Freshley, Dwight L. "Vacillation and Venom: Andrew Johnson versus William L. Yancey." Southern Speech Journal 28 (Winter 1962): 98-108.
Golden, James L. "Hilliard vs. Yancey: Prelude to the Civil War." Quarterly Journal of Speech 42 (February 1956): 35-44.
McMillan, Malcolm C. "William L. Yancey and the Historians: One Hundred Years." Alabama Review 20 (July 1967): 163-86.
Mellen, George F. "Henry W. Hilliard and William L. Yancey." Sewanee Review 17 (January 1909): 32-50.
Mitchell, Rexford S. "William Lowndes Yancey: Orator of Southern Constitutional Rights." Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1937.
Petrie, George. What Will Be the Final Estimate of Yancey? Montgomery, Ala.: N.p., 1904.
Venable, Austin L. "The Public Career of William Lowndes Yancey." Alabama Review 16 (July 1963): 200-12.
___. "The Role of William L. Yancey in the Secession Movement." Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 1937. Nashville: Privately printed by the Joint University Libraries, 1945.
___. The Role of William L. Yancey in the Secession Movement. [Nashville]: N.p., 1945.
___. "William L. Yancey's Transition from Unionism to State Rights." Journal of Southern History 10 (August 1944): 331-42.
Walther, Eric H. "We Shall Fire the Southern Heart: William Lowndes Yancey." In The Fire-Eaters, pp. 48-92. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1992.
___. William Lowndes Yancey and The Coming of The Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
Yancey, William Lowndes. An address on the life and character of John Caldwell Calhoun. Montgomery: Advertiser and Gazette Print, 1850.
___. The Issues Involved in the Presidential Contest. Frankfort, Ky.: Printed at the Yeoman Office, 1860.
___. Speech of the Hon. William L. Yancey, of Alabama, delivered in the National Democratic convention, Charleston, April 28th, 1860. With the Protest of the Alabama delegation . Charleston: Walker, Evans and Company, 1860.
___. Speech of Mr. Yancey ... on the Oregon question. Washington: N.p., 1846.
