Mississippi's Declaration Calls Slavery Its "Greatest Material Interest"
A second Deep South state spells out slavery as the reason for leaving the Union
Quick facts
- Date
- January 9, 1861
- Document
- Declaration of the Immediate Causes
- Stated cause
- Slavery, described as the state's greatest material interest
What happened
Mississippi became the second state to secede, on January 9, 1861, and its convention adopted a formal Declaration of the Immediate Causes explaining why. The document states outright that Mississippi's position is "thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery, the greatest material interest of the world," and that its economy depends on cotton grown by enslaved labor. It lists grievances against the North almost entirely tied to slavery: interference with the Fugitive Slave Act, agitation for abolition, and fear that a Republican administration would eventually move to end slavery nationwide. The declaration frames secession as a defense against what it calls "utter subjugation" and the loss of property "worth four billions of money," a direct reference to the market value of enslaved people.
Why it matters
Like South Carolina's declaration, Mississippi's document removes ambiguity about secession's cause in its own words, written and voted on by the men who did it. Together the two declarations are the clearest primary evidence historians have that slavery, not tariffs or states' rights in the abstract, drove the Deep South out of the Union.
How we know
The Avalon Project hosts the full text of Mississippi's declaration, adopted by its own secession convention as an official state document.
Sources
- Avalon Project, Yale Law School. Confederate States of America - Mississippi Secession · Primary source (author-declared)avalon.law.yale.edu · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- National Park Service. Mississippi Secession · Reputable sourcenps.gov · The domain "nps.gov" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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