Governor John J. Pettus of Mississippi calls for a state convention to consider secession

Three weeks after the national election, Governor John J. Pettus of Mississippi sent a message to the state legislature calling for a state convention to discuss secession, appropriations for a military build-up in the state, and the appointment of commissioners to tour other slave states outlining Mississippi's position.  These actions were needed, he said, to avoid "Black Republican politics and free negro morals."  (By John Osborne) 
Source Citation
Charles B. Dew, Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Cause of the Civil War (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 2001), 22. 
    Date Certainty
    Exact
    Type
    Campaigns/Elections
    How to Cite This Page: "Governor John J. Pettus of Mississippi calls for a state convention to consider secession," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/index.php/node/34483.