Judge Harris spoke in front of a joint session of the Georgia General Assembly on December 17th, 1860. No states had yet seceded from the Union. But Abraham Lincoln had just been officially elected president, and many state legislatures were moving quickly to leave the Union. It was widely believed that Lincoln and the new party called Republican would attempt to end slavery in the south – not just prevent its spread to the west as Lincoln promised on campaign. And from there it was a short step to believing Lincoln and the Republicans wanted equality between blacks and whites.
Mississippi had already, in November of 1860, agreed to hold a state-wide convention on the question of secession. The Mississippi legislature further ordered the governor of Mississippi to appoint “commissioners” to every slave state. They were tasked with explaining Mississippi’s actions and calling for the other slave states to support whatever came out of Mississippi’s convention.
Judge Harris was a native Georgian with a reputation as a great thinker and great debater. In fact, he had been offered a Supreme Court seat earlier in the year, but turned it down believing succession was imminent. He was chosen by Mississippi’s governor to be the commissioner to Georgia for those reasons. His speech before the Georgian legislature was very similar to the other commissioner’s speeches to the other state legislatures, and Judge Harris’ conclusion to his brief address is a good example of the entire south’s thinking at the time:
Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, the part of Mississippi is chosen, she will never submit to the principles and policies of this Black Republican Adminstration.
She [Mississippi] had rather see the last of her race, men, women and children, immolated in one common funeral pile [pyre], than see them subjected to the degradation of civil, political, and social equality with the negro race.
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