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Comment by albntomat0 | Hacker News Reader

It's in the second sentence of the declaration of secession for Mississippi.

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world." [0]

[0]: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp

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Second paragraph of the Texas declaration: "maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery - the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits".

South Carolina's declaration makes it clear what it's all about while kind of torpedoing the idea that they were champions of "states' rights" as it's presented today, a struggle of smaller states against a dominant central power. They wanted very much for the states, the Northern states in particular, to obey the federal power. They just wanted the federal power to reflect their priorities. No bonus points for guessing what type of disobedience they found particularly troublesome.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.

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