Voting on voting with the feet: a cross-county analysis of the Tennessee popular referenda to secede from the union

We analyze a unique case of voting on voting with the feet, when Tennessee twice considered secession from the Union in 1861 by popular referenda. The initial votes to hold a convention, and to send disunion delegates to a convention, failed, but after the Confederate states adopted a new constitution and the bombing of Fort Sumter took place, a second set of votes to separate from the union, and to join the confederacy, passed. Regression results support the importance of both economic interests and political tendencies, along with regional differences, in explaining the variation in votes across counties. Class distinctions were not found to be significant. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2007