ABSTRACT
On December 20, 1860, registered voters in Mississippi were called to the polls by act of the state legislature to elect delegates to a Constitutional Convention. The Mississippian must be considered the leading fire-eater newspaper of Mississippi. The South’s fire-eating newspapers were solidly pro-slavery and, as their nickname implies, were not opposed to inflammatory language to promote the cause. Newspapers might have been shared by businessmen at trading centers such as Augusta in Perry County, Ellisville in Jones County, and Paulding in Jasper County. The contrast between the Fire-Eaters and the more conservative newspapers was never more apparent than when the editors discussed the possiblity of war. Writing in 1966, Reynolds made a direct link between the actions of Southern newspapers and the Civil War, the most catastrophic event in United States history. Reynolds holds Southern newspapers responsible for operating a monopoly on Southern news.
