1859, he was elected Governor. In his inaugural address, he said that the south's only way to maintain slavery was secession and called for the establishment of a southern confederacy. Following President Abraham Lincoln's election, on November 26, 1860, Pettus called for a Special Session of the Legislature and urged the Legislature to call for a convention to withdraw Mississippi from the Union. The Legislature called for a Secession Convention which convened in Jackson on January 7, 1861. Two days later, Mississippi officially seceded from the Union. On February 4, 1861, along with five other slave states, the Confederate States of America was established at Montgomery, Alabama. Pettus was re-elected in the fall of 1861. Pettus was succeeded by Charles Clark. Later life Ineligible under the Mississippi Constitution to run for a third term, Pettus was commissioned a colonel in the state militia. In September 1865 he took the oath of allegiance to the United States government, but failed on three separate occasions to receive a presidential pardon. After the war, he relocated to Pulaski County (present-day Lonoke County), Arkansas. Pettus died on January 25, 1867, of pneumonia and is buried in the Flat Bayou Cemetery, Jefferson County, Arkansas. See also List of governors of Mississippi List of lieutenant governors of Mississippi List of people from Tennessee List of pneumonia deaths List of slave owners References Further reading External links John J. Pettus at the National Governors Association John J. Pettus at The Political Graveyard 1813 births 1867 deaths 19th-century American lawyers 19th-century American politicians American Fire-Eaters American lawyers admitted to the practice of law by reading law American slave owners Burials at Flat Bayou Cemetery Confederate States of America state governors Deaths in Arkansas Deaths from pneumonia in Arkansas Democratic Party governors of Mississippi Farmers from Mississippi Lieutenant Governors of Mississippi Democratic Party members of the Mississippi House of Representatives Military personnel from Mississippi Mississippi lawyers Democratic Party Mississippi state senators People from Kemper County, Mississippi People from Wilson County, Tennessee People of Mississippi in the American Civil War Politicians from Jackson, Mississippi Pettus family Stateless people