Mississippi Declaration of Secession | Primary Source Essentials

In this episode of Primary Source Essentials, explore Mississippi’s 1861 Declaration of Secession, a primary source that openly identifies slavery as the central reason for the state’s break from the Union. Mississippi argued that its “position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery” and claimed that Northern efforts to halt slavery’s expansion, resist the Fugitive Slave Act, and support abolitionist movements left the state with a choice between “submission to abolition and ruin” or secession.

The declaration insisted that the Union was a compact among states that Mississippi could dissolve, a view strongly opposed by Abraham Lincoln and many in the North, who maintained that the Union was perpetual and rooted in the sovereignty of the people. As Mississippi and other Southern states withdrew to “secure slavery and maintain our rights,” the nation moved toward a civil war fought to preserve slavery, yet one that ultimately destroyed the institution through the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment.