The chap­ter titled “The True Ene­my” dis­cuss­es the piv­otal events sur­round­ing Mis­sis­sip­pi’s seces­sion from the Union dur­ing the ear­ly days of the Civ­il War. On Jan­u­ary 9, 1861, Mississippi’s seces­sion con­ven­tion unan­i­mous­ly favored leav­ing the Union, fol­low­ing South Car­oli­na’s lead. This deci­sion was dri­ven by a fer­vent belief in the neces­si­ty of pro­tect­ing the insti­tu­tion of slav­ery, which the del­e­gates viewed as vital to their eco­nom­ic inter­ests. In their offi­cial dec­la­ra­tion, the dis­tinc­tion between the North and the South was stark; they assert­ed that slav­ery was essen­tial to glob­al com­merce and that any attempt to abol­ish it was viewed as an attack on civ­i­liza­tion itself.

The dec­la­ra­tion expressed a deep-seat­ed fear of Lin­coln and the Repub­li­can Party’s inten­tions, antic­i­pat­ing a future devoid of slav­ery, which they felt would lead to their utter sub­ju­ga­tion. The notion of seces­sion was framed not as a choice, but as a des­per­ate neces­si­ty. The del­e­gates artic­u­lat­ed their griev­ances regard­ing what they per­ceived as the Union’s hos­til­i­ty towards slav­ery, char­ac­ter­iz­ing it as a malev­o­lent force intent on under­min­ing their way of life. The emo­tion­al inten­si­ty of their state­ments marked the deep divi­sions with­in the coun­try, as they believed the North had foment­ed ani­mos­i­ty and insur­rec­tion against them.

Pres­i­dent Buchanan’s response to this bur­geon­ing cri­sis illus­trates a por­trait of inde­ci­sion and impo­tence. In his address titled “Mes­sage on Threats to the Peace and Exis­tence of the Union,” he acknowl­edged the grav­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion yet ulti­mate­ly deferred respon­si­bil­i­ty for con­flict res­o­lu­tion to Con­gress. His remarks indi­cat­ed a belief in fed­er­al author­i­ty to counter aggres­sion against fed­er­al prop­er­ty but fell short of any con­crete action, lead­ing to sig­nif­i­cant dis­con­tent. Buchanan’s speech con­clud­ed with a somber note of res­ig­na­tion, reveal­ing his inter­nal con­flicts about the pres­i­den­cy and the grav­i­ty of the Union’s dis­in­te­gra­tion, while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly express­ing his earnest desire for the coun­try he served.

Over­all, this chap­ter cap­tures the emo­tion­al and polit­i­cal tur­moil at a crit­i­cal moment in Amer­i­can his­to­ry, show­cas­ing the deep divi­sions over the insti­tu­tion of slav­ery and the chal­lenges faced by nation­al lead­er­ship in nav­i­gat­ing these tumul­tuous waters.