Upset with free States exercising their sovereignty by nullifying the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the Secession Convention, of Louisiana, votes to withdraw from the voluntary Union (YEA, 208; NAY, 89) over the issues of free trade and slavery:

       In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

       Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world.

       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.

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       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.

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       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.

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       It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better. (emphasis added)

       NOTE: This final justification from this excerpt provides a hint at the attitude of most of the anti-slavery movement in the northern States: they were not just anti-slavery, but they were also anti-Negro.

       [updated 1/18/2025]