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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Box Ox" data-source="post: 3479785" data-attributes="member: 48469">But it was largely about slavery. South Carolina, the first state to secede, produced a “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union” that was full of references to northern states’ hostility toward slavery because they were interfering with the return of fugitive slaves.Other seceding states echoed the same sentiment.“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world,” proclaimed Mississippi in its own secession declaration, passed Jan. 9, 1861. “Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of the commerce of the earth. . . . A blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.”</blockquote>