Secession of South Carolina from the United States of America
... slavery, led a group of men on an attack against the U.S. arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, in an effort to gain the weapons needed to build an anti-slavery army and also to send a strong message to the south that slavery would be fought with force (John Brown's Raid, 1859). Ironically, Brown was captured and hanged for rebellion against the U.S., but this action sent a clear message to the pro-slavery states that action needed to be taken to protect the institution of slavery. South Carolina Leads the Secession Movement Following John Brown’s raid, the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States in 1860 brought more urgency to the secession movement. Lincoln, a staunch anti-slavery president, wanted to eradicate slavery, but had consider the rumors of secession to be the complaints of a small southern minority, and that the common bond all Americans felt would prevent any state from leaving the Union(Secession Crisis). The fact is that nothing could be further from the truth. Beginning in the early 1850s, the sentiments of fierce states rights supporters like South Carolina’s legendary John C. Calhoun, planted the seeds of secession. Echoing the feelings of the late Calhoun, the congress of South Carolina called a convention to consider secession in November, 1860, shortly after Lincoln’s election. Participating in that convention were well known secessionists, known as fire-eaters, such as Robert Barnwell Rhett, Sr. The fire-eaters operated out of the restrictions of traditional politics, and therefore played by their own rules to advance their secessionist views (Phillips). On December 20 of that same year, that convention unanimously passed a resolution of secession. The news of the resolution, which was viewed by many to be a “divorce from the North”, sparked celebrations, fireworks, and ringing church bells, much like American independence did less than a century before (American Civil War Introduction). The die was cast for a revolution, from which there was no turning back, at least for South Carolina. In a bold move, the state took the first action that so many other states in the south had contemplated for so long. Effects of South Carolina’s Secession When South Carolina seceded from the Union, the action was the first domino to fall so to speak. Emboldened by the South Carolina decision, the other states that would eventually make up the Confederate States of America- Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Tennessee- followed this example and broke away from the U.S. South Carolina Sparks Civil War South Carolina’s intense desire for freedom from the constraints of the U.S. culminated in the conflict at Fort Sumter, Charleston, on April 12, 1861. Based on previously unsuccessful efforts for South Carolina to gain control of this fort, still under U.S. military control, South Carolina formed a huge army of its own and attacked Fort Sumter, gaining control of it and killing U.S. soldiers in the process. This act of rebellion constituted treason against the U.S., and in response, Abraham Lincoln called up 75,000 troops to squash the confederacy. ...