The states of the Lower or Cotton South seceded in January 1861 following the failure of the Crittenden Compromise and the seizure of federal property by their governors. Here, unlike in South Carolina, moderates initially mounted a strong opposition to immediate straight-out secession. Coalescing under the label of cooperationists, they hoped to delay secession while seeking redress for Southern grievances within the Union. Some called for a convention of all Southern states to present demands; others wanted a prior agreement to secede by blocs of states before any decisive steps were taken. Republican refusals to grant them any significant concessions destroyed any chances of their success. Led by upwardly mobile young planters and slaveholding lawyers, the immediate secessionists easily carried Mississippi and Florida, where slavery was still undergoing vigorous growth. Elsewhere, the contests for the secession conventions were quite close as older, established planters and non-slaveholders in the backcountry condemned secession as certain to provoke a war that would result in economic ruin and the end of slavery. In all the elections, support for secession was strongest where slavery was most dominant. Once their states seceded, the cooperationist delegates called for popular referendums on secession. When those calls were rejected, they joined the original secessionists in presenting a united front against the North.
