Mississippi secession commissioner William L. Harris urges Georgia legislature to support secession

William L. Harris, the Mississippi secession commissioner to Georgia, addressed a joint session of the General Assembly at noon at the capitol in Milledgeville.  He urged secession and concluded his speech by saying that Mississippi "had rather see the last of her race, men, women, and children, immolated in one common funeral pile, than see them subjected to the degradation of civil, political and social equality with the negro race."  (By John Osborne)