Breckinridge for the South. The result was the election in November of Abraham Lincoln as Republican president. He carried all the northern states except New Jersey and his triumph convinced politicians in the South that slavery would soon be banned by an amendment to the constitution.
There were convinced unionists in all the southern states, but the prevailing opinion was that the prospect of the sudden liberation of four million negroes was a nightmare. South Carolina had joined the United States of its own free will in and believed that it had the right to leave when it chose. The state governor, William H. Gist, was determined on secession. At his urging the state legislature summoned a special convention, elected on December 6th, which assembled on the 17th.
Amid marching bands, fireworks and flag-waving rallies of citizens, at 1. For all that, South Carolina had no intention of remaining a separate country. Its example was swiftly followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas, which together created a new nation. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States.
Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States.
They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection. For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself.
A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.
The crisis was defused in by a compromise tariff, but the state had learned that cries of disunion could be an effective political weapon. While white South Carolinians remained vigilant to threats to slavery and continued to advance a doctrine of state sovereignty under the leadership of Senator John C.
Calhoun, there was little popular support for secession during the s and s. The escalating controversy over the expansion of slavery into the territory acquired from Mexico prompted South Carolina's secession crisis of - The Compromise of and the lack of broad-based support for secession in the South ended this crisis, but secessionists awaited their next opportunity.
The election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in fulfilled their dreams of a republic for slaveholders. Secession and Path to War. The South Carolina General Assembly called for a convention to consider secession following news of Lincoln's victory. The body included four former governors, three future governors, four former US senators, and five former US congressmen.
One hundred and fifty-three of the delegates held slaves in The delegates were primarily wealthy, middle-aged, slaveholding, native-born planters and lawyers. They voted uanimously to secede from the federal Union.
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