Monday, April 27, was Confederate Memorial Day in Mississippi.
Mississippi is not alone in observing this state holiday. Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and (Texas, kind of) also honor the Confederacy with a state holiday.
Richard Conville
Mississippi’s Ordinance of Secession was passed 83 to 15 on Jan. 9, 1861, by an elected convention of delegates. The Ordinance codified the state’s separation from the federal government of the United State of America, for example, by repealing the requirement in the state Constitution that elected officials take an oath of loyalty to the United States Constitution.
On that same day, the convention passed the “Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.” The Declaration laid out the state’s case for leaving the Union. It left little to the imagination: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world.”
And it was. An estimated 75% of the cotton supplied to British mills came from the American South, and cotton accounted for more than half of all US exports in the first half of the 19th century. In Britain, where that cotton was turned into cloth, those resulting textiles accounted for 40% of all of Britain’s exports in that same period.
An analogy would be the role oil plays in today’s world economy. For example, because of the current blockade of Iranian oil by the U.S. Navy, people who never have paid attention to the price of oil are suddenly following the daily closing price of Brent Crude (North Sea oil whose benchmark price is used in 80% of transactions worldwide).
The Civil War interrupted the worldwide trade in cotton similar to the way the interruption of oil flow out of Iran has interrupted worldwide trade. Gas prices have risen steeply; airline routes have been cancelled; airline ticket prices have soared; and the price of everything hauled by fossil-fuel-burning vehicles has risen.
“How would I have squared my vote with my values?”
By 1861, Mississippi had become the largest cotton producer in the nation. The 1860 census showed that 55% of the state’s population was made up of enslaved people (436,631) and that they were owned by 45% of the families in the state. Even at a modest estimated market value of $1,000 each, that is a total worth of nearly $437 million, or $17 billion in today’s dollars.
The Declaration observed that “these products (cotton, etc.) have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.” It continued: “There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.”
So that was the choice those in the convention made, and for some (perhaps the 15 who voted against the Ordinance), it was heart wrenching. For others, perhaps most, not so much. I empathize with them all. I wonder what I would have done, had I been a member of the convention. How would I have squared my vote with my values?
But today, 165 years later, and with the benefit of hindsight and education, I believe the state of Mississippi observing Confederate Memorial Day celebrates the high-water mark of white supremacy. Moreover, Confederate soldiers had taken up arms against the United States of America, an action that clearly lies within the U.S. Constitution’s definition of treason.
That is why President Johnson found it necessary to issue them pardons. Many supporters of the Confederacy had been sincere, perhaps most, but they were wrong; because the cause for which they fought, the preservation of slavery, was a cause that should have been lost — and was.
Memories of the Confederacy should evoke lamentations from white folk, not celebrations; humble prayers for equal justice and respect for all, not bravado.
Richard Conville is professor emeritus of communication studies and service learning at the University of Southern Mississippi and a long-time resident of Hattiesburg where he is a member of University Baptist Church.