South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession

Context

The election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in 1860 proved to be the tipping point for South Carolina. Fearful that Lincoln would place the law of slavery on a path toward its extinction, as he had indicated in 1858 in his famous “House Divided” Speech, secessionists in South Carolina, on the very day that Lincoln was elected—November 6—called for a convention to remove their state from the Union.

Although Lincoln's election triggered secession in South Carolina and, within six weeks, in six other states in the Lower South, the decision to secede did not necessarily reflect the best interests of the South. Indeed, it has been widely perceived as a  blunder  of historic proportions. Nor was it one that required immediacy. In fact, while Lincoln's victory unleashed great fears throughout the region, it did not engender a uniform response.

Three different positions developed in response to Lincoln's election. The first, held by the “fire-eaters,” argued for immediate secession. Members of this camp, the most radical of the three, believed that each state should secede without waiting for a decision from other states. Its members expressed great concern about the threat posed to slavery and, somewhat more generally, to the status of white supremacy. The second group, known as the “cooperationists,” argued that states should not act individually, but collectively, in response to Lincoln's victory. The third position, that of the “unconditional unionists,” reflected clear opposition to the idea of secession. Proponents of this position lived principally in the border states: Maryland, Kentucky, Delaware, and Missouri. It is likely that the cooperationists held the dominant position in the Lower South, and this may have caused the North to believe as a result that the South was not inclined to secede. But the North's confusion of cooperationism with unionism ignored the fact that the cooperationists subscribed to the belief that states possessed the right to secede. The real issue for that camp involved determinations of timing and tactics.

Apart from divisions on issues of methods and timing, the Lower South was united by its belief in state sovereignty and states' rights, its insistence on a constitutional property right to slaves, and its considerable fear of northern intentions. Lincoln's election unleashed a panoply of fears. South Carolinian secessionists hammered away at a grim future under Lincoln and the Republicans, who, they believed, meant to abolish slavery. Secessionists, for example, pointed to the impact on the South of Republican opposition to the extension of slavery in the western territories. The net result, they argued, would be the incorporation in the Union of additional free states, which would easily outnumber southern states in Congress. Congress would repeal the Fugitive Slave Act, and slaves would engage in a mass migration to the North, depriving the South of its labor pool. Lincoln, it was charged, would appoint Republicans to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the institution that had been long controlled by Southern justices would become a tool of the North. Finally, Congress might employ means of abolishing slavery altogether. In sum, the southern way of life was jeopardized by the ascension of Lincoln. In this context, the secessionists won converts, and South Carolina withdrew from the Union.