Question

Which event most directly incited this statement?

A. the call by Abraham Lincoln for Union troops
B. the election of Abraham Lincoln as president
C. the firing of Confederate ships on Fort Sumter
D. the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation

Use the excerpt from A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union to answer the question.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.

The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.

The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.

It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.

It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.

Answer 1

C

Step-by-step explanation:

Option A, "the call by Abraham Lincoln for Union troops," is not directly mentioned in the excerpt. Option B, "the election of Abraham Lincoln as president," is mentioned in the excerpt as part of the history of hostility towards slavery, but it is not specifically identified as the immediate cause of secession. Option D, "the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation," is also mentioned in the excerpt as part of the history of hostility towards slavery, but it is not specifically identified as the immediate cause of secession. Therefore, the event that most directly incited this statement was Option C the firing of Confederate ships on Fort Sumter.