Analysis Of Political Culture And Secession In Mississippi By Christopher J. Olsen

Christopher J. Olsen’s book Political Culture and Secession in Mississippi: Masculinity, Honor, and the Antiparty Tradition, 1830-1860 details the political culture in one of the Deep Southern states during the strenuous lead-up to the Civil War: Mississippi. Olsen does this in a number of ways, but his most notable examples are using stories from Southern individuals and statistics on election days. It is because of this that the author makes this point very clear to his audience: the political culture of Mississippi was one that consisted of a certain distrusting of the general political parties of the time while the character of the state’s chief voters, men, contributed to the political environment of the state. For starters, it is critical to analyze the thesis of the author. Olsen tells us in his introduction that Mississippi’s political culture developed for …show more content…
Nonetheless, if the book could have included more about the effects that slavery had not just on the people, but the state, the author’s thesis would have seemed more valid as well as given it a bit of longevity. Longevity, in this sense, because Olsen’s arguments just seem to be there, and the inclusion of slavery is such a vital part of the South’s economy as well as its culture, which would have given the audience a bit of a state wide look at a certain institution, like slavery. As can be seen in Olsen’s book, the state of Mississippi was quote different from the border South due to of its political culture of Antipartyism and a so-called Southern code of honor. This can be seen by the author’s mention of how politics were accepted over time, as well as its response to certain issues, like a supposed threat on the moral nature of the South. It can be said that Olsen’s thesis combines these two to show how diverse the political atmosphere of Mississippi was, not to mention