Confederate History Month 2012: Mississippi’s Declaration of Causes of Secession

Mississippi

Mississippi’s official Declaration of Causes explains why Mississippi seceded from the United States:

“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. . . .

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

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.”

The Union was hostile to slavery and promotes the noxious doctrine of negro equality, socially and politically, with the White race. Staying within the Union is dishonorable and requires submission to degradation.

Note: I’ve already covered a lot of this material in previous months. Texas made the most emphatic statement of why it seceded from the Union:

“We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.”

Mississippi and Texas hit all the core themes of Confederate nationalism: defense of slavery, states’ rights/voluntary union, white supremacy, conservatism, economic self interest, and the culture of honor. This matrix of ideas violently clashed with the threat posed by “Black Republicanism” and brought about the dissolution of the Union after Lincoln’s election.

Notice these were the ideas that animated John Wilkes Booth who saw himself as a modern day Brutus assassinating Caesar. Preston Brooks can be seen as another figure who embodied these ideas.

About Hunter Wallace 12379 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

14 Comments

  1. “For far less cause than this…”

    Buyers remorse? Yes I think so.

    Did the Confederates ever attempt to borrow cash from London? If not they made a strategic error. Getting a war loan is almost insurance you will have allies later on.

  2. How does the rainbow confederate crowd rationalize these facts of history with their distorted worldviews? Where in their warped minds do they come to the conclusion that the negro has and should walk equally with the White Man?

    It’s a survival strategy within the framework of liberal egalitarianism.

  3. Rainbow Confederates provoke howls of laughter from all sides of the political spectrum: from the blacks who laugh at the idea, from the liberals who know better and who see the delusion as proof of their own superiority, and finally from racialists who are better educated and know better.

  4. Happy Easter! It also celebrates when Jesus told his White or Hebrew servants (not jews, jews aren’t even mentioned in the Torah & Jn.8 Jews tell Jesus they weren’t ever in slavery) to move from Africa & its Nigga under tow of Ungodly Acts.

  5. Thanks for the info, Hunter. I’ve read a good number of these seccesion documents, including the one from my State of Kentucky. They mostly follow the same pattern, and there is no denying their thoughts on the matter. What I appreciate about this site is that it dives into WHY our Southern forebears thought this way. The main stream would have us believe our ancestors were simply evil racists. We know this isn’t true, and with free speach restored by the power of the internet, the sheeple are going to find out they were RIGHT.
    By the way, NPR had a segment on my drive home about Harper Lee, the Alabaman that wrote “To Kill a Mocking Bird” after she moved to New York City. I can just imagine how much more superior she must have felt up there, passing judgement on here kith and kin. Disgusting! Nothing but a worthless traitor in my eyes.

  6. I’m a NJ native but became a Confederate sympathizer long ago. I agree with everything said above…almost. True, Negroes are only fit for slavery if they are to live among a White population. But there is the fatal flaw. It was foreseen long before the WBTS that slavery could not persist in America or in any other White nation. The long era of White approval or mere indifference to slavery was gaining great momentum at that time as to its demise. The author of the excellent Lost Cause intimates that slavery would have ended in the South by the Southerners own determination at some point. There was no need for a Northern invasion he insists.

    That war destroyed the South that might have been and one can only imagine what that might have been. The South gained nothing in the end and lost more than can be calculated. They should have sent all the Negroes back to their place. The North would have been forced to go along with the idea. The South would have suffered the economic fallout but perhaps they could have concluded a deal with the North for a fiscal offset. In any event it surely would have been infinitely better than what actually happened. It may sound puerile and obviously it is a “who knows?” scenario, but a logical, plausible one.
    And then there would have been the inexpressible, immeasurable benefit of the absence of that depraved and hideous race from the face of the South and many fewer in the nation as a whole. Perhaps also the South could have bargained for the prohibition of them in their states thus gaining a perpetual vengeance on the North by consigning them there. If in time the liberal devils pressed for an end to that proscription, time may well have run out for any contemplation of a war. Am I missing something in my theory?

  7. If “Black Republicanism” was the issue, why mention the 4 billion? Texas didn’t. No, it appears that Mississippi was broadly invested in slave ownership, contra Phillips, and was highly motivated to protect that asset.

  8. I think all Americans at this time were racist to the core, and I don’t think the South had a monopoly on American racism. But southerners were very good about demonstrating their racist ideals by fighting a war to defend the institution of slavery–the very means by which many of the southern aristocrats gained their wealth, prestige, and honor in this backward society.

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