William Porcher Miles was among the ardent States' Rights

States' rights

States' rights in U.S. politics refers to political powers reserved for the U.S. state governments rather than the federal government. It is often considered a loaded term because of its use in opposition to federally mandated racial desegregation...

 advocates, supporters of slavery, and Southern

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

 secession

Secession

Secession is the act of withdrawing from an organization, union, or especially a political entity. Threats of secession also can be a strategy for achieving more limited goals.-Secession theory:...

ists who came to be known as the "Fire-Eaters

Fire-Eaters

In United States history, the term Fire-Eaters refers to a group of extremist pro-slavery politicians from the South who urged the separation of southern states into a new nation, which became known as the Confederate States of America.-Impact:...

." Born in South Carolina, he showed little early interest in politics and his early career included the study of law and a tenure as a mathematics professor at the College of Charleston from 1843 to 1855.

In the late 1840s as sectional issues roiled South Carolina politics, Miles began to speak up on sectional issues. He opposed both the Wilmot Proviso

Wilmot Proviso

The Wilmot Proviso, one of the major events leading to the Civil War, would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War or in the future, including the area later known as the Mexican Cession, but which some proponents construed to also include the disputed...

 and the Compromise of 1850

Compromise of 1850

The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five bills, passed in September 1850, which defused a four-year confrontation between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War...

. Miles would, from this point on, look at any northern efforts to restrict slavery as justification for secession.

Miles was elected as mayor of Charleston in 1855 and served in the United States House of Representatives from 1857 until South Carolina seceded in December 1860. He was a member of the state secession convention and a representative from South Carolina at the Confederate Convention in Montgomery, Alabama that established the provisional government and constitution for the Confederate States of America. He represented his state in the Confederate House of Representatives during the American Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

.

Early life

Miles was born in Walterboro, South Carolina

Walterboro, South Carolina

Walterboro is a city in Colleton County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 5,153 at the 2000 census . It is the county seat of Colleton County.-History:...

 to James Saunders Miles and Sarah Bond Worley Miles. His ancestors were French Huguenots and his grandfather, Major Felix Warley, fought in the American Revolution. His primary education came at Southworth School and he later attended Willington Academy where John C. Calhoun

John C. Calhoun

John Caldwell Calhoun was a leading politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. Calhoun eloquently spoke out on every issue of his day, but often changed positions. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent...

 had matriculated a generation earlier. Miles enrolled at the College of Charleston

College of Charleston

The College of Charleston is a public, sea-grant and space-grant university located in historic downtown Charleston, South Carolina, United States...

 in 1838 where he met future secession advocates James De Bow and William Henry Trescot

William Henry Trescot

William Henry Trescot was an American diplomatist born in Charleston, South Carolina, on the November 10, 1822. He graduated at College of Charleston in 1840, studied law at Harvard University, and was admitted to the bar in 1843.From 1852 to 1854 he was secretary of the U.S. legation in London...

. Miles graduated in 1842 and in 1843 he briefly studied law with a local attorney before returning to his alma mater as a mathematics professor.

Throughout the 1840s Miles showed little interest in active politics. He did not participate in the Bluffton Movement

Bluffton Movement

The Bluffton Movement , in the U.S. state of South Carolina, was an attempt to invoke "separate state action" against the tariff of 1842, after John Calhoun's failure to secure the presidential nomination and the Northern Democrats' abandonment of the South on the tariff had apparently destroyed...

 in 1844, although he did recognize that the 1846 Wilmot Proviso

Wilmot Proviso

The Wilmot Proviso, one of the major events leading to the Civil War, would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico in the Mexican War or in the future, including the area later known as the Mexican Cession, but which some proponents construed to also include the disputed...

 threatened his concepts of "southern rights, the equality of the states under the Constitution, and the honor of a slaveholding people." In 1849 Miles was invited to speak at a Fourth of July celebration in Charleston.

In this speech, Miles attacked the principles behind the Wilmot Proviso. While he believed that slavery was a "Divine institution," he was willing to accept differences of opinion as long as antislavery advocates returned the favor by admitting that slavery was "recognized and countenanced" by the Constitution. To Miles, Northerners, in their efforts to legislate restrictions on slavery, were not simply raising an issue of constitutional interpretation. Miles argued:
Miles rejected any compromise on slavery and supported Calhoun in opposition to the Compromise of 1850. However while activists within the state in 1850 and 1851 mobilized, Miles remained on the sidelines as Southern Rights associations and rallies dominated South Carolina politics. In 1852 Miles delivered an address to the Alumni Society of the College of Charleston that included one of the frequent arguments of the Fire-Eaters. Addressing himself to the Declaration of Independence, Miles denied the concept of inalienable rights and maintained that liberty was an "Acquired Privilege." He argued that "Men are born neither Free nor Equal" and some men were born with the innate ability to earn liberty while others were not. Government should not attempt to either "make a Statesman of him who God intended should be a Ploughman" or "bind down forever to the plough him to whom God has given a mind capable of shaping the destinies of a People." From this point on in his career, Miles rejected the political legitimacy of abolitionists and free-soilers and responded to any attempts to restrict slavery with a call for secession.

Mayor of Charleston

In the summer of 1855 a yellow fever epidemic hit the coast of Virginia. Eventually 2,000 people would die as well as half of the doctors who attempted to treat it. Virginia called for volunteers from the lower South where the disease was more common and residents had developed some natural immunity. Miles responded by serving for several weeks in Norfolk as a nurse. His heroic activities were reported back to Charleston, and his friends used the popularity generated by his activities to draft him as a candidate for mayor. Upon his return to Charleston he made only one public speech but was still elected mayor by a vote of 1,260 to 837.

Interested in reform, the new mayor first tackled police reform. After sending out fact finding missions to other cities, he implemented a plan that addressed the problem of excessive partisanship within the city council. Appointment responsibility was reassigned to the police chief for lower ranks and to the mayor, with city council approval, for higher ranks. He expanded patrols, cracked down on habitual offenders.

In the area of social reform, Miles created a house of corrections for juveniles, an almshouse, an orphanage and an asylum. He provided aid for transient poor and free black paupers and implemented a sewage system as a health measure. Having inherited a large public debt, he increased property taxes in an effort to retire the debt in 35 years. At the end of his two-year term he was widely judged to have been successful, leading him to consider further public office.

United States House of Representatives

In 1856 Miles ran for the seat being vacated by Congressman William Aiken, Jr.. The national issues of slavery in Kansas and the rise of the Republican Party dominated the election. Miles argued that the election of the Republican candidate for president, John C. Fremont

John C. Frémont

John Charles Frémont , was an American military officer, explorer, and the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. During the 1840s, that era's penny press accorded Frémont the sobriquet The Pathfinder...

, would require a joint southern response that could include boycotting the new Congress and calling a southern convention to determine further action. In a three way election Miles was victorious by a vote of 1,852 to 1,844 for his two opponents.

When he took office in 1857 he found that the Kansas issues dominated Congressional debate, threatened the unity of the Democratic Party and increased the growth of the Republicans. His first speech on the House floor came in 1858 and argued the southern position on Kansas. Despite his acknowledgement that the Kansas climate was not conducive to slavery, he stated:
Miles was re-elected in 1858. In January 1859 he spoke in support of fellow fire-eater William Lowndes Yancey

William Lowndes Yancey

William Lowndes Yancey was a journalist, politician, orator, diplomat and an American leader of the Southern secession movement. A member of the group known as the Fire-Eaters, Yancey was one of the most effective agitators for secession and rhetorical defenders of slavery. An early critic of...

 in advocating the repeal of federal laws banning the African slave trade. Miles felt that the regulation of the trade should be a state function and that the national ban was an insult to southern honor. This stance was considered too radical even by his friends, such as Trescott, who felt, since it could never be supported by the majority of the nation, that Miles' stance was simply a guise to force disunion .

John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry

John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry

John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry was an attempt by white abolitionist John Brown to start an armed slave revolt by seizing a United States Arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia in 1859...

 sent a shock wave across the South. When the Thirty-sixth Congress met in December 1859 the first order of business was the selection of a speaker. Already in turmoil over the Brown raid, southerners were further aggravated by the nomination of Ohio Republic John Sherman

John Sherman (politician)

John Sherman, nicknamed "The Ohio Icicle" , was a U.S. Representative and U.S. Senator from Ohio during the Civil War and into the late nineteenth century. He served as both Secretary of the Treasury and Secretary of State and was the principal author of the Sherman Antitrust Act...

 for the post. Sherman was one of 68 Republicans who had endorsed Hinton Helper’s book, The Impending Crisis and How to Meet It, which southerners believed would ignite class warfare between slaveholders and non-slaveholders in the South. Republicans proposed buying 100,000 copies of the book and distributing it throughout the country.

In South Carolina the state legislature was unable to determine an appropriate response, but finally, reacting to a proposal by pro-secession Governor William Henry Gist

William Henry Gist

William Henry Gist was the 68th Governor of South Carolina from 1858 to 1860 and a leader of the secession movement in South Carolina.-Early life and career:...

 decided to propose a southern convention. As a first step Christopher G. Memminger was dispatched to Virginia in order to solicit their support. Miles advised Memminger to “urge our Carolina view in such a manner as to imbue Virginia with it ... [and] we may soon hope to see the fruit of your addresses in the sturdy and health offspring of whose birth we would be so greatly proud — a Southern confederacy.

Election of 1860

By 1860 Miles was one of the leading secessionists in South Carolina. His position in Washington, D.C., allowed him to serve as a conduit in the flow of information between Washington and Charleston. State politicians focused on the upcoming Democratic Convention

1860 Democratic National Convention

The 1860 Democratic National Convention was one of the crucial events in the lead-up to the American Civil War. Following a fragmented official Democratic National Convention that was adjourned in deadlock, two more presidential nominating conventions took place: a resumed official convention,...

 scheduled in Charleston beginning on April 23. Miles was concerned about the candidacy of Stephen A. Douglas

Stephen A. Douglas

Stephen Arnold Douglas was an American politician from the western state of Illinois, and was the Northern Democratic Party nominee for President in 1860. He lost to the Republican Party's candidate, Abraham Lincoln, whom he had defeated two years earlier in a Senate contest following a famed...

, especially rumors that there might even be a pro-Douglas faction in South Carolina. Miles and other radicals were convinced that only a strictly Southern party could properly address the state’s needs.

The convention deadlocked over the party platform. Southerners opposed Douglas' support for popular sovereignty

Popular sovereignty in the United States

The American Revolution marked a departure in the concept of popular sovereignty as it had been discussed and employed in the European historical context. With their Revolution, Americans substituted the sovereignty in the person of the English king, George III, with a collective sovereign—composed...

 - a concept which would have allowed new territories to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery. Southerners preferred federal guarantees that slavery would be allowed in all United States territories. Thirteen of the 16 South Carolina delegates walked out of the convention. In May Miles returned to Charleston and declared that the next election would pit "power against principle - the majority against the minority, regardless of all constitutional barriers."

Support for secession was strong in South Carolina even before Lincoln’s election. Miles pressed the issue, urging action as opposed to simply more discussion. Miles stated, according to a July 24 newspaper account:
Miles argued that South Carolina should"break up things generally, which any state can at any time do." He believed that the South had "all the elements of wealth, prosperity and strength, to make her a first-class power among the nations of the world" and would "lose so little and gain so much” with secession." In August Miles was struck with typhoid fever and went to New England to recover, not returning to the state until the November elections.

Secession winter

As secession loomed, President James Buchanan

James Buchanan

James Buchanan, Jr. was the 15th President of the United States . He is the only president from Pennsylvania, the only president who remained a lifelong bachelor and the last to be born in the 18th century....

 was concerned about the safety of United States property in South Carolina. Miles, returning to Washington for the upcoming session of Congress, was one of the South Carolina delegates who met with Buchanan to discuss this problem. On December 10 Miles and the others presented a letter to the President that assured him that the forts in Charleston would not be molested "provided that no reinforcement should be sent into those forts, and their relative military status" maintained. Buchanan questioned the word “provided” since it appeared to bind him, but the delegates assured him that they were only communicating their understanding based on the status quo. According to both Miles and fellow South Carolina fire-eater Laurence M. Keitt

Laurence M. Keitt

Laurence Massillon Keitt was a South Carolina politician who served as a United States Congressman. He is included in several lists of Fire-Eaters—men who adamantly urged the secession of southern states from the United States, and who resisted measures of compromise and reconciliation,...

, Buchanan said, "After all, this is a matter of honor among gentlemen. I do not know that any paper or writing is necessary. We understand each other."

Returning to South Carolina, Miles was elected as a delegate to the South Carolina secession convention. Miles was for immediate action. On December 17, fearing that even a few days of delay could be critical, he opposed the relocation of the convention from Columbia to Charleston due to a smallpox outbreak. Miles' last communications with southerners in Washington told him that they were all looking to South Carolina for leadership. Miles attitude was reflected in his statement, “Let us act if we mean to act without talking. Let it be ‘a word and a blow - but the blow first.”

The convention adopted an ordinance of secession on December 20. Miles, along with other South Carolinians, immediately resigned his seat in Congress. In the months ahead, Miles, believing in the possibility of peaceful secession, opposed precipitate action over either Fort Sumter or the Star of the West

Star of the West

The Star of the West was a civilian steamship hired by the United States government to transport military supplies and reinforcements to the garrison of Fort Sumter, but was fired on by Confederates in its effort to do so at the dawning of the American Civil War...

 incident. In February 1861 Miles was one of eight South Carolina delegates to the Confederate Convention

Montgomery Convention

The Montgomery Convention marked the formal beginning of the Confederate States of America. Convened in Montgomery, Alabama the Convention organized a provisional government for the Confederacy and created the Constitution of the Confederate States of America....

 in Montgomery, Alabama, that established the Confederacy.

Confederate Congress

Miles was selected for both the provisional and regular Confederate Congress

Congress of the Confederate States

The Congress of the Confederate States was the legislative body of the Confederate States of America, existing during the American Civil War between 1861 and 1865...

. He was chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee while also serving as an aide-de-camp for General P. G. T. Beauregard

P. G. T. Beauregard

Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard was a Louisiana-born American military officer, politician, inventor, writer, civil servant, and the first prominent general of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Today he is commonly referred to as P. G. T. Beauregard, but he rarely used...

 at both Charleston, in the buildup to the attack on Fort Sumter, and the First Battle of Bull Run

First Battle of Bull Run

First Battle of Bull Run, also known as First Manassas , was fought on July 21, 1861, in Prince William County, Virginia, near the City of Manassas...

. Recognizing, however, his own lack of military training, Miles focused most of his attention on his congressional duties.

Historian Eric H. Walther describes Miles tenure in the Confederate Congress:
While serving in the Confederate Provisional Congress, Miles chaired the "Committee on the Flag and Seal," which adopted the "Stars and Bars

Stars and bars

Stars and bars may refer to* The first official flag of the Confederate States of America* A graphical method used to derive the formula for multiset coefficients and other combinatorial theorems* A 1988 film starring Daniel Day-Lewis...

" flag as the national flag of the Confederacy. Miles opposed this selection because, he felt, it too much resembled, as supporters of it admitted, the old Stars and Stripes. Miles argued:
Miles favored his own design, which, although rejected by the committee, eventually became the Confederate Battle Flag

Flags of the Confederate States of America

There were only three flag designs adopted, with later, minor variants made to those designs, that served as the official national flags of the Confederate States of America and used during its existence from 1861 to 1865...

 today known simply as "the Confederate flag."

Post war

As late as January 1865 Miles offered a resolution in Congress stating, "That we, the representatives of the people of the Confederate States, are firmly determined to continue the struggle in which we are involved until the United States shall acknowledge our independence."

Describing Miles feelings shortly after the war ended and quoting from a September 25, 1865 letter, Walther writes:
Miles had married Bettie Beirne in 1863, the daughter of a wealthy Virginia planter. For a few years after the war he worked for his father-in-law as a factor in New Orleans and in 1867 took over management of Oak Ridge plantation in Nelson County, Virginia. He encountered serious financial problems as a tobacco and wheat farmer, and in 1874 he unsuccessfully applied for the position of president at the new Hopkins University of Baltimore. Miles remained on the farm and helped friends like Beauregard and former fire-eater Robert Rhett

Robert Rhett

Robert Barnwell Rhett, Sr. , was a United States secessionist politician from South Carolina.-Biography:...

 gather materials for their own histories of the Confederacy.

In 1880 Miles was appointed president of the newly reopened South Carolina College. After his father-in-law's death in 1882, Miles took over the family business interests and relocated to Houmas House in Ascension Parish, Louisiana where he managed a dozen plantations. In 1892 with his son he formed Miles Planting and Manufacturing Company of Louisiana.

Miles died on May 13, 1899 at age 76 and he was interred at Union Cemetery in Union, Monroe County, West Virginia

Monroe County, West Virginia

As of the census of 2000, there were 14,583 people, 5,447 households, and 3,883 families residing in the county. The population density was 31 people per square mile . There were 7,267 housing units at an average density of 15 per square mile...

.

External links

• Inventory of the William Porcher Miles Papers, 1784-1906, in the Southern Historical Collection
  Southern Historical Collection
  The Southern Historical Collection is a repository of distinct archival collections at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill which document the culture and history of the American South...
  
  , UNC-Chapel Hill
  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
  
  
• Congressional biography
• Quotations
• Stars and Bars