secession."[14] The legislature supported Quitman's and Jefferson
Davis's plans for resistance, censured Foote's support of the
Compromise, and provided for a state convention of
delegates."[15]

[14] Claiborne, Quitman, IL 37; Hearon, p. 161 n.

[15] Hearon, pp. 180-181; Claiborne, Quitman, II. 51-52.


Even the Mississippi "Unionists" adopted the six standard points
generally accepted in the South which would justify resistance.
"And this is the Union party", was the significant comment of the
New York Tribune. This Union Convention, however, believed that
Quitman's message was treasonable and that there was ample
evidence of a plot to dissolve the Union and form a Southern
confederacy. Their programme was adopted by the State Convention
the following year."[16] The radical Mississippians reiterated
Calhoun's constitutional guarantees of sectional equality and
non-interference with slavery, and declared for a Southern
convention with power to recommend "secession from the Union and
the formation of a Southern confederacy".[17]

[16] Nov. 10, 1850, Hearon, pp. 178-180; 1851, pp. 209-212.

[17] Dec. 10, Southern Rights Assoc. Hearon, pp. 183-187.


"The people of Mississippi seemed . . . determined to defend
their equality in the Union, or to retire from it by peaceful