Mississippi

See also: National Parks and Monuments (table)National Parks and Monuments

National Parks
Name Type¹ Location Year authorized Size
acres (hectares)
Description
Acadia NP SE Maine 1919 48,419 (19,603) Mountain and coast scenery.
..... Click the link for more information.

Mississippi

(mĭs'əsĭp`ē), one of the Deep South states of the United States. It is bordered by Alabama (E), the Gulf of Mexico (S), Arkansas and Louisiana, with most of that border formed by the Mississippi River (W), and Tennessee (N).

Facts and Figures

Area, 47,716 sq mi (123,584 sq km). Pop. (2010) 2,967,297, a 4.3% increase since the 2000 census. Capital and largest city, Jackson. Statehood, Dec. 10, 1817 (20th state). Highest pt., Woodall Mt., 806 ft (246 m); lowest pt., sea level. Nickname, Magnolia State. Motto, Virtute et Armis [By Valor and Arms]. State bird, mockingbird. State flower, magnolia. State tree, magnolia. Abbr., Miss.; MS

Geography

Mississippi's generally hilly landscape reaches its highest point (806 ft/246 m) in the northeastern corner of the state along the Tennessee River. The most distinctive region in the state's varied topography is the Mississippi Delta, a flat alluvial plain between the Mississippi and the Yazoo rivers in the western part of the state. A wide belt of longleaf yellow pine (the piney woods) covers most of southern Mississippi to within a few miles of the coastal-plain grasslands. Important there are lumbering and allied industries. Most of the state's rivers belong to either the Mississippi or the Alabama river systems, with the Pontoctoc Ridge the divide. The climate of Mississippi is subtropical in the southern part of the state and temperate in the northern part; the average annual rainfall is more than 50 in. (127 cm).

The state, in the path of waterfowl migration routes down the Mississippi valley and home to many species of birds, is noted for its duck and quail hunting. Along the Gulf Coast, a favorite fishing area, are several resort cities and part of Gulf Islands National Seashore. Historical sites in Mississippi include Old Spanish Fort, the oldest house on the Mississippi River, near Pascagoula, as well as Vicksburg National Military Park, Brices Cross Roads National Battlefield Site, and Tupelo National Battlefield (see National Parks and MonumentsNational Parks and Monuments

National Parks
Name Type¹ Location Year authorized Size
acres (hectares)
Description
Acadia NP SE Maine 1919 48,419 (19,603) Mountain and coast scenery.
..... Click the link for more information. , table). In NatchezNatchez,
city (1990 pop. 19,460), seat of Adams co., SW Miss., on bluffs above the Mississippi River; settled 1716, inc. 1803. It is the trade, shipping, and processing center for a soybean, corn, cotton, livestock, and timber area.
..... Click the link for more information. and BiloxiBiloxi
, city (1990 pop. 46,319), Harrison co., SE Miss., on a peninsula between Biloxi Bay and Mississippi Sound, on the Gulf of Mexico; inc. as a town 1838, as a city 1896.
..... Click the link for more information. are many fine antebellum mansions. JacksonJackson.
1 City (1990 pop. 37,446), seat of Jackson co., S Mich., on the Grand River; inc. 1857. It is an industrial and commercial center in a farm region. The city's chief manufactures are machinery, aerospace components, transportation and electronic equipment, food,
..... Click the link for more information. is the capital and largest city. Other important cities are Biloxi, GreenvilleGreenville.
1 City (1990 pop. 45,226), seat of Washington co., W Miss., on Lake Ferguson, a deepwater harbor adjoining the Mississippi River; inc. 1886. It is the trade, processing, and shipping center of the Mississippi-Yazoo delta, a fertile region producing soybeans,
..... Click the link for more information. , HattiesburgHattiesburg,
city (1990 pop. 41,882), seat of Forrest co., SE Miss., on the Leaf River; inc. 1884. It is the rail, trade, and industrial center of a farm and timber area.
..... Click the link for more information. , and MeridianMeridian
, city (1990 pop. 41,036), seat of Lauderdale co., E Miss., near the Ala. line; settled 1831, inc. 1860. It is an important rail and highway point and the trade and shipping center for a farm, livestock, and timber area. There is also diverse manufacturing.
..... Click the link for more information. .

Economy

Mississippi is traditionally one of the more rural states in the Union; not until 1965 did manufacturing take over as the leading revenue-producing sector of its economy. In 2000, Mississippi ranked third in the nation in the production of cotton, but soil erosion resulting from overcultivation and the destruction caused by the boll weevil have led to the increased agricultural diversification. The other most important crops are rice and soybeans. Today broiler chicken production, aquaculture (chiefly catfish raising), and dairying are increasingly important. The state's most valuable mineral resources, petroleum and natural gas, have been developed only since the 1930s.

Industry has grown rapidly with the development of oil resources and has been helped by the Tennessee Valley AuthorityTennessee Valley Authority
(TVA), independent U.S. government corporate agency, created in 1933 by act of Congress; it is responsible for the integrated development of the Tennessee River basin.
..... Click the link for more information. and by a state program to balance agriculture with industry, under which many communities have subsidized and attracted new industries. Revenue from industrial products, including chemicals, plastics, foods, and wood products, have exceeded those from agriculture in recent years. On the Gulf coast there is a profitable fishing and seafood processing industry, and gambling is important along the Gulf Coast and in long impoversihed Tunica County, in the northwest. There are military air facilities at Columbus, Biloxi, and Meridian, as well as the Stennis Space Flight Center at Bay St. Louis. The state's per capita income, however, has been among the lowest in the nation for decades.

Government and Higher Education

Mississippi is governed under the 1890 constitution. The bicameral legislature consists of 52 senators and 122 representatives, all elected for four-year terms. The governor is also elected for a four-year term. The state has two U.S. senators, four representatives, and six electoral votes. In 1991, Kirk Fordice was elected Mississippi's first Republican governor since Reconstruction; he was reelected in 1995. Democrat Ron Musgrove won the 1999 gubernatorial election but with less than a majority of the vote, which required the state house of representatives to confirm his win. Musgrove lost in 2003 to Republican Haley Barbour; Barbour won a second term in 2007. In 2011 Republican Phil Bryant was elected to succeed Barbour; he was reelected in 2015.

Institutions of higher learning in the state include the Univ. of Mississippi, at Oxford (which was also the home of writer William FaulknerFaulkner, William,
1897–1962, American novelist, b. New Albany, Miss., one of the great American writers of the 20th cent. Born into an old Southern family named Falkner, he changed the spelling of his last name to Faulkner when he published his first book, a collection of
..... Click the link for more information. ) and at Jackson; Mississippi State Univ., at Mississippi State; the Univ. of Southern Mississippi, at Hattiesburg; Jackson State Univ., at Jackson; and Mississippi Univ. for Women, at Columbus.

History

Native Inhabitants and European Settlement

Hernando De Soto's expedition undoubtedly passed (1540–42) through the region, then inhabited by the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Natchez, but the first permanent European settlement was not made until 1699, when Pierre le Moyne, sieur d'Iberville, established a French colony on Biloxi Bay. Settlement accelerated in 1718, when the colony came under the French Mississippi Company, headed by the speculator John Law. The region was part of Louisiana until 1763, when, by the Treaty of Paris (see Paris, Treaty ofParis, Treaty of,
any of several important treaties, signed at or near Paris, France. The Treaty of 1763

The Treaty of Paris of Feb. 10, 1763, was signed by Great Britain, France, and Spain.
..... Click the link for more information. ) England received practically all the French territory E of the Mississippi River and also East Florida and West Florida, which had belonged to Spain.

English colonists, many of them retired soldiers, had made the Natchez district a thriving agricultural community, producing tobacco and indigo, by the time Bernardo de Gálvez captured it for Spain in 1779. By the Treaty of Paris of 1783, at the end of the American Revolution, the United States (with English approval) claimed as its southern boundary in the West lat. 31°N. Most of the present-day state of Mississippi was included in the area. Spain denied this claim, and the long, involved West Florida ControversyWest Florida Controversy,
conflict between Spain and the United States concerning possession of Florida. By the Treaty of Paris of 1763, Britain received Florida from Spain, and from France that portion of Louisiana lying between the Mississippi and Perdido rivers (exclusive of
..... Click the link for more information. ensued.

Territorial Status and Statehood

In the Pinckney Treaty (1795), Spain accepted lat. 31°N as the northern boundary of its territory but did not evacuate Natchez until the arrival of American troops in 1798. Congress immediately created the Mississippi Territory, with Natchez as the capital and William C. C. Claiborne as the governor. After Georgia's cession (1802) of its Western lands to the United States (see Yazoo land fraudYazoo land fraud,
name given to the sale in 1795 by an act of the Georgia legislature of vast holdings in the Yazoo River country to four land companies following the wholesale bribery of the legislators; the territory comprised most of present Alabama and Mississippi.
..... Click the link for more information. ) and the Louisiana Purchase (1803), a land boom swept Mississippi. The high price of cotton and the cheap, fertile land brought settlers thronging in, most of them via the Natchez TraceNatchez Trace,
road, from Natchez, Miss., to Nashville, Tenn., of great commercial and military importance from the 1780s to the 1830s. It grew from a series of Native American trails used in the 18th cent. by the French, English, and Spanish.
..... Click the link for more information. , from the Southern Piedmont region and even from New England. A few attained great wealth, but most simply managed a living.

In 1817 Mississippi became a state, with substantially its present-day boundaries; the eastern section of the Mississippi Territory was organized as Alabama Territory. The aristocratic planter element of the Natchez region initially dominated Mississippi's government, as the state's first constitution (1817) showed. With the spread of Jacksonian democracy, however, the small farmer came into his own, and the new constitution adopted in 1832 was quite liberal for its time.

Expansionism and Secession

Land hunger increased as more new settlers arrived, lured by the continuing cotton boom. By a series of treaties (1820, 1830, and 1832), the Native Americans in the state were pushed west across the Mississippi. Mississippians were among the leading Southern expansionists seeking new land for cotton cultivation and the extension of slavery. After 1840 slaves in the state outnumbered nonslaves.

On Jan. 9, 1861, Mississippi became the second state to secede from the Union. State pride was highly gratified by the choice of Jefferson Davis as president of the ConfederacyConfederacy,
name commonly given to the Confederate States of America
(1861–65), the government established by the Southern states of the United States after their secession from the Union.
..... Click the link for more information. . Civil War fighting did not reach Mississippi until Apr., 1862, when Union forces were victorious at CorinthCorinth,
city (1990 pop. 11,820), seat of Alcorn co., extreme NE Miss., near the Tenn. line, in a livestock and farm area; founded c.1855. Manufactures include construction materials, machinery, furniture, apparel, transportation equipment, and prepared foods.
..... Click the link for more information. and Iuka. Grant's brilliant Vicksburg campaignVicksburg campaign,
in the American Civil War, the fighting (Nov., 1862–July, 1863) for control of the Mississippi River. The Union wanted such control in order to split the Confederacy and to restore free commerce to the politically important Northwest.
..... Click the link for more information. ended large-scale fighting in the state, but further destruction was caused by the army of Gen. W. T. Sherman in the course of its march from Vicksburg to Meridian. Moreover, cavalry of both the North and South, particularly the Confederate forces of Gen. N. B. Forrest, remained active.

Reconstruction

After the war Mississippi abolished slavery but refused to ratify the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, and in Mar., 1867, under the Congressional plan of Reconstruction, it was organized with Arkansas into a military district commanded by Gen. E. O. C. Ord. After much agitation, a Republican-sponsored constitution guaranteeing basic rights to blacks was adopted in 1869. Mississippi was readmitted to the Union early in 1870 after ratifying the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments and meeting other Congressional requirements.

While Republicans were in power, the state government was composed of new immigrants from the North, blacks, and cooperative white Southerners. A. K. Davis became the state's first African-American lieutenant governor in 1874. The establishment of free public schools was a noteworthy aspect of Republican rule. As former Confederates were permitted to return to politics and former slaves were increasingly intimidated (see Ku Klux KlanKu Klux Klan
, designation mainly given to two distinct secret societies that played a part in American history, although other less important groups have also used the name.
..... Click the link for more information. ), the Democrats regained strength. The Republicans were defeated in the bitter election of 1875. Lucius Q. C. Lamar figured largely in the Democratic triumph and was the state's most prominent national figure for many years.

Disenfranchisement and Sharecropping

In Reconstruction days the Republicans could win only with solid African-American support. After Reconstruction blacks were virtually disenfranchised. White supremacy was bolstered by the Constitution of 1890, later used as a model by other Southern states; under its terms a prospective voter could be required to read and interpret any of the Constitution's provisions. Because at the turn of the century most black Mississippians could not read (neither could many whites, but the test was rarely applied to them) and because the county registrar could disqualify prospective voters who disagreed with his interpretation of the Constitution, African Americans were essentially disenfranchised.

From the ruins of the shattered plantation economy rose the sharecropping system, and the merchant and the banker replaced the planter in having the largest financial interest in farming. Too often the system made the sharecroppers, white as well as black, little more than economic slaves. The landowners, however, maintained their hold on politics until 1904, when the small farmers, still the dominant voting group, elected James K. Vardaman governor. Nevertheless this agrarian revolt did not alter a deep-seated obscurantism that was reflected in the Jim Crow lawsJim Crow laws,
in U.S. history, statutes enacted by Southern states and municipalities, beginning in the 1880s, that legalized segregation between blacks and whites. The name is believed to be derived from a character in a popular minstrel song.
..... Click the link for more information. (1904) and in the ban on teaching evolution in the public schools (1926). Mississippi has made attempts to wipe out illiteracy, but it still has the highest illiteracy rate in the country. Another reflection of the social structure of the state was Prohibition, put into effect in 1908 and not repealed at the local level until 1959.

Public Works

Following the disastrous flood of 1927 the federal government took over flood-control work—constructing levees, floodwalls, floodways, and reservoirs; stabilizing river banks; and improving channels. Navigation, too, has not been neglected; the Intracoastal Waterway provides a protected channel along the entire Mississippi coastline and links the state's ports with all others along the Gulf Coast and with all inland waterway systems emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. The Tennessee-Tombigbee WaterwayTennessee-Tombigbee Waterway,
system of navigation channels, 234 mi (377 km) long, Ala. and Miss., connecting the Tennessee River with the Tombigbee River and, via the Mobile River, with the Gulf of Mexico. Constructed by the U.S.
..... Click the link for more information. , opened in 1985, connects the Tennessee River in NE Mississippi with the Tombigbee River in W Alabama.

The Persistence of Racial Conflict

Mississippi is still plagued by racial problems, which have changed the state's alignment in national politics. In 1948 Mississippi abandoned the Democratic party because of the national Democratic party's stand on civil rights, and the state supported J. Strom Thurmond, the States' Rights party candidate, for president. The 1954 Supreme Court ruling against racial segregation in public schools (see integrationintegration,
in U.S. history, the goal of an organized movement to break down the barriers of discrimination and segregation separating African Americans from the rest of American society.
..... Click the link for more information. ) occasioned massive resistance. Citizens Councils, composed solely of white men and dedicated to maintaining segregation, began to spring up throughout the state. In the 1960 presidential election Mississippians again rebelled against the Democratic national platform by giving victory at the polls to unpledged electors, who cast their electoral college votes not for John F. Kennedy but for Harry F. Byrd, the conservative senator from Virginia. In 1964 the conservative Republican Barry Goldwater carried the state; in 1968 presidential candidate Gov. George Wallace of Alabama, who had become famous for opposing integration, won the state.

In 1961 mass arrests and violence were touched off when Freedom RidersFreedom Riders,
American civil-rights demonstrators who engaged (1961) in nonviolent protests against segregation of public interstate buses and terminals in the South. From the 1940s several federal court decisions and an Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) order had ruled
..... Click the link for more information. , actively seeking to spur integration, made Mississippi a major target. However, there was not even token integration of public schools in Mississippi until 1962, when the state government under the leadership of Gov. Ross R. Barnett tried unsuccessfully to block the admission of James H. Meredith, an African American, to the Univ. of Mississippi law school. In the conflict the federal and state governments clashed, and the U.S. Dept. of Justice took legal action against state officials, including Barnett. Two persons were killed in riots, and federal troops had to be called upon to restore order. Racial antagonisms resulted in many more acts of violence: churches and homes were bombed; Medgar Evers, an official of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was killed in 1963; three civil-rights workers (two white, one black) were murdered the next year; and there were many less publicized outrages.

After the passage of the Federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, many black Mississippians succeeded in registering and voting. In 1967, for the first time since 1890, a black was elected to the legislature, and African Americans, almost 36% of the state's citizens, are now as well represented in Mississippi politics as in any state, with a large degree of cross-racial voting. In spite of these advances, in 1992 it was necessary for the U.S. Supreme Court to order the state college system to end its tradition of segregation.

Natural Disasters and Economic Difficulties

In Aug., 1969, Mississippi and Louisiana were devastated by Camille, one of the century's worst hurricanes. In Apr., 1973, the Mississippi River rose to record levels in the state; floodwaters covered about 9% of Mississippi, including parts of Vicksburg and Natchez, causing massive property damage. Economic problems continued in the 1980s and 1990s, as the state struggled to shift emphasis from manufacturing to the service sector and to avoid the national trend of industrial decline. Mississippi and Louisiana again suffered widespread devastation, even greater than that from Camille, when Hurricane Katrina struck both states in Aug., 2005.

Bibliography

See E. A. Miles, Jacksonian Democracy in Mississippi (1960, repr. 1970); R. A. McLemore, A History of Mississippi (2 vol., 1973); R. D. Cross, ed., Atlas of Mississippi (1974); J. W. Silver, Mississippi: The Closed Society (1978); J. Kinser, The Cost of Mississippi (1981); N. R. McMillen, Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow (1989); F. M. Wirt, "We Ain't What We Was" (1997).

Mississippi,

river, c.100 mi (160 km) long, rising E of the Kawartha Lakes, S Ont., Canada, and flowing NE through Mississippi Lake, then N to the Ottawa River near Arnprior. It is navigable for small steamers.

Mississippi,

river, principal river of the United States, c.2,350 mi (3,780 km) long, exceeded in length only by the MissouriMissouri,
river, c.2,565 mi (4,130 km) long (including its Jefferson-Beaverhead-Red Rock headstream), the longest river of the United States and the principal tributary of the Mississippi River.
..... Click the link for more information. , the chief of its numerous tributaries. The combined Missouri-Mississippi system (from the Missouri's headwaters in the Rocky Mts. to the mouth of the Mississippi) is c.3,740 mi (6,020 km) long and ranks as the world's third longest river system after the NileNile,
longest river in the world, c.4,160 mi (6,695 km) long from its remotest headstream, the Luvironza River in Burundi, central Africa, to its delta on the Mediterranean Sea, NE Egypt. The Nile flows northward and drains c.
..... Click the link for more information. and the AmazonAmazon,
Port. Amazonas , world's second longest river, c.3,900 mi (6,280 km) long, formed by the junction in N Peru's Andes Mts. of two major headstreams, the Ucayali and the shorter Marañón.
..... Click the link for more information. . With its tributaries, the Mississippi drains c.1,231,000 sq mi (3,188,290 sq km) of the central United States, including all or part of 31 states and c.13,000 sq mi (33,670 sq km) of Alberta and Saskatchewan in Canada. Cotton and rice are important crops in the lower Mississippi valley; sugarcane is raised in the delta. The Mississippi is abundant in freshwater fish; shrimp are taken from the briny delta waters. The delta also yields sulfur, oil, and gas.

Course and Navigation

The Mississippi River rises in small streams that feed Lake ItascaItasca, Lake
, shallow lake, 2 sq mi (5.2 sq km), in a pine-wooded swampy region, NW Minn. Henry R. Schoolcraft identified the lake (1832) as the source of the Mississippi; stepping stones cross the river at its exit point.
..... Click the link for more information. (alt. 1,463 ft/446 m) in N Minnesota and flows generally south to enter the Gulf of Mexico through a huge delta in SE Louisiana. A major economic waterway, the river is navigable from the sediment-free channel maintained through South Pass in the delta to the Falls of St. Anthony in Minneapolis, with canals circumventing the rapids near Rock Island, Ill., and Keokuk, Iowa. For the low-water months of July, August, and September, there is a 45-ft (13.7-m) channel navigable by oceangoing vessels from Head of the Passes to Baton Rouge, La., and a 9-ft (2.7-m) channel from Baton Rouge deep enough for barges and towboats to Minneapolis. The Mississippi connects with the Intracoastal Waterway in the south and with the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Seaway system in the north by way of the Illinois WaterwayIllinois Waterway,
336 mi (541 km) long, linking Lake Michigan with the Mississippi River, N Ill.; an important part of the waterway connecting the Great Lakes with the Gulf of Mexico.
..... Click the link for more information. .

Along the river's upper course shipping is interrupted by ice from December to March; thick, hazardous fogs frequently settle on the cold waters of the unfrozen sections during warm spells from December to May. In its upper course the river is controlled by numerous dams and falls c.700 ft (210 m) in the 513-mi (826-km) stretch from Lake Itasca to Minneapolis and then falls c.490 ft (150 m) in 856 mi (1,378 km) from Minneapolis to Cairo, Ill. The Mississippi River receives the Missouri River 17 mi (27 km) N of St. Louis and expands to a width of c.3,500 ft (1,070 m); it swells to c.4,500 ft (1,370 m) at Cairo, where it receives the Ohio River. The stretch of the river from the last dam and locks, above St. Louis, to Cairo is also known as the middle Mississippi.

The lower Mississippi meanders in great loops across a broad alluvial plain (25–125 mi/40–201 km wide) that stretches from Cape Girardeau, Mo., to the delta region S of Natchez, Miss. The plain is marked with oxbow lakes and marshes that are remnants of the river's former channels. Natural levees, built up from sediment carried and deposited in times of flood, border the river for much of its length; sediment has also been deposited on the riverbed, so that in places the surface of the Mississippi is above that of the surrounding plain, as evidenced by the St. Francis, Black, Yazoo, and Tensas river basins. Breaks in the levees frequently flood the fertile bottomlands of these and other low-lying areas of the plain.

The Mississippi Delta

After receiving the Arkansas and Red rivers, the Mississippi enters a birdsfoot-type delta, which was built outward by sediment carried by the main stream since c.A.D. 1500 It then discharges into the Gulf of Mexico through a number of distributaries, the most important being the Atchafalaya River and Bayou Lafourche. The main stream continues southeast through the delta to enter the gulf through several mouths, including Southeast Pass, South Pass, and Pass à Loutre. Indications that the Mississippi River might abandon this course and divert through the AtchafalayaAtchafalaya
, navigable river, c.170 mi (270 km) long, S central La. The Atchafalaya meanders south, in a former channel of the Mississippi, to the Gulf of Mexico. A distributary of the Red and Mississippi rivers, the Atchafalaya flows to the Gulf through an extensive system of
..... Click the link for more information. River led to the construction of a series of dams, locks, and canals by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Known as the Old River Control Structure, it was undertaken to prevent such an occurrence. Sluggish bayous and freshwater lakes (such as Pontchartrain, Grand, and Salvador) dot the delta region.

Regarding the delta, environmentalists and those in the seafood industry are concerned by the loss of 25–45 sq mi (65–104 sq km) of marsh a year; fish and wildlife populations are threatened as their natural habitat slowly disappears. The loss has been attributed to subsidence and a decrease in sediment largely due to dams, artificial channeling, and land conservation measures. Pollution and the cutting of new waterways for petroleum exploration and drilling have also taken their toll on the delta. Louisiana has enacted environmental protection laws that are expected to slow, but not halt, the loss of the delta marshes.

Attempts at Flood Control

The flow of the river is greatest in the spring, when heavy rainfall and melting snow on the tributaries (especially the Missouri and the Ohio) cause the main stream to rise and frequently overflow its banks and levees, inundating vast areas of the plain. Since the disastrous flood of 1927 the U.S. Congress has authorized the construction of dams on the upper Mississippi and its tributaries to regulate the flow; the building of c.1,600 mi (2,580 km) of levees below Cape Girardeau to contain the swollen river; and the establishment of floodways to divert water at critical points, such as the Cairo–New Madrid, Atchafalaya, and Morganza floodways and the Bonnet Carre Spillway at New Orleans, which diverts water into Lake Pontchartrain. Cutoffs have eliminated the dangerous winding channels, and an improved main channel has increased the river's flood-carrying capacity. A 220-acre (89-hectare) model of the Mississippi River basin is located at Clinton, Miss., which has been used by the U.S. Corps of Engineers to simulate various conditions in the basin.

Nonetheless, serious, record-breaking floods again occurred in the rainy spring of 1973, when the river crested at St. Louis at 43.3 ft (13.2 m), and again in the summer of 1993, when the river crested at St. Louis at 49.6 ft (15.1 m), killing 50 people, displacing 50,000, and causing $12 billion in agricultural and property damage. In the spring of 2011, heavy rains in April in the S central Mississippi river basin led to near-record high water and flooding from parts of Missouri and Illinois south. The narrow river channel that has been created by building levees has worsened flooding in some instances.

In 1988 a severe drought brought water levels down to their lowest point in recorded history and halted most river traffic. Severe drought again threatened to halt traffic in the middle Mississippi in 2012–13, but dredging and other channel deepening measures kept the river open.

History

The Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto is credited with the European discovery of the Mississippi River in 1541. The French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet reached it through the Wisconsin River in 1673, and in 1682 La Salle traveled down the river to the Gulf of Mexico and claimed the entire territory for France. The French founded New Orleans in 1718 and effectively extended control over the upper river basin with settlements at Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Prairie du Chien, and St. Louis. France ceded the river to Spain in 1763 but regained it in 1800; the United States acquired the Mississippi River as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

A major artery for the Native Americans and the fur-trading French, the river became in the 19th cent. the principal outlet for the newly settled areas of mid-America; exports were floated downstream with the current, and imports were poled or dragged upstream on rafts and keelboats. The first steamboat plied the river in 1811, and successors became increasingly luxurious as river trade increased in profitability and importance; the era is colorfully described in Mark TwainTwain, Mark,
pseud. of Samuel Langhorne Clemens,
1835–1910, American author, b. Florida, Mo. As humorist, narrator, and social observer, Twain is unsurpassed in American literature.
..... Click the link for more information. 's Life on the Mississippi (1883).

Traffic from the north ceased after the outbreak of the Civil War. During the Civil War the Mississippi was an invasion route for Union armies and the scene of many important battles. Especially decisive were the capture of New Orleans (1862) by Adm. David Farragut, the Union naval commander, and the victory of Union forces under Grant at Vicksburg in 1863. River traffic resumed after the war, but much of the trade was lost to the railroads. With modern improvements in the channels of the river there has been a great increase in traffic, especially since the mid-1950s, with principal freight items being petroleum products, chemicals, sand, gravel, and limestone.

Bibliography

See B. Keating, The Mighty Mississippi (1971); P. V. Scarpino, Great River: An Environmental History of the Upper Mississippi (1985); M. M. Smart et al., ed., Ecological Perspectives of the Upper Mississippi River (1986); J. M. Barry, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America (1997); C. Morris, The Big Muddy (2012); P. Schneider, Old Man River (2013).

Mississippi State Information

Phone: (601) 359-1000
www.mississippi.gov

Area (sq mi):: 48430.19 (land 46906.96; water 1523.24) Population per square mile: 62.30
Population 2005: 2,921,088 State rank: 0 Population change: 2000-20005 2.70%; 1990-2000 10.50% Population 2000: 2,844,658 (White 60.70%; Black or African American 36.30%; Hispanic or Latino 1.40%; Asian 0.70%; Other 1.60%). Foreign born: 1.40%. Median age: 33.80
Income 2000: per capita $15,853; median household $31,330; Population below poverty level: 19.90% Personal per capita income (2000-2003): $21,005-$23,466
Unemployment (2004): 6.30% Unemployment change (from 2000): 0.60% Median travel time to work: 24.60 minutes Working outside county of residence: 31.90%

List of Mississippi counties:

Adams County

Alcorn County

Amite County

Attala County

Benton County

Bolivar County

Calhoun County

Carroll County

Chickasaw County

Choctaw County

Claiborne County

Clarke County

Clay County

Coahoma County

Copiah County

Covington County

DeSoto County

Forrest County

Franklin County

George County

Greene County

Grenada County

Hancock County

Harrison County

Hinds County

Holmes County

Humphreys County

Issaquena County

Itawamba County

Jackson County

Jasper County

Jefferson County

Jefferson Davis County

Jones County

Kemper County

Lafayette County

Lamar County

Lauderdale County

Lawrence County

Leake County

Lee County

Leflore County

Lincoln County

Lowndes County

Madison County

Marion County

Marshall County

Monroe County

Montgomery County

Neshoba County

Newton County

Noxubee County

Oktibbeha County

Panola County

Pearl River County

Perry County

Pike County

Pontotoc County

Prentiss County

Quitman County

Rankin County

Scott County

Sharkey County

Simpson County

Smith County

Stone County

Sunflower County

Tallahatchie County

Tate County

Tippah County

Tishomingo County

Tunica County

Union County

Walthall County

Warren County

Washington County

Wayne County

Webster County

Wilkinson County

Winston County

Yalobusha County

Yazoo County

Mississippi Parks

US National Parks

Brice's Crossroads National Battlefield Site
Gulf Islands National Seashore (Mississippi)

Natchez National Historical Park
Natchez Trace Parkway

Tupelo National Battlefield
Vicksburg National Military Park

State Parks

Buccaneer State Park
Clark Creek Natural Area
Clarkco State Park
Florewood State Park
George Payne Cossar State Park
Golden Memorial State Park
Great River Road State Park
Holmes County State Park
Hugh White State Park

John W. Kyle State Park
JP Coleman State Park
Lake Lincoln State Park
Lake Lowndes State Park
LeFleur's Bluff State Park
Legion State Park
Leroy Percy State Park
Natchez State Park
Paul B. Johnson State Park

Percy Quin State Park
Roosevelt State Park
Shepard State Park
Tishomingo State Park
Tombigbee State Park
Trace State Park
Wall Doxey State Park

National Wildlife Refuges

Dahomey National Wildlife Refuge
Hillside National Wildlife Refuge
Mathews Brake National Wildlife Refuge
Mississippi Sandhill Crane National Wildlife Refuge

Morgan Brake National Wildlife Refuge
Noxubee National Wildlife Refuge
Panther Swamp National Wildlife Refuge
Saint Catherine Creek National Wildlife Refuge

Tallahatchie National Wildlife Refuge
Theodore Roosevelt National Wildlife Refuge
Yazoo National Wildlife Refuge

National Trails
Natchez Trace National Scenic Trail
National Scenic Byways
Great River Road - Lower Mississippi
Natchez Trace Parkway - Alabama
Natchez Trace Parkway - Mississippi
Natchez Trace Parkway - Tennessee
National Heritage Areas
Mississippi Gulf National Heritage Area
National Forests
Bienville National Forest
Delta National Forest
DeSoto National Forest
Holly Springs National Forest
Homochitto National Forest
Tombigbee National Forest

Mississippi

a state in the southern USA. Area, 123,600 sq km. Population, 2.2 million (1970), of whom 36.7 percent are Negroes and 44.5 percent urban dwellers. The capital and largest city is Jackson. Most of the surface is a low-lying plain intersected by numerous left tributaries of the Mississippi River, which forms the state’s western boundary. The state has a subtropical humid climate. Deciduous forests of oak, hickory, poplar, and maple are found in the north and pine forests flourish in the south. Along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico there are thickets of swamp cypress.

Mississippi is one of the agrarian states of the former slave-holding South. The chief crop is cotton, cultivated chiefly in the Mississippi and Yazoo valleys. It is the nation’s second leading producer of cotton, after Texas (382,000 tons in 1970). Soybeans, corn, rice, wheat, and sugarcane are also grown. In early 1971 there were 2.5 million head of cattle (191,000 dairy cows) and 632,000 hogs. Poultry farming is well developed. The strengthening of capitalist relations in rural areas accelerated the destruction of small farms, whose number declined from 251,000 in 1950 to 91,000 in 1972.

Petroleum and natural gas are produced (9 million tons of oil in 1970). In 1972 the total capacity of power plants was 3.4 gigawatts. Processing industries employ 186,000 persons. The main industries are food processing, textiles, clothing, paper, chemicals, and shipbuilding.

The standard of living among workers, especially Negroes, is low; about 35 percent of the population was officially listed as poor in 1969. There is considerable migration to other states.

IU. A. KOLOSOVA

Mississippi

(in the local Indian language, “great river”), a river in the USA and one of the world’s largest rivers. It is 3,950 km long (6,420 km from the headwaters of the Missouri). Its basin stretches from the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, covering 3,268,000 sq km, or 40 percent of the area of the USA excluding Alaska. The largest right tributaries are the Minnesota, Des Moines, Missouri, Arkansas, and Red rivers, and the major left tributaries are the Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio rivers.

The Mississippi rises in the northern USA, in Nicollet Creek, crosses the USA from north to south, and empties into the Gulf of Mexico, forming a vast delta. The Mississippi Valley was cut in the direction of the main flow of the waters of North America’s Quaternary glaciation. In terms of the morphologic structure of its valley and its regime the Mississippi is divided into three sections, separated by the mouths of the largest tributaries, the Missouri and the Ohio.

In its upper course the river initially flows through small lakes. There are rapids and rocky bars, the largest of which are found near Minneapolis (Falls of St. Anthony), Davenport, and Keokuk. More than 20 dams have been built between Minneapolis and the mouth of the Missouri. In its middle course the river flows primarily through a single channel, and the valley, from 10 km to 15 km wide, is bounded by steep bluffs. Below St. Louis the muddy water of the Missouri flows for 150–180 km alongside the relatively clear current of the Mississippi. In its lower course the river flows through a broad plain composed of alluvial deposits, and the width of the valley gradually widens from 25 km to 70–100 km. The riverbed meanders and has numerous arms and oxbow lakes, forming a maze of channels, oxbow lakes, and floodplain swamps that are inundated during floods. Along almost the entire stretch the riverbed is bounded by natural levees, reinforced, for purposes of flood control, by a system of artificial levees extending for about 4,000 km. In places the river, flowing between levees, is higher than the floodplain. Below Baton Rouge begins the fanshaped delta, covering more than 32,000 sq km and extending into the sea in some places at the rate of 85–100 m annually.

Each year the Mississippi carries into the sea an average of about 360 million tons of sediment. At the end of the delta the river branches into six relatively short channels from 20 km to 40 km long, which empty into the Gulf of Mexico. The most important of these channels is the Southwest Pass, which carries more than 30 percent of the river’s discharge. During flood periods in the lower course of the river some of its discharge empties into Lake Pontchartrain near New Orleans, which holds the floodwaters that threaten the city. Some of the floodwaters are also diverted into the Atchafalaya River, flowing parallel to the Mississippi 15–40 km to the west and emptying into the Gulf of Mexico.

The river is fed by both snow and rain. The right tributaries carry mainly meltwater from the Rocky Mountains, and the left tributaries bring rain and torrential waters. High water and rain floods occur in spring and summer. The highest floods occur when the thawing of the snow in the upper Mississippi and Missouri basins coincides with heavy rains in the basin of the Ohio, which carries considerably more water than the Mississippi at the confluence of the two rivers. In such cases there are large floods in the middle and lower courses of the Mississippi, and such inundations are typical of all the river’s large tributaries. Disastrous floods in the Mississippi basin occurred in 1844, 1903, 1913, 1927, 1937, 1947, 1951, 1952, and 1965. Hydraulic engineering structures have been built in the lower course, but even these cannot fully protect the river valley from frequent overflows.

The river’s average annual discharge is 19,000 cu m per sec at the mouth; it reaches 50,000–80,000 cu m per sec during catastrophic floods and decreases to 3,000–5,000 cu m per sec during the summer low-water period. Annual fluctuations in the water level average 7.2 m at St. Paul, 14.3 m at St. Louis, 18.3 m at Cairo, and 5–6 m at New Orleans. The upper course of the Mississippi freezes over for three or four months.

The Mississippi is a convenient waterway from the Gulf of Mexico to the continent’s interior and an important transportation artery connecting the country’s developed industrial and agricultural regions. Although its significance as a waterway declined in the late 19th and early 20th centuries because of competition from railroads, the industrial development of the Great Lakes region, especially after World War II, has made the Mississippi increasingly important. The Illinois Waterway, which begins on Lake Michigan at Chicago and passes through a system of canals, canalized rivers, and the Illinois River, a left tributary of the Mississippi, connects the Mississippi with the Great Lakes basin and the St. Lawrence Seaway, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean. At New Orleans, one of the country’s largest ocean and river ports, the Mississippi crosses the Coastal Canal, an artificial waterway connecting the industrial regions along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. There is river navigation as far as St. Paul (more than 3,000 km from the mouth), and ocean ships reach Baton Rouge. More than 25,000 km of the Mississippi-Missouri system are navigable, and the annual freight turnover on the lower Mississippi reaches 7 million tons. The principal cargoes are petroleum products, building materials, coal, and chemicals.

The potential hydroelectric resources of the rivers of the Mississippi basin are 27.5 gigawatts, and the developed capacity is about 7 gigawatts. The largest hydroelectric power plant, at Keokuk, has a capacity of 120 megawatts. In the lower reaches a slow drop in elevation and a poorly developed river valley hinder the construction of hydroelectric power plants. The major cities and ports are Minneapolis and St. Paul, Davenport, St. Louis, Memphis, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans.

REFERENCES

Galochkin, N. P. “Gidroenergeticheskie resursy basseina r. Mississippi i ikh ispol’zovanie.” Gidrotekhnicheskoe stroitel’stvo, 1963, no. 1.
Muranov, A. P. Velichaishie reki mira. Leningrad, 1968.
Ackerman, E. A. Water Resources in the United States. Washington, 1958.
Price, W. “The Upper Mississippi.” National Geographic Magazine, 1958, vol. 114, no. 5.
Price, W. “The Lower Mississippi.” National Geographic Magazine, 1960, vol. 118, no. 5.

A. P. MURANOV

Mississippi

Twentieth state; admitted on December 10, 1817 (seceded on January 9, 1861, and was readmitted on February 23, 1870)

No admission day celebrations occur, but in 1917 the state held centennial ceremonies including speeches and music. On the sesquicentennial, or 150th, anniversary in 1967, there were exhibits at the Old Capitol Building museum, and efforts got underway to preserve state historical documents (including appropriating $1,120,000 for building a new archives center).

State capital: Jackson Nicknames: The Magnolia State; Eagle State; Border-Eagle

State; Bayou State; Mud-cat State State motto: Virtute et armis (Latin “By valor and arms”) State beverage: Milk State bird: Mockingbird (Mimus polyglottos) State butterfly: Spicebush swallowtail (Papilio troilus) State dance: Square dance State fish: Largemouth or black bass (Micropterus salmoides) State flower: Magnolia blossom (Magnolia grandiflora);

wildflower: Coreopsis State fossil: Prehistoric whale State insect: Honeybee (Apis mellifera) State mammal: land: White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virgini

anus); water: Bottle-nosed dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) State reptile: Alligator State shell: Oyster shell (Crassostrea virginica) State song: “Go, Mississippi” State stone: Petrified wood State toy: Teddy bear State tree: Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora) State waterfowl: Wood duck (Aix sponsa)

More about state symbols at:

www.its.state.ms.us/et/portal/MSSymbols/symbols.htm
www.visitmississippi.org/resources/state_symbols.asp

More about the state at:

www.ms.gov/about_ms.jsp

SOURCES:

AmerBkDays-2000, p. 822
AnnivHol-2000, p. 205

STATE OFFICES:

State web site:
www.mississippi.gov

Office of the Governor
PO Box 139
Jackson, MS 39205
601-359-3150
fax: 601-359-3741
www.governorbarbour.com

Secretary of State PO Box 136 Jackson, MS 39205 601-359-1350 fax: 601-359-1499 www.sos.state.ms.us

Mississippi Library Commission 1221 Ellis Ave Jackson, MS 39209 601-961-4111 fax: 601-354-4181 www.mlc.lib.ms.us

Archives & History Dept PO Box 571 Jackson, MS 39205 601-576-6850 fax: 601-576-6899 www.mdah.state.ms.us

Legal Holidays:

Confederate Memorial Day	Apr 25, 2011; Apr 30, 2012; Apr 29, 2013; Apr 28, 2014; Apr 27, 2015; Apr 25, 2016; Apr 24, 2017; Apr 30, 2018; Apr 29, 2019; Apr 27, 2020; Apr 26, 2021; Apr 25, 2022; Apr 24, 2023
Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday and Robert E. Lee's Birthday	Jan 17, 2011; Jan 16, 2012; Jan 21, 2013; Jan 20, 2014; Jan 19, 2015; Jan 18, 2016; Jan 16, 2017; Jan 15, 2018; Jan 21, 2019; Jan 20, 2020; Jan 18, 2021; Jan 17, 2022; Jan 16, 2023
Memorial Day and Jefferson Davis's Birthday	May 30, 2011; May 28, 2012; May 27, 2013; May 26, 2014; May 25, 2015; May 30, 2016; May 29, 2017; May 28, 2018; May 27, 2019; May 25, 2020; May 31, 2021; May 30, 2022; May 29, 2023

Mississippi

1. a state of the southeastern US, on the Gulf of Mexico: consists of a largely forested undulating plain, with swampy regions in the northwest and on the coast, the Mississippi River forming the W border; cotton, rice, and oil. Capital: Jackson. Pop.: 2 881 281 (2003 est.). Area: 122 496 sq. km (47 296 sq. miles) 2. a river in the central US, rising in NW Minnesota and flowing generally south to the Gulf of Mexico through several mouths, known as the Passes: the second longest river in North America (after its tributary, the Missouri), with the third largest drainage basin in the world (after the Amazon and the Congo). Length: 3780 km (2348 miles)

Mississippi

Related to Mississippi: Mississippi River

MISSISSIPPI. The name of one of the new states of the United States of America. This state was admitted into the Union, by a resolution of congress, passed the 10th day of December, 1817; 3 Story's L. U. S. 1716; by which it is "Resolved, that the state of Mississippi, shall be one, and is hereby declared to be one of the United States of America, and admitted into the Union on an equal footing with these original states, in all respects whatever."
2. The constitution of this state was adopted at the town of Washington, the 15th day of August, 1817. It was revised by a convention, and adopted on the 26th day of October, 1832, when it went into operation.
3. By the second article of the constitution, a provision is made for the distribution of powers as follows, namely;
Sec. 1. The powers of the government of the state of Mississippi, shall be divided into three distinct departments, and each of them confided to a separate body of magistracy; to wit; those which are, legislative to one, those which are judicial to another, and those which are executive to another.
4.-2. No person, or collection of persons, being of one of these departments, shall exercise any power properly belonging to either of the others, except in the instances hereinafter expressly directed or permitted.
5.-1st. The legislative power of this state is vested in two distinct branches the one styled "the senate" the other, "the house of representatives;" and both together, "the legislature of the state of Mississippi.
6. The following regulations, contained in the third article of the constitution, apply to both branches of the legislature.
7.-Sec. 16. Each house may determine the rules of its own proceedings punish members for disorderly behaviour, and, with the consent of two-thirds, expel a member, but not a second time for the same cause; and shall have all other powers necessary for a branch of the legislature of a free and independent state.
8.-Sec. 17. Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and publish the same; and the yeas and nays of the members of either house, on any question, shall, at the desire of any three members present, be entered on the journal.
9.-Sec. 18. When vacancies happen in either house, the governor, or the person exercising the powers of the governor, shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies.
10.-Sec. 19. Senators and representatives shall, in all cases, except of treason, felony, or breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during the session of the legislature and in going to and returning from the same, allowing one day for every twenty miles such member may reside from the place at which the legislature is convened.
11.-Sec. 20. Each house may punish, by imprisonment, during the session, any person, not a member, for disrespectful or disorderly behaviour in its presence, or for obstructing any of its proceedings: Provided, such imprisonment shall not, at any one time, exceed forty-eight hours.
12.-Sec. 21. The doors of each house shall be open, except on such occasions of great emergency, as, in the opinion of the house, may require secrecy.
13.-Sec. 22. Neither house shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which they may be sitting.
14.-Sec. 23. Bills may originate in either house, and be amended, altered or rejected by the other, but no bill shall have the force of a law, until on three several days, it be read in each house, and free discussion be allowed thereon, unless four-fifths of the house in which the bill shall be pending, may deem it expedient to dispense with this rule; and every bill having passed both houses, shall be signed by the speaker and president of their respective houses.
15.-Sec. 24. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the house of representatives, but the senate may amend or reject them as other bills.
16.-Sec. 25. Each member of the legislature shall receive from the public treasury a compensation for his services, which may be increased or diminished by law, but no increase of compensation shall take effect during the session at which such increase shall have been made.
17.-Sec. 26. No senator or representative shall, during the term for which be shall have been elected, nor for one year thereafter, be appointed to any civil office of profit under this state, which shall have been created, or the emoluments of which shall have been increased, during such term, except such offices as may be filled, by elections by the people; and no member of either house of the legislature shall, after the commencement of the first session of the legislature after his election and during the remainder of the term for which he is elected, be eligible to any office or place, the appointment to which may be made in whole or in part by either branch of the legislature.
18.-Sec. 27. No judge of any court of law or equity, secretary of state, attorney general, clerk of any court of record, sheriff or collector, or any, person holding a lucrative office under the United States or this state, shall be eligible to the legislature: Provided, That offices in the militia, to which there is attached no annual salary, and the office of justice of the peace, shall not be deemed lucrative.
19.-Sec. 28. No person who hath heretofore been, or hereafter may be, a collector or holder of public moneys, shall have a seat in either house of the legislature, until such person shall have accounted for, and paid into the treasury, all sums for which he may be accountable.
20.-Sec. 29. The first election for senators and representatives shall be general throughout the state, and shall be held on the first Monday and day following in November 1833; and thereafter, there shall be biennial elections for senators to fill the places of those whose term of service may have expired.
21.-Sec. 30. The first and all future sessions of the legislature shall be held in the town of Jackson, in the county of Hinds, until the year 1850. During the first session thereafter, the legislature shall have power to designate by law the permanent seat of government: Provided, however, That unless such designation be then made by law, the seat of government shall continue permanently at the town of Jackson. The first session shall commence on the third Monday in November, in the year 1833. And in every two years thereafter, at such time as may be prescribed by law.
22.-1. The senate. Under this lead will be considered the qualification of senators; their number; by whom they are elected; the time for which they are elected.
1. No person shall be a senator unless he be a citizen of the United States; and shall have been an inhabitant of this state for four years next preceding his election, and the last year thereof a resident of the district for which he shall be chosen, and have attained the age of thirty years. Art. 3, s. 14.
2. The number of senators shall never be less than one-fourth, nor more than one-third, of the whole number of representatives. Art. 3, s. 10. 3. The qualifications of electors is as follows: every free white male person of the age of twenty-one years or upwards, who shall be a citizen of the United States, and shall have resided in this state one year next preceding an election, and the last four months within the county, city, or town in which he offers to vote, shall be deemed a qualified elector. Art. 3, s. 1. 4. The senators shall be chosen for four years, and on their being convened in consequence of the first election, they shall be divided by lot from their respective districts into two classes, as nearly equal as can be. And the seats of the senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year.
23.-2. The house of representatives, will be considered in the same order that has been observed in relation, to the senate. 1. No person shall, be a representative unless he be a citizen of the United States, and shall have been an inhabitant of this state two years next preceeding his election, and the last year thereof a resident of the county, city or town for which be shall be chosen; and shall have attained the age of twenty-one years. Art. 3, s. 7. 2. The number of representatives shall not be less than thirty-six, nor more than one hundred. Art. 3, s. 9. 3. They are elected by the same electors who elect senators. Art. 3, s. 1. 4. The representatives are chosen every two years on the first Monday and day following in November. They serve two years from the day of the commencement of the general election and no longer. Art. 3, s. 5, and 6.
24.-2d. The judicial power. By the fourth article of the constitution, the judicial power is distributed as follows, namely:
Sec. 1. The judicial power of this state shall be vested in one high court of errors and appeals, and such other courts of law and equity as are hereafter provided for in this constitution.
25.-Sec. 2. The high court of errors and appeals shall consist of three judges, any two of whom shall form a quorum. The legislature shall divide the state into three districts, and the qualified electors of each district shall elect one of said judges for the term of six years.
26.-Sec. 3. The office of one of said judges shall be vacated in two years, and of one in four years, and of one in six years, so that at the expiration of every two years, one of said judges shall be elected as aforesaid.
27.-Sec. 4. The high court of errors and appeals shall have no jurisdiction, but such as properly belongs to a court of errors and appeals.
28.-Sec. 5. All vacancies that may occur in said court, from death, resignation or removal, shall be filled by election as aforesaid. Provided, however, that if the unexpired term do not exceed one year, the vacancy shall be filled by executive appointment.
29.-Sec. 6. No person shall be eligible to the office of judge of the high court of errors and appeals, who shall not have attained, at the time of his election, the age of thirty years.
30.-Sec. 7. The high court of errors and appeals shall be held twice in each year, at such place as the legislature shall direct, until the year eighteen hundred and thirty-six, and afterwards at the seat of government of the state.
31.-Sec. 8. The secretary of state, on receiving all the official returns of the first election, shall proceed, forthwith, in the presence and with the assistance of two justices of the peace, to determine by lot among the three candidates having the highest number of votes, which of said judges elect shall serve for the term of two years, which shall serve for the term of four years, and which shall serve for the term of six years, and having so determined the same, it shall be the duty of the governor to issue commissions accordingly.
32.-Sec. 9. No judge shall sit on the trial of any cause when the parties or either of them shall be connected with him by affinity or consanguinity, or when he may be interested in the same, except by consent of the judge and of the parties; and whenever a quorum of said court are situated as aforesaid, the governor of the state shall in such case specially commission two or more men of law knowledge for the determination thereof.
33.-Sec. 10. The judges of said court shall, receive for their services a compensation to be fixed by law, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.
34.-Sec. 11. The judges of the circuit court shall be elected by the qualified electors of each judicial district, and hold their offices for the term of four years, and reside in their respective districts.
35.-Sec. 12. No person shall be eligible to the office of judge of the circuit court, who shall not, at the time of his election, have attained the age of twenty-six years.
36.-Sec. 13. The state shall be divided into convenient districts, and each district shall contain not less than three nor more than twelve counties.
37.-Sec. 14. The circuit court shall have original jurisdiction in all matters, civil and criminal, within this state; but in civil cases only when the principal of the sum in controversy exceeds fifty dollars.
38.-Sec. 15. A circuit court shall be held in each county of this state, at least twice in each year; and the judges of said courts shall interchange circuits with each other, in such manner as may be prescribed by law, and shall receive for their services a compensation to be fixed by law, which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.
39.-Sec. 16. A separate superior court of chancery, shall be established, with full jurisdiction in all matters of equity; Provided, however, the legislature may give to the circuit courts of each county equity jurisdiction in all cases where the value of the thing, or amount in controversy, does not exceed five hundred dollars; also, in all cases of divorce, and for the foreclosure of mortgages. The chancellor shall be elected by the qualified electors of the whole state, for the term of six years, and shall be at least thirty years old at the time of his election.
40.-Sec. 17. The style of all process, shall be "The state of Mississippi," and all prosecutions shall be carried on in the name and by the authority of "The state of Mississippi," and shall conclude "against the peace and dignity of the same."
41.-Sec. 18. A court of probates shall be established in each county of this state, with jurisdiction in all matters testamentary and of administration in orphans' business and the allotment of dower, in cases of idiocy and lunacy, and of persons non compos mentis; the judge of said court shall be elected by the qualified electors of the respective counties, for the term of two years.
42.-Sec. 19. The clerk of the high court, of errors and appeals shall be appointed by said court, for the term of four years, and the clerks of the circuit, probate, and other inferior courts, shall be elected by the qualified electors of the respective counties, and shall hold their offices for the term of two years.
43.-Sec. 20. The qualified electors of each county shall elect five persons for the term of two years, who shall constitute a board of police for each county, a majority of whom may transact business; which body shall have full jurisdiction over roads, highways, ferries, and bridges, and all other matters of county police, and shall order all county elections to fill vacancies that may occur in the offices of their respective counties: the clerk of the court of probate shall be the clerk of the board of county police.
44.-Sec. 21. No person shall be eligible as a member of said board, who shall not have resided one year in the county: but this qualification shall not extend to such new counties as may hereafter be established until one year after their organization; and all vacancies that may occur in said board shall be supplied by election as aforesaid to fill the unexpired term.
45.-Sec. 22. The judges of all the courts of the state, and also the members of the board of county police, shall in virtue of their offices be conservators of the peace, and shall be by law vested with ample powers in this respect.
46.-Sec. 23. A competent number of justices of the peace and constables shall be chosen in each county by the qualified electors thereof, by districts, who shall hold their offices for the term of two years. The jurisdiction of justices of the peace shall be limited to causes in which the principal of the amount in controversy shall not exceed fifty dollars. In all causes tried by a justice of the peace, the right of appeal shall be secured under such rules and regulations as shall be prescribed by law.
47.-Sec. 24. The legislature may from time to time establish, such other inferior courts as may be deemed necessary, and abolish the same whenever they shall deem it expedient.
48.-Sec. 25. There shall be an attorney general elected by the qualified electors of the state: and a competent number of district attorneys shall be elected by qualified voters of their respective districts, whose compensation and term of service, shall be prescribed by law.
49.-Sec. 26. The legislature shall, provide by law for determining contested elections of judges of the high court of errors and appeals, of the circuit and probate courts, and other officers.
50.-Sec. 27. The judges of the several courts of this state, for willful neglect of duty or other reasonable cause, shall be removed by the governor on the address of two-thirds of both houses of the legislature; the address to be by joint vote of both houses. The cause or causes for which such removal shall be required, shall be stated at length in such address, and on the journals of each house. The judge so intended to be removed, shall be notified and admitted to a hearing in his own defence before any vote for such address shall pass; the vote on such address shall be taken by yeas and nays, and entered on the journals of each house.
51.-Sec. 28. Judges of probate, clerks, sheriffs, and other county officers, for willful neglect of duty, or misdemeanor in office, shall be liable to presentment or indictment by a grand jury, and trial by a petit jury, and upon conviction shall be removed from office.
52.-3d. The chief executive power of this state shall be vested in a governor. It will be proper to consider his qualifications; by whom he is elected; the time for which he is elected; his rights, duties and powers; and how, vacancies are supplied when the office of governor becomes vacant.
53.-1. The governor shall be at least thirty years of age, shall have been a citizen of the United States for twenty years, shall have resided in this state at least five years next preceding the day of his election, and shall not be capable of holding the office more than four in any term of six years. Art. 5, s. 3.
54.-2. The governor shall be elected by the qualified elector's of the state. Art. 5, s. 2.
55.-3. He shall hold his office for two years from the time of his installation. Art 5, s. 1.
56.-4. He shall, at stated times, receive for his services a compensation which shall not be increased or diminished during the term for which he shall be elected. Art. 5 s. 4.
57.-5. He shall be commander-in-chief of the army and navy in this state, and of the militia, except when they shall be called into the service of the United States. Art. 5, s. 5.
58.-6. He may require information in writing, from the officers in the executive department, on any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices. Art. 5, s. 6.
59.-7. He may, in cases of emergency, convene the legislature at the seat of government, or at a different place, if that shall have become, since their last adjournment, dangerous from an enemy or from disease; and in case of disagreement between the two houses with respect to the time of adjournment, adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper, not beyond the day of the next stated meeting of the legislature. Art. 5, s. 7.
60.-8. He shall from time to time give to the legislature information of the state of the government, and recommend to their consideration, such measures as he may deem necessary and expedient. Art. 5, s. 8.
61.-9. He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed. Art. 5, s. 9.
62.-10. In all criminal and penal cases, except in those of treason and impeachment, he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons, and remit fines; and in cases of forfeiture to stay the collection until the end of the next session of the legislature, and to remit forfeitures by and with the advice and consent of the senate. In cases of treason he shall have power to grant reprieves by and with the advice and consent of the senate, but may respite the sentence until the end of the next session of the legislature. Art. 5, s. 10.
63.-11. All commissions shall be in the name and by the authority of the state of Mississippi; be sealed with the great seal, and signed by the governor, and be attested by the secretary of state. The governor is also invested with the veto power. Art. 5, s. 15 and 16.
64. Whenever the office of governor shall become vacant by death, resignation, removal from office, or otherwise, the president of the senate shall exercise the office of governor until another governor shall be duly qualified; and in case of the death, resignation, removal from office, or other disqualifications of the president of the senate so exercising the office of governor, the speaker of the house of representatives shall exercise the office, until a president of the senate shall have been chosen; and when the office of governor, president of the senate, and speaker of the house shall become vacant, in the recess of the senate, the person acting as secretary of state for the time being, shall by proclamation convene the senate, that a president may be chosen to exercise the office of governor. Art. 5, s. 17.

Mississippi

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Government and Higher Education

History

Native Inhabitants and European Settlement

Territorial Status and Statehood

Expansionism and Secession

Reconstruction

Disenfranchisement and Sharecropping

Public Works

The Persistence of Racial Conflict

Natural Disasters and Economic Difficulties

Bibliography

Mississippi,

Mississippi,

Course and Navigation

The Mississippi Delta

Attempts at Flood Control

History

Bibliography

Mississippi State Information

List of Mississippi counties:

Mississippi Parks

Mississippi

Mississippi

REFERENCES

Mississippi

Legal Holidays:

Mississippi

Mississippi

Mississippi

Synonyms for Mississippi

noun a major North American river and the chief river of the United States

Synonyms

Related Words

noun a state in the Deep South on the gulf of Mexico

Synonyms

Related Words