Slavery and the Mississippi Secession Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Slavery and the Mississippi Secession - Essay Example Using that as the basis, they argued that the Union was taking away their right to own said property and land; and taking the ability to succeed in commerce with the property owned. They felt the Union had interfered with their ownership by allowing escaped slaves to take fugitive in the Free states, by denying protection to the slave ships on the high seas, and removing the ability to acquire more land. In President Lincoln's inaugural address, he specifically addressed the slavery issue with this statement: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." In fact, the emancipation proclamation did not necessarily free all slaves but those who lived within the Union States. President Lincoln was much more interested in preserving the Union of the United States and felt the South had no right to just arbitrarily seceded: "Again: If the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade by less than all the parties who made it One party to a contract may violate it-break it, so to speak-but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it" There is particular irony between the reason statement: "It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst." and the further reason statement: "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." followed by the announcement: "Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it." (Readings # 109, p. 406) In the first statement, written as one of the reasons for the declaration of secession, they claim that the Union was promoting equality among the slaves, and promoting the slaves to violence if necessary. Within the same document the authors cite their own personal freedoms as reason to secede. But the majority of the document is about how the north (or the Union) is treating the south (or the Confederate States) as non-equal members telling them what they may or may not do. The document descri bes that the result of following the Union dictates would be utter social ruin and complete loss of property, valued at 4 billion dollars. Looking at the value only, one could understand their desire to remove themselves from the Union and by the same token, one could understand the desire of the north not to lose such value. Abraham Lincoln summed it up better in his Gettysburg address, which was written after the start of the Civil War: "All men are created equal." "This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." November 19, 1863 "A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union" Reading 109. Third Edition. Readings in U. S. History to