The Leadership and Legacy of William Yancey
William Yancey is best known for the work he did as a congressman. He was also known for asking Britain to recognize the southern states as a country during the civil war. He never liked for people to tell him what to do, and that 's what people loved about him. He was also elected to state senator in 1843, and was elected into the national House of Representatives in 1944. But before he was in congress and in the House of Representative, he was an editor for a paper in South Carolina. In 1937 he moved to Alabama on a plantation with his wife. He then purchased two newspapers. He owned slaves, but after an altercation with his neighbor, the slaves were poisoned. With no work force he had to sell his plantation. His only income was from a newspaper Cahawba, which was not very profitable.
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He had studied law before he move to Alabama but stopped to pursue his work on his plantation. He became a lawyer and was a huge advocate of State’s Rights. He was a supporter of Van Buren in the presidential election of 1840. In 1843 he ran for the state senate and won by a narrow margin. The year after that, he ran for Congress and was elected over Daniel Watrous. Then was re-elected in 1845. In 1946 he resigned his seat partly because he was poor and because he wanted to create a law partnership with John Archer Elmore. And partly because he did not like Northern Democrats. He thought they were sacrificing their principles to economic interests. When the Wilmot Proviso was passed, Yancey did not like it at all. His tried to pass the Alabama Platform. The platform would let slave owners take their property into territories, it would make Congress protect slave owners rights everywhere, and recognize that the Democratic Part could only elect pro-slavery candidates to national office. But the Democratic Party declined it twice, once in 1848, and another time in