A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.

The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.

The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.

It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.

It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.

It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.

It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security.

It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.

It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.

It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood.

Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.

Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.

I actually find this a strange cause to go to war: did southerners in general really feel this strongly about the issue of slavery?

I suppose the fact most voters in the South were slave owners had something to do with it

when they perceived their livelihood to be threatened (the declaration even mentions that they fear for their economy). Were the southern armies generally composed of eligible voters, though? How was their morale?

Keegan, in "The American Civil War", states outright that the majority of Southerners owned no slaves at all. And most owners only owned one or two as a helper.

It was only a small minority of people in the South (who were also often the local leaders) who owned entire plantations which required hundreds of slaves. There was also a "middle class" of white slave "managers" who served as the intermediary between the owners and the slaves.

That being said, Keegan also notes that the Southern, slave-owning aristocracy persistently depicted an image that the only way to get rich was to own more slaves. Leading the rest of the population to believe that abolishing slavery will mean taking away their only hope at becoming rich short of moving to the north with the yankees.

In today's atmosphere of political correctness though, slavery is seen as such a horrendous evil that a bit of denial in those proud of their history and culture (even if not of the institution or its related bigotry) is easily understood.

The degree to which slavery is currently regarded (at least in the west) as such an absolute and self-evident wrong though, does give me some pause, considering the institution's lengthy and almost universal acceptance in the past.

I suppose the fact most voters in the South were slave owners had something to do with it, when they perceived their livelihood to be threatened (the declaration even mentions that they fear for their economy). Were the southern armies generally composed of eglible voters, though? How was their morale?

On a somewhat related note to the Civil War, is it true that the South planned to expand into Central America assuming they'd manage to hold onto their independence?

On a somewhat related note to the Civil War, is it true that the South planned to expand into Central America assuming they'd manage to hold onto their independence?

The war was not nearly as popular among the lower classes of Confederate society as it was among the slave owners. Even though West Virginia was the only part of the Confederacy to successfully secede from it, parts of northern Alabama, western Tennessee, northern Georgia, and other areas in the mountainous regions of the CSA all wanted to secede as well (they were usually violently quashed and had a lot of men forcibly conscripted), but they never got a charismatic leader to force the issue, nor any real unified attempts. It was all local and most people went up to hide in the mountains.

There are a few other things I'd mention, but I don't have the book on me that I'd like to cite about it, however, it did mention things like Sherman's army having to turn away Southern volunteers because his ranks were so full, his army getting fed by the locals (who did so willingly), and other similar situations.

You know as a German, I can be proud of some of Germany's history, while at the same time condemning other parts of Germany's history. I do not need to whitewash parts of that history in order to be proud of our history and culture. In fact, how Germans and Germany has handled its responsibility for horrendous evil in the past can in itself be a cause for being proud of our (current) culture.

If we would deny our history (like many do in the former CSA), it would make me less proud and even shameful of our (current) culture.

But one should also remember that the type and form in which slavery functioned has varied significantly over time. People remember slavery in its most recent form, with all its dehumanizing brutality and racist undercurrents.

I'm not sure that all slavery didn't have an equal measure of dehumanizing brutality, but it definitely wasn't always so clearly racially divided.

Most importantly perhaps, is that at no time in history has a recently emancipated group had such extensive ability to document and communicate it's experiences to such a wide audience.

I wonder if the emancipation of American slaves had happened a few centuries earlier, before the rise of mass media, whether general attitudes towards the institution wouldn't be significantly different?

A fair observation, though freed slaves and their descendants were not exactly uplifted out of their plight. Given that most blacks couldn't even so much as vote in many cases, I seriously question their ability to spread the word on the evils of slavery.



I doubt it. It's not like there was a mass-media back in the 1860's. Regardless, it's worth looking at the case of Britain, which, despite slavery never being practiced there, boasted a popular and influential anti-slavery movement that was instrumental in ending the global slave trade and ultimately emancipation in places like Brazil.

...boasted a popular and influential anti-slavery movement that was instrumental in ending the global slave trade ...