Fragile Freedom

Only a few weeks prior, on December 20th, 1860, South Carolina seceded from the Union, becoming the first state to leave. Even before then tension had been building with the election of Abraham Lincoln as president. With roughly 40% of the popular vote but almost 60% of the Electoral College, there was little doubt that he would be sworn in as the 16th President of the United States. It was a prospect that many in the South refused to live with. To them the Constitution created a voluntary union rather than a binding one, and they had the right to peaceably leave at any point. On January 9th, 1861, almost two months before the Inauguration of the President-Elect, Mississippi, the 20th state to be admitted into the Union, became the second state to exercise what they believed to be their right. Congressman Lucius Lamar would draft, “An ordinance to dissolve the union between the State of Mississippi and other States united with her under the compact entitled "The Constitution of the United States of America’”,