William Lowndes Yancey

Yancey, William Lowndes (1814–63), U.S. proslavery politician and advocate of secession. A lawyer and U.S. senator (1844–46), he drafted the proslavery “Alabama platform” (1848) in reply to the Wilmot proviso, became a leading “fire-eater,” wrote the Alabama ordinance of secession (1860), and served the Confederate government in the Civil War as commissioner to England and France (1861–62).

See also: Slavery; Civil War, U.S.