Question

What caused South Carolina to secede from the United States?

Answer 1

The South seceded for one reason and one reason only--to perpetuate the institution of slavery. Read all their declarations of secession, read their constitutions: it is all there in black and white.

It was only years later, when slavery was abolished and had become (almost) universally condemned, that the mythologizing began. It became the War Between the States, the "War of Northern Aggression" (although it was South Carolina who attacked the Union), the "Lost Cause."

But it's all propaganda generated after the fact, and attempt to excuse the inexcusable, that the southerners were traitors, who took up arms against their own country. And they did it so they could continue to enslave people.

This is what the Southerners, in their own words, declared:

Mississippi...
....Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin...

South Carolina...

...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. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.


From the declaration of secession in Texas...

...in this free government *all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights* [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states....

Virginia...

"The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitition were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States.

The Vice-President of the Confederacy itself...

"The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew." Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth..."

South Carolina's Declaration of Causes of Secession
Here is the "Statement of Causes Of Secession" that South Carolina used to justify its withdrawal from the Union. Tell me if there is any doubt that slavery was the primary issue.

"South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession December 24,1860


The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 2d day of April, A.D. 1852, declared that frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States of America by the Federal Government, and it's encroachment upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in their withdrawal from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other Slave holding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time these encroachments have continued to increase, and the forbearance ceases to be a virtue. And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes that lead to this act. We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been destructive of them by the action of the nonslaveholding States. Those States have assumed 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 the open establishment among them of societies whose avowed object is to disturb the peace of elfin 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, all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of all the United States whose opinions and purposes are hostile to Slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free, and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. This sectional combination for the subversion of the Constitution has been aided, in some of the States, by elevating to citizenship persons who, by the supreme law if the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its peace and safety. On the 4th of March next this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the Judicial Tribunal shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against Slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States. The guarantees of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The Slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy. Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation; and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that the public opinion of the North has invested a great political error with the sanctions of a more erroneous religious belief. We, therefore, the people of South Carolina, by our delegates in convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent state, with the full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do. "






Why Did the South Secede In 1860?

For one reason and one reason only, to protect the institution of slavery which they perceived as being threatened by the Republican Party and the Lincoln administration.

It was largely about slavery. If there is doubt, read this: "Our government is founded upon the supposition. . . that the white man is not equal to the black man, that slavery is his natural and normal condition. . . Our government is the first in the world to be founded upon this. . . fact" (approximate quote) --Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States of America, 1861. Quoted in BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM by James M. McPherson.(By the way, Lincoln did not tax the South into seceding from the Union; most of them seceded after his election but before he took the oath of office. Also, the North mostly fought for Union, not against slavery)

Because they thought the new republican administration was going to take steps to abolish slavery and they wanted to protect that institution.

The Declaration of Independence did not proclaim the existence of one new nation but rather of thirteen independent and sovereign states. If you look it up in the dictionary you will find that the word state is actually synonymous with country. When the Constitution was written each of these states acted in its own sovereign capacity to decide whether or not to join the union. None of them had to. Indeed, George Washington had already been sworn in as president and the first congress was already in session before Rhode Island decided to join. The Constitution specifically gives some powers to the federal government and explicitly reserves all other powers to the states. Based on all this it could reasonably be argued that the states still possessed the sovereign power to withdraw from a union they had entered voluntarily. The Southern states put this theory to the test by attempting to secede. The political reason for their secession was to protect the institution of slavery which they saw as threatened by the new Republican party.

New Englanders had contemplated secession at the Hartford Convention. While it was obviously the position of the Union that the Union could not legally be dissolved, its fair to say that the South had at least some basis to say that they could leave the Union. The concept of a 'state' was much more important in the 18th and 19th Centuries.

The government wanted the southern states to give up their slaves.

Answer 2

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_did_the_South_secede_from_the_Union

Answer 3

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Answer 4

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