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.
Dubbed “Fire-Eaters” by critics, the group was not a cohesive political faction but a collection of radical democrats well known for their extreme rhetoric and nationalist demands for an independent southern nation.
During the election of 1856, Fire-Eaters used threats of secession to persuade Northerners, who generally valued saving the Union over fighting slavery, to vote for James Buchanan.
However, Lincoln, despite abolitionist sentiment within the party, had promised not to abolish slavery in the Southern states, but only to prevent its expansion into the Western territories.
The Fire-Eaters helped to unleash a chain reaction that led directly to the formation of the Confederate States of America and the Civil War.