The first point being that they were 2 "camps" in the secession movement in Georgia.One,pro-secession, favouring immediate secession.While the other faction,known as the,cooperationist,favoured a more wait and see approach,preferring to wait until after Lincoln's inauguration to contemplate whether their was a need for secession or not.
Alexander Stephens,the future Vice President of the Confederacy,was one among many who held the cooperationist view.Stephens asked the General Assembly to wait, saying: “In my judgment, the election of no man, constitutionally chosen to that high office, is sufficient cause for any State to separate from the Union.” Not everyone was a "fire eater."
Also,the article gives an interesting glimpse into some of Georgia's demographics at the time:With just over one million inhabitants, Georgia was the most populous of the Lower South states. Approximately 56 percent of its population was white, and the remaining 44 percent were black — almost all of them slaves. Despite the large slave numbers, however, only 37 percent of adult whites actually owned slaves. And those owning 10 or more slaves were concentrated in the cotton-producing areas of Middle, Southwest, and Coastal Georgia. Thus almost two-thirds of the white population had no direct investment in either the state’s plantation economy or in slavery. As a result, the decision over secession could not be easily predicted.
Most liberal historians today,believe the,War Between the States,was fought exclusively over slavery and its economic impact in connection to the whole South,both slave holders and non-slave holders.According to the above quote ", almost two-thirds of the white population had no direct investment in either the state’s plantation economy or in slavery." in Georgia.Their must have been other issue's,not just slavery,in determining Georgia's reason to secede from the union.
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