n,
recommended the holding of a Southern convention at Nashville in June,
1850, to "adopt some mode of resistance". The "Resolutions" declared the
Wilmot Proviso "such a breach of the federal compact as... will make it
the duty... of the slave-holding states to treat the non-slave-holding
states as enemies". The "Address" recommended "all the assailed
states to provide in the last resort for their separate welfare by the
formation of a compact and a Union". "The object of this [Nashville
Convention] is to familiarize the public mind with the idea of
dissolution", rightly judged the Richmond Whig and the Lynchburg
Virginian.

Radical resistance men controlled the legislature and "cordially
approved" the disunion resolution and address, chose delegates to
the Nashville Convention, appropriated $20,000 for their expenses and
$200,000 for "necessary measures for protecting the state.. . in the
event of the passage of the Wilmot Proviso", etc. [13] These actions of
Mississippi's legislature one day before Webster's 7th of March speech
mark approximately the peak of the secession movement.

Governor Quitman, in response to public demand, called the legislature
and proposed "to recommend the calling of a regular convention...
with full power to annul the federal compact". "Having no hope of an
effectual remedy... but in separation from the Northern States, my views
of state action will look to secession." [14] The legislature supported
Quitman's and Jefferson Davis's plans for resistance, censured Foote's
support of the Compromise, and provided for a state convention of
delegates. [15]

Even the Mississippi "Unionists" adopted the six standard points
generally accepted in the South which would justify resistance. "And
this is the Union party", was the significant comment of the New York
Tribune. This Union Convention, however, believed that Quitman's message
was treasonable and that there was ample evidence of a plot to dissolve
the Union and form a Southern confederacy. Their programme was
adopted by the State Convention the following year. [16] The radical
Mississippians reiterated Calhoun's constitutional guarantees of
sectional equality and non-interference with slavery, and declared for
a Southern convention with power to recommend "secession from the Union
and the formation of a Southern confederacy". [17]

"The people of Mississippi seemed... determined to defend their equality
in the Union, or to retire from it by