Only three weeks had passed since South Carolina’s secession, but those weeks had been a painful, anxious time for South Carolina’s leaders. Once they learned that Mississippi would join them, hopes rose for an eventual Confederacy of the Southern states.

The delegates to the Mississippi convention voted overwhelmingly in favor of secession, but there were gaps and separations between them on some issues. Did secession automatically mean the perpetuation of slavery, for example? In Mississippi’s case, the answer was yes, but it would not be as easy or clear-cut for those that followed. The language of the Mississippi Ordinance of Secession closely followed that of South Carolina. The federal union had served its purpose and was now disbanded, so far as the people of Mississippi were concerned.