The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The proximate cause of the South's secession was the election of Abraham Lincoln with a Republican majority in 1860. 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. So deep was the division between North and South by now that the convention split into two separate groups which chose different candidates: Stephen A. Douglas for the North and John C. Breckinridge for the South. Three more states would follow. Instead a faction of radical secessionists called "fire-eaters" manipulated this situation towards their end of leaving the Union. Why did South Carolina want to secede from USA in the 1830's? For many years these laws were executed. The problem was the Unionists' argument in the convention hinged on Lincoln not using force against the Southern states in rebellion. Southern states never had the incentive to nurture any significant local productive capacity. Four slave states Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky did not secede from the Union. Finally, there is a chance that changes to the political environment would have enabled an orderly split into the United States and the Confederate States. Four days later, on May 20th, 1861, North Carolina became the last state to join the new Confederacy. The North experienced more immigration than the South. Your email address will not be published. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Would they have been deported en masse to Liberia as some free blacks had earlier been? Which is the last state to secede from the Union? Or perhaps the defeat of the South would have happened much more quickly in this scenario, without the attendant scars to the economy and the Southern psyche that were actually in place by 1865. South Carolina Secedes So Buchanans message pleased nobody. As early as 1835, when the postmaster in Charleston, South Carolina, found abolitionist material in the mail, he refused to deliver it and it was burned in public on a bonfire. When was kudzu introduced to the South and why? Clearly and undoubtedly, South Carolina identified the failure of northern states to abide by the national Fugitive Slave Act as the primary motivating factor for secession, especially given the recent (1860) rise to power of a political party committed to keeping the national territories free of slavery. The South wanted the slaves and needed them but the North did not. Fort Sumter on an island in Charleston harbour was under federal government control. One tactic to be potentially used by the Republicans would have been the creation of smaller states in the West to drive up the number of sympathetic legislators in Congress. This state was the first to secede from the union. Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. On December 26th of the same year, Robert Anderson, the Major of the US Army, moved his small battalion from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter. South Carolina is widely known as the Palmetto State in honor of our state tree, the Palmetto. The commander said they would stay. A collapse in cotton production would surely have led to a collapse in slave values and land values, dealing a double-blow to the plantation class and probably leading to a calamity in the financial system. The south had no justified reason to secede from the union. Charles Pinckney, a vocal critic of the Articles of Confederation and contributor to the US Constitution, served in the House of Representatives from 1819-21. a. Elias Howe and the Lockstitch Sewing Machine, Quakers, Abolitionism, and Women's Suffrage, Chinatown's Sex Slaves - Human Trafficking and San Francisco's History, The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 and its Effects, The History of the United States, in 10,000 Words, Joseph McCarthy, and Other Facets of the 1950s Red Scare. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. The Unionists victory showed that North Carolinians did not wish to leave the Union. Speculating on alternative history is always problematic, but I believe that it's useful in this case for the purposes of showing just how bad of an idea secession really was for the South in 1860. If Lincoln had let the 11 Southern states leave, Southern blacks eventually would have won their freedom. It was quickly followed up by the State House of Representatives giving a final approval in a 94-20 vote. On December 17, 1860, the South Carolina legislature called for a convention to discuss whether that state would make the monumental decision to secede from the United States, becoming the first state to take such action. Amid marching bands, fireworks and flag-waving rallies of citizens, at 1.15 in the afternoon of the 20th the delegates unanimously resolved to withdraw from the Union. The major issue that drove states to secession was slavery, but North Carolina's economy did not depend on slavery as much as the Deep South states did. South Carolina voted to secede from the United States as a result of Abraham Lincoln's election to the Presidency. Under any of these scenarios, a war like that from 1861-1865 killing 600,000 people and devastating the South seems beyond the worst-case scenario. However, it's unfortunately more likely that they would have suppressed a large scale rebellion with massive loss of life to the blacks involved -- followed by who knows what. The victory of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election triggered cries for disunion across the slaveholding South. He has created this site to empower Americans of all backgrounds to increase their historical literacy. The 169 delegates were primarily wealthy, middle-aged, slaveholding, native-born planters and lawyers. There have been at least a few discussions on whether Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans should have prosecuted the Civil War, but surprisingly very little analysis on whether South Carolina's secession in 1860 was a strategically wise move in the context of the American debate on slavery and states' rights. Because of that the people responsible for it presented the issue later as a question of whether the Union should have intervened and fought the Civil War -- avoiding the question of whether secession was wise in the first place. All of the states of the Deep South had now left the Union. 1 Why did South Carolina and 6 other states secede? The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". What happened when South Carolina seceded? Lincoln had, over time, voiced strong objections to slavery, and his incoming administration was viewed as a threat to the right of the states to keep their institutions, particularly that of slavery, the business of the states. What was the main goal of the Free-Soil Party? They did so playing on fears of a slave insurrection and the other points listed above, but by winning the political debate they triggered a premature and irrevocable decision. Similarly, when South Carolina's leaders promoted secession in 1860, they considered themselves the political heirs of the men of 1776. Would the U.S. military have taken it back by force, with an understanding that slavery would end thereafter? They wanted to stop slavery from spreading into the western territories. The surface nature of this arrangement has even led some observers to make the argument that slaves in the South were not poorly treated as a whole. Do any celebrities live in South Carolina? In February 1861 a congress in Montgomery, Alabama adopted a constitution for the new Confederate States of America. The eleven states of the CSA, in order of their secession dates (listed in parentheses), were: South Carolina (December 20, 1860), Mississippi (January 9, 1861), Florida (January 10, 1861), Alabama (January 11, 1861), Georgia (January 19, 1861), Louisiana (January 26, 1861), Texas (February 1, 1861), Virginia (April 17 . On December 20, 1860, a special convention called in South Carolina unanimously passed an ordinance of secession. As the Republican candidate, he received 1,887 votes in Virginia and did not appear on the ballot in any other state which eventually joined the Confederacy. Would these scenarios have represented an improvement (for the elite planter class) over the devastation of the Civil War, followed by the total abolition of slavery? Cotton as the predominant cash crop of the South survived until ecological issues rendered it untenable on a large scale. The Confederacy was revolting against the threat to their "property"their slavesand South Carolina's new bill is linked to potential violations of the Second Amendment and a . You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. There is an element of truth to that argument, insofar as slaves who cooperated with the system lived in a modicum of comfort, and insofar as they were much better off than slaves in the Caribbean and even some free whites. They may have had to resort to arms, but few could argue that the level of violence would have approached the 600,000 lives lost in the Civil War. Eleven states with declarations of secession from the Union formed the main part of the CSA. What percentage of South Carolina is black? That same day, the Confederate Congress voted to move the capital to Richmond, Virginia. Faced with these problems it's conceivable that the Republicans could have been the Party to split into two factions in 1864-1868, strange as that idea may sound. The state governor, William H. Gist, was determined on secession. Tariffs protected northern industries but disadvantaged the mature markets of southern agriculture cotton, tobacco, lumber. The convention adopted several resolutions explaining why the state was declaring secession. Representatives voted unanimously, 169 to 0 for secession. Its example was swiftly followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas, which together created a new nation. Since South Carolina was the catalyst, we will start there. While the effects were uneven, and recovery was possible after a few years, it is likely that the attack of the boll weevils would have bankrupted any plantation owner who lived on the edge of their credit line. While the seizure of a federal arsenal in John Brown's case made the intervention easy, would the same reaction have happened if 1,000 slaves rebelled? Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. South Carolina became the first state to secede from the federal Union on December 20, 1860. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana followed in January, and Texas voted to secede on February 1, 1861still more than a month before Lincoln was actually inaugurated. How Do You Get Rid Of Hiccups In 5 Seconds. He warned that the economic interests of North and South were at odds. It's very hard to speculate on how the federal government might have intervened had a serious slave rebellion taken hold in the 1860s or 70s. A rebellion started and driven entirely by the slaves themselves, or at most with assistance from free Southern blacks. The Confederacy was revolting against the threat to their "property"their slavesand South Carolina's new bill is linked to potential violations of the Second Amendment and a threat against propertytheir firearms. First, one of the main reasons for secession was tariffs. There is no obvious answer to the question of whether tens or hundreds of thousands of slaves might have been killed had a full-scale revolt actually broken out, as I will now examine. I believe that the most likely scenario from above is #1, combined with #3. An abolitionist wing which (obviously) placed the greatest emphasis on ending slavery. What does it mean that the Bible was divinely inspired? Abraham Lincoln (November 1860), the seven states of the Deep South (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas) seceded from the Union during the following months. Convinced that their way of life, based on slavery, was irretrievably threatened by the election of Pres. Slavery had been made illegal in all the northern states by the early 1800s and, with European immigrants supplying cheap labour for a burgeoning industrialised economy, the North saw an abolitionist movement gain strength. The southern states believed that they had the right to secede from the Union if they so chose, just as the original colonies had the right to secede from Great Britain. One hundred and fifty-three of the 169 delegates held slaves in 1860. Ruin their economy because it relied on slavery. Your email address will not be published. South Carolina probably seceded first for a couple of reasons. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The secessionists claimed that according to the Constitution every state had the right to leave the Union. The state seceded because a Republican, Abraham Lincoln, had been elected president. This group wanted the West to be free so that they (and not the Southern planters) could prosper from it. Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features. Those who fell out of line were beaten mercilessly and put on the worst jobs thereafter, and obviously those who attempted open rebellion (such as Nat Turner or Gabriel Prosser) were executed. While the civil war started in 1861 the secession of the South had already begun immediately after the presidential election of 1860 when South Carolina declared its independence on December 20th, 1860. Perhaps by the 1880s or 90s the more prescient of the planters would have seen a decline to the cotton ecology beginning, and would have been willing to "sell high" on the institution of slavery before it collapsed on them. What was South Africa's apartheid policy? If South Carolina were to secede from the United States as some officials are threatening to do, it wouldn't be the first time that state led a secession movement in a quarrel with the. They voted uanimously to secede from the federal Union. In October he had privately informed the other southern governors that South Carolina would secede if Lincoln won the election and in November he told Governor Pettus of Mississippi that he did not mean to let 'our weaker brethren' dodge the issue. Washington warned this meant war, and London feared Canada would quickly be seized by the Union army. They were still bound to the constitution, had no legal right to secede, and broke numerous laws such as forming an illegal alliance and attacking the United States (at Ft. The South Carolina General Assembly called for a convention to consider secession following news of Lincoln's victory. It does not store any personal data. The boll weevil attacks are just one hypothesis for how this system would have become obsolete. At the first sign of such overtures, the abolitionists might have withdrawn from the Republicans and formed a new Liberty Party. The nullification crisis was a conflict between the U.S. state of South Carolina and the federal government of the United States in 1832-33. You just studied 20 terms! In any case, I have used the four hypotheticals above to reiterate the point that secession was a gross strategic error. Republicans wanted to stop slavery from spreading. Below are four scenarios that might have occurred had South Carolina (and by extension the rest of the eventual Confederacy) held tight after Lincoln's election and not withdrawn from the Union. The event of a mass slave rebellion in and of itself might have been the kind of catalyst for end to slavery -- perhaps one that would have proceeded in a very different manner from what actually transpired. In April Davis ordered it to be attacked and the garrison surrendered. 1)The state's leaders believed that Lincoln was hostile to slavery. The bombardment of the beleaguered U.S. garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861 is generally recognized as the first military engagement of the war. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. It is unclear whether he could have forced a resolution on the end of slavery in the Western territories. The delegates were assembled to debate "secession" as a legal right and to craft an ordinance that would tender Virginia's withdrawal from the United States of America. Which event had the biggest impact on the South seceding? I don't think that is likely, but we know for sure that it didn't happen when the South seceded unprovoked in 1860. 2)Lincoln stated that he wanted to support slavery. , Darius Rucker. In that case, this essay aims to examine two things: It is the contention here that secession was an utter disaster for the South. The secession of South Carolina precipitated the outbreak of the American Civil War in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861. 2022 - 2023 Times Mojo - All Rights Reserved Why did the Union not want the South secede? This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. By not seceding they would have, in this scenario, bought themselves an additional few decades of the slave system with all of the profits which that would have entailed. Yes. On January 9th, 1861, Mississippi joined South Carolina. Did Queen Victoria support the Confederacy? d. People in the state felt the Crittenden Compromise had failed. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. South Carolina became the first state to secede from the federal Union on December 20, 1860. The Secession Convention of that state produced a document entitled, "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union". What is the number one crop in South Carolina? The South seceded because they did not want the North to be able to tell them what to do. Delegates voted 84 to 15 to secede from the Union. However, abolitionists were not dominant in the Party as of 1860 -- it would take four years of Civil War to win many of the moderates over to the cause of the 13th Amendment. By clicking Accept All, you consent to the use of ALL the cookies. The Republicans propose an abolition amendment at some point after 1860, but while the nation is still united. The South, however, regarded slavery as crucial to its plantation economy, society and traditions. (March 01, 2023), Office of the HistorianOffice of Art and Archives He demanded that the federal troops leave Fort Sumter. Charlestonians celebrated with bonfires, parades, and the ringing of church bells. It is also true that an abolitionist wing of the Republicans did support an immediate end to slavery. Secession was driven by the Southern planter class. In 1860 the Democrats met in Charleston to select a candidate for the years presidential election. Why did the South Secede? Citing states rights doctrine, South Carolina voted to nullify the federal tariffs of 1828 and 1832. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". Why did South Carolina and 6 other states secede? The declaration stated the primary reasoning behind South Carolina's declaring of secession from the U.S., which was described as " increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the Institution of Slavery ". Historianoffice of Art and Archives he demanded that the federal Union on December 20, 1860, a war that! 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