The U.S. state of Louisiana declared that it had seceded from the United States on January 26, 1861. It then announced that it had joined the Confederate States (C.S.); Louisiana was the sixth slave state to declare that it had seceded from the U.S. and joined the C.S.
Ordinance of secession
Civil War era
Road to war
The Civil War came after years of struggle over the issue of slavery. Louisiana's political leaders hoped the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850 would protect slavery and preserve the Union. But the state's planters saw the increasing pressure from abolitionists as an economic threat. Louisiana, like the other states, could not see the desolation that lay ahead when it entered a war expected to last only a few weeks.
Election of 1860
The pressure of the slavery issue split the Democratic Party convention wide open and led to a presidential election in 1860 with four candidates. Northern delegates to the Democratic Party convention supported Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, but the southern Democrats disagreed with his position on slavery, which they felt was not pro-slavery enough. The extremists among the southern Democrats, labeled "Fire-Eaters" because of their strong pro-slavery speeches, led a walkout at the convention. They then held their own convention and named John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky as their candidate. Another faction of southerners with hopes to preserve the Union, which included many former Whigs, formed the Constitutional Union Party and nominated John C. Bell of Tennessee as a moderate compromise candidate. To many white Southerners, a Republican was the enemy and a threat to their (slave-based) way of life. The Republican Party did not even exist in Louisiana, so Lincoln's name was not on the ballot there. The new president of the United States had not received one vote in the state. Lincoln's election brought an immediate reaction. One New Orleans newspaper said the Republican Party opposed the "dignity, interest, and well-being of Louisiana." Another predicted, "You might as well try to breathe life into a mummy of Ancient Egypt as to expect the Union to be preserved." The South was filled with talk of secession. The cry for secession spread as quickly as a yellow fever epidemic, and the results were just as deadly. But in 1860 Louisianians could not see what lay ahead. They heard speeches loaded with words like honor, self-respect, and principle. They heard Lincoln labeled a "black Republican Abolitionist" who would end their (slavery-based) way of life. In St. Charles Parish, a man was ordered to leave because he cheered on Lincoln. A Bostonian piano manufacturer in Shreveport was advised to leave town because he was a known Lincoln supporter.
Secession
On January 26, 1861, the Secession Convention voted 113 to 17 to adopt the Ordinance of Secession. Judge James G. Taliaferro of Catahoula Parish was the most outspoken opponent. He warned the secession threatened the interests and destiny of Louisiana, He predicted war, ruin, and decline. His opinion, however, was not included in the official record of the proceedings. Most of the state's citizens celebrated secession. Pine torches lighted a night parade in New Orleans. The governor called for homes and businesses to put lights in their windows to show their support. People cheered in the streets as fireworks exploded and cannons fired. The sound of cannon fire would soon create a very difficult emotion in a city under attack. Louisiana called itself a country for less than two weeks. On February 4, 1861, the State of Louisiana joined the Confederate States of America, the new nation formed by the southern states that seceded. The newly formed Confederate government gained the political skills of Louisiana's ex-United States senators. Judah P. Benjamin, called the "brains of the Confederacy", served in Confederate President Jefferson Davis's cabinet. John Slidell spent most of the war trying to persuade European nations to support the Confederacy. Louisiana also contributed four key generals to the Confederate army – Braxton Bragg, Leonidas Polk, Richard Taylor, and P. G. T. Beauregard.