Hey,
I am representing Mississippi in a Model United Nations conference at Yale, and I am looking to get further information on the feelings and viewpoints of Mississippi during that time period.
The Topics we are covering are:
Beginning in 1820, the Congress of the United States began to deal with increasingly difficult challenges in balancing both the number and influence of slaveholding and non-slaveholding states. During the period between 1820 and 1860, Congress saw many of its greatest compromisers – including Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John Calhoun – as it moved to pass compromise after compromise in order to balance the power of the nation, respond to national crises, and eventually attempt to avert the Civil War.
In the Antebellum Congress Committee, delegates will begin in 1819/1820 as Missouri applies for statehood and will continue up to 1860 as they attempt to handle the many challenges facing Congress during this 40-year period.
Topic A: Creating a System for Accepting New States to the Union
These challenges will include (1) Initially establishing a system to equalize the number of slaveholding and non-slaveholding states and, perhaps more importantly, to (2) Allow for the future admittance of states to the Union. These challenges fundamentally influence the way in which the entire controversy is framed and the mindset with which citizens, activists, the Congress, and eventual historians will evaluate the time period. Considering that this issue arose repeatedly during the Antebellum period, delegates should expect to focus a large amount of debate around the acceptance of new States to the nation in varying situations and conditions.
Topic B: Adaptation based on Popular Movements and Other Internal Affairs
Of course, as the Committee moves forward in time, delegates should expect the compromises and resolutions they pass to affect the course of history. At the same time, they should expect to handle many of the well-known issues facing Congress at this time, including the battles over State sovereignty, conflict erupting from inconsistent “property” laws, and Abolitionist and Anti-Abolitionist propaganda and rallying efforts throughout the nation, among many other issues – all while attempting to avoid the dissolution of the Union and the eruption of civil war.
In this Committee, delegates will be dealing with particularly weighty issues relating to freedom and civil rights, States’ rights, and the fate of an entire nation. Above all else, delegates will need to bring a strong sense for compromise and negotiation in order to successfully navigate this particularly divisive chapter of American history.
More specifically, I am looking into these questions:
1 - I would like to find out the Mississippi viewpoints about the system to equalize the number of slaveholding and non-slaveholding states.
2- Why was the Mississippi viewpoint so pro-slavery?
Any help and resources would be so greatly appreciated,
Regards,
I can give you a few ideas to chew on, though I'm not an expert on Mississippi specifically.
For Point 1, remember to start your thinking about the topic not at the moment a new territory applies for statehood but at the moment that territory comes under the control of the US (such as the Mexican Cession). Specifically think about the legality of slavery. If slavery is outlawed in a new territory, how could any states born of it be slave states? That would be (and was) a BFD for southern states like Mississippi (especially come the 1840s but also look at 1820).
Also, when considering Mississippi's viewpoint remember that Mississippi was itself considered a western state during this period and was part of this process by which new states were being added to the Union. Mississippi, predictably, would be interested in keeping the avenues that helped it become a state open for new Mississippi's. Finally, you'll need to brush up on the connection between slavery politics and the American West, so I'm gonna throw a bunch of books at you. Obviously you won't need to read them all page for page but being familiar with their main arguments (and perhaps any parts which specifically deal with states like Mississippi) will really help you: Freehling's Road to Disunion series, David Potter's The Impending Crisis, Howe's What Hath God Wrought, Morrison's Slavery and the American West, and Varon's Disunion!. As these books will show, you'll need to be aware of how viewpoints changed during this period, and that Mississippi's arguments change depending on the year you're considering.
If you really want to impress with this debate, brush up not just on what panned out (the Louisiana Purchase, Mexican Cession, etc) but also what didn't, specifically I'm thinking of expansion into Central America and the Caribbean and filibusters. For this check out May's The Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire.
For Point 2, that's a long story that involves really sinking your teeth into how Southern society was organized and how it developed right alongside the political events you'll be dealing with. Above all else you'll need to delve into the marriage between slavery and Southern society as well as how it became connected to notions of social and economic prosperity. In a nutshell, land and slaves to work on it became seen as a means to achieving social and economic independence, meaning that a slaveholder would support themselves and their dependents (slaves, children, women) without outside support, thus achieving the ideal of liberty which the American Revolution had enshrined. As you can then imagine, access to slaves and land (i.e. the West) thus became equated with access to liberty. A fierce commitment to independence meant that any perceived incursions from outsiders (the North, for example) involving their affairs was swiftly opposed, and a desire for the liberty upon which the nation was founded, which was predicated on land and slaves, meant that any restrictions on that liberty's access amounted to a denial of the legacy of the revolution. Mississippi, being a western state and part of a tradition by which smaller time, aspiring slaveholders could seek their own fortune away from the established states like South Carolina (where land was cheaper, more plentiful, and there were fewer large planters to compete with or try to buy scarce land from), was in many ways an embodiment not only of this system at work, but also of the necessity of territorial expansion to slavery's future. All this will be visible to an extent in the book already quoted above, but you really should also check out Oakes' The Ruling Race, Faust's James Henry Hammond and the Old South, and McCurry's Masters of Small Worlds for a better view. But you'll also need something more, such as a basic understanding of your opposition and what those annoying Northerner's are going to be arguing against you. For that check out Foner's Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men. It's a real eye-opener, even if you just read the introduction.
Re-reading your post, I have a final thought. I know it's Yale and all, but the whole "strong sense of compromise and negotiation" they're touting isn't represented in Congress during this time nearly as much as they're implying. It sounds like they're getting a little too caught up in the "great men" involved (Clay, Calhoun, Webster, I wouldn't be surprised if Douglas comes up once the Kansas Nebraska Act is introduced) and forgetting the Sumner's, Wilmot's and Hammond's, as well as just how divisive and bitter Congress fought. I recommend spending a little time with Varon's Disunion! to get a good sense of how the political discourse was structured.