Williams Lowndes Yancey, Senator from Alabama and King of the Alabama Fire-Eaters

Alabama Senator William Lowndes Yancey, Fire-Eater and architect of Alabama’s secession from the Union where slavery could be practiced freely and forever. He was a professional Democratic politician who had warned his seat since the 40’s. He believed he was ushering in a Second American Revolution, but it was merely a reactionary coup by the slaveholding elite. Perhaps even a bluff. But it triggered the greatest conflagration the Western Hemisphere has ever seen.