 According to Mississippian Democrat and future Confederate leader Jefferson Davis, Mississippi joined the Confederacy because it "has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free and equal", a sentiment perceived as being threatening to slavery, and because the "Declaration of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races", a position that Davis was opposed to.William L. Harris, one Mississippian secession commissioner, told a meeting of the Georgian general assembly that the Republicans wanted to implement "equality between the white and negro races" and thus secession was necessary for the slave states to resist their efforts.Fulton Anderson, another Mississippian, told the Virginian secession convention that the Republicans were hostile to the slave states themselves, thus accusing the Republican Party of having an "unrelenting and eternal hostility to the institution of slavery."