Fire-Eaters

In American history, the Fire-Eaters were a loosely aligned group of radical pro-secession Democrats in the antebellum South who urged the separation of the slave states into a new nation, in which chattel slavery and a distinctive "Southern civilization" would be preserved. Some sought to revive American participation in the Atlantic slave trade, which had been illegal since 1808. After eleven southern states declared independence from the United States in 1861, several Fire-Eaters were outspoken critics of the new Confederate government during the American Civil War.