Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, January 21st, 1861, an incredibly tense day in the U.S. Capitol.

One observer talked about how they had sensed, quote, blood in the air as the Senate came to order.

And the reason was that this was the day that five Southern senators would give their

farewell address.

This culminated in remarks by Mississippi's Jefferson Davis, the acknowledged leader of the South in Congress.

Davis would, of course, on this day, announce that Mississippi was seceding to join the Confederacy.

He would go on to become president of the

Confederate States of America from 1861 to 1865. So here to discuss that moment

in the capital Jefferson Davis's speech and a little bit of

Jefferson Davis himself is as always Nicole Hammer of Columbia. Hello Nicky.

Hello Jody and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley hello Kelly.

Hi. Nicky you know I will say that and Kelly

Nicki, you know, I will say that in reading the accounts of this speech it's just the incredibly

riveting moment it's like really emotional and fraught and you know maybe I should have expected as such given

that it's about the country tearing itself apart but I wonder if we can just start

there can you talk a little bit about like what we know about what it was like

inside the Capitol at that moment leading up to Davis's speech.

Yeah, so the Congress was in session and the Senate actually postponed a vote on admitting

Kansas as a free state in order to make room for these speeches.

And so that's kind of the context that's overshadowing all of this.

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