South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession

Impact

The South Carolina document was incendiary. It fully intended to encourage other states to secede from the Union, and in this aim, it enjoyed mixed success. Its influence in the Lower South was very high. Within six weeks of its own secession, six other states followed suit. Of course, the justifications for secession adduced in the document were embraced in other southern states, which was to be expected, since they reflected what was by then a generally understood proposition that states were sovereign entities and that they might withdraw from the Union at their pleasure.

The assertion in the document, moreover, of the compact theory linked the past, the present, and the future. Earlier generations had embraced a similar doctrine, and subsequent generations of Americans would embrace it as well to advance state interests against a powerful federal government. Of course, the concept of the compact theory, like its previous and subsequent iterations, had the potential for ugly and frightening application, as seen in the reaction of southern states to the efforts of civil rights advocates and marchers in the 1950s and 1960s.

In the end, the fact that the compact theory failed to explain the origin and nature of the Constitution retains a high degree of satisfaction. Indeed, if the secessionists had succeeded in their quest, the theory would have produced avolatile political climate in the United States. Different states in different regions would have possessed authority to come and go as they please. That would be a recipe for disaster, and it would disrupt the essence of democratic government—compromise. States would have issued ultimatums, and little good could have been accomplished in the nation. Fortunately, the South Carolina document did not have that impact.