Preview

Essay On The Secession Of South Carolina

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
671 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Essay On The Secession Of South Carolina
In the last month of 1860 many articles were written previous to, and following, the secession of South Carolina. South Carolina separated from the Union that constitutes the United States December 20, 1860. The articles: Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union, New-York Daily Tribune – The Right of Secession and, New-York Times – Peaceable Secession, are all writings specific to South Carolina’s secession from the US. All three sources were written within a week of each other and roughly a month before the first hostile act of the Civil war, and demonstrate the tension and division that the idea of secession put on both the Union and the Confederation. Since written from different perspectives and different people, the three articles have strong, but very different opinions on the secession of states such as and including South Carolina. …show more content…
The constitution is a contract between states and federal government that create fundamental principles and established precedents on how a state will be governed. This contract, in the opinion of the Confederate States of America, has been broken by the federal government, which has lead to the secession of South Carolina. In document Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina, the main purpose is to justify their leaving the Union. The document argues that the government became “destructive of the ends for which it is instituted.” This is the justification of the State of South Carolina; if the government can break the contract that is the constitution then the state can leave the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    One of the main unresolved issues of the Constitution was succession. The writers of this document did not consider that any state would ever wish to leave the union, and so did not address whether or not a state could secede. As a result of the Constitution's failure to address this issue, when the southern states wanted to leave the union, it was considered unconstitutional to use force to stop this uprising. James Buchanan was in support of the states' rights to leave the union if they did not feel they were properly represented. He stated in Document G, "The Southern States, standing of the basis of the Constitution, have a right to demand this act of justice from the States of the North." He also comments on the power of Congress to use force in keeping a state from succeeding, saying "... no such power has been delegated to Congress." Abraham Lincoln thought the opposite, and did not support the southern states' movement toward succession. He believes that because no state has ever been a state outside of the union, it does not have the right to…

    • 737 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In excerpt one and two below, South Carolina starts talking about freedom and the rights United States had at that time. In excerpt two, it states; “An amendment was added [to the United States Constitution], which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.” This statement says that South Carolina believed they didn’t have any say in where they lived or how they ruled.…

    • 1037 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Dbq 1850's

    • 670 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Constitution can be interpreted in many different ways, which leads to sectional discord and tension. For many reasons, the South evidently did not…

    • 670 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Constitution was made in order to keep peace between its people however, certain topics were not talked about. As an emerging country many new problems and situations occurred and were brought up. Economically the North and the South were completely different. The constitution failed to address slavery, which was important to the South By not addressing this topic the North and the South began having tension between each other. Not talking about slavery backfired because the North and the South disagreed on the topic of slavery and they eventually went to war, due to the differences based on the constitution.…

    • 734 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Constitution DBQ

    • 1340 Words
    • 6 Pages

    At the end of the American Revolution, the free states needed some sort of control that would generate to a unified country. Issues arose to how power should be divided between local and national governments, common laws or the protection of the unalienable individual rights. Their first attempt at solving this issue was the Articles of Confederation, which was a failure for the most part, but not completely as it formed a template for a new document. After the failure of the articles, the state delegates tried to revise the articles, but instead, constructed the Constitution. One of many distinction between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution is the creation of the legislature. Representation of one state, while disregarding the population of the state, angered many people. The Constitution is known today as the foundation of American government. But before its ratification, debates arose regarding several unresolved and problematic factors that the Articles of Confederation failed to come to a resolution. Under the Articles of Confederation, the states had far more power than did the federal government. As a result, when writing the Constitution, they sought to maintain balance between state and federal power in a way where it would benefit the nation, shifting the power to the federal government. Slavery was never mentioned in the articles, yet the North and the South began a dispute over its existence. Alongside the creation of legislature defining distinction between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, the division of power between state and federal government and the existence and purpose of slavery are issues debated prior to the ratification of the Constitution.…

    • 1340 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Why Did John Brown's Raid

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Although initially the Northern press expressed deep sympathy for Brown, saying that “we would be glad to avert the axe which hangs over the old man's head”, the impending secession crisis and the coming presidential election of 1860 required Northern press to be very careful with their political opinions. At that moment, the North’s chief political endeavor was to prevent rather than hastening Southern states from seceding. In one of its editorials, Chicago’s Press and Tribune characterized this raid as a “fanaticism action” and stated sincerely that “as long as we are a part of the Union, supporting the constitution and the laws”, Old Brown was answerable for the “legal consequence of his act”(2). The Northern newspaper had done their best to calm the slaveholders down and persuade them to stay in the…

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    So now this can explain, why were certain groups were for secession? The people who were for secession were mainly the slave owners and the people who were against freeing slaves. Just about all of the south. The South was like the North has all of the factories and we the south we only trade and they are trying to take that away from us.…

    • 632 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    South Carolina's very first openly gay legislature comes from the most improbable of homes, where a conservative part of the state has the Christian Fundamentalist School Bob Jones University. The republican representative, Jason Elliot, the first openly gay divorce attorney in south Carolina says his sexual orientation is unimportant in the role he plays working at the statehouse. He says his focus will be set on improving education, increasing jobs, and repairing and up keeping the states derelict roads and bridges. He also states "Every South Carolinian has equal rights, not special rights, and i believe each part of the constitution is equally important," He goes on to elaborate "In south Carolina, that means respecting other peoples viewpoints…

    • 285 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    american civil war

    • 1190 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Although these did cause less tension a little, they were only delaying the inedible. It started when Abraham Lincoln was voted as president. South Carolina was the leader of the southern states and began the secession of the states. After Lincoln was inaugurated in 1860, seven states ceded from the Union and soon after four more joined them. The south believed that they had the constitutional right to secede. In Document A, South Carolina feared that the north would gain enough power over the south that they would abolish slavery in the south. South Carolina felt that their powers were being unrecognized, so they had no choice but to secede from the Union. This was the start of a very bloody war for both the northern and southern states. This conflict led to the Emancipation Proclamation and the freeing of the slaves in the south. However this was only the beginning of the revolution…

    • 1190 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Slavery In Secession

    • 988 Words
    • 4 Pages

    This was an argument that was used mainly by Georgia when they decided to leave union. “A united north was now strong enough to control the government in all of its departments.” This statement was their basis for leaving the union. It was a belief that the south could no longer defend slavery while within in the union from the more populous north. Mississippi had a similar stance “We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property (slaves) worth billions of money, or we must secedes” Mississippi also saw the ultimate destruction of slavery in their near future if they remained in the union. Mississippi and all of the other Deep South states believed that if the Border States remained in the Union, the federal government would eventually take away their slaves. It was due in part to this belief that the Deep South argued to the Border States that secession from the Union was their only viable option to retain…

    • 988 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Civil War Essay

    • 399 Words
    • 2 Pages

    There were many contributions that were made during the Civil War that have made an impact on us today, including weapons, medicine, and fighting tactics. These have all improved with today’s technology. They have also become more sophisticated.…

    • 399 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Threats started to become stronger because the South believed the North would try to force their values into the South (Trueman). South Carolina decided to secede from the Union on December 20, 1860. It was a very bad sign for all the states, showing that South Carolina no longer felt part of the United States of America. It also showed that the United States of America as a federal government was destroying an existence of people settled in a comfortable place in the eyes of the north (Trueman). World War…

    • 906 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Causes of the Civil War

    • 940 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In 1791, the tenth amendment was added to the Constitution. The tenth amendment states that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people." (Bailey 16) This amendment was the basis in which the South kept slavery. The states believed that since nothing was written in the Constitution about who should decide about the slavery issue, that therefore the states had the power to decide. On the other hand, the North didn 't feel such a issue was part of states ' rights. South Carolina was the first state to secede from the nation; other southern states followed after, thus causing the Civil War. After South Carolina adopted an Ordinance of Secession, the South…

    • 940 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    In 1861 delegates from all over the south met in Montgomery, Alabama, to establish a new nation. This new nation would be called the Confederate States of America, declaring itself a provisional(temporary) Congress. “The countries that attended this convention were Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas. Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens were chosen unanimously as the provisional president and the vice president in order to convince the other undecided slave states to join the Confederacy. A committee spent five weeks composing a national constitution, that was later approved on March 11. The document closely followed the U.S. Constitution-including its Bill of Rights-with a few notable differences. Language supporting "the general welfare" was taken away, while the right to own slaves was clearly assured even though foreign slave trade was not allowed.”#…

    • 1085 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the early days of the United States, loyalty to one’s state often took precedence over loyalty to one’s country. The Union was considered a “voluntary compact entered into by independent, sovereign states” for as long as it served their purpose to be so joined (Encarta). Neither the North nor South had any strong sense permanence of the Union. As patterns of living diverged between North and South, their political ideas also developed marked differences. The North needed a central government to build an infrastructure of roads and railways, protect its complex trading and financial interests and control the national currency. The South depended much less on industrialization and federal government than other regions did and therefore felt no need to strengthen it. In addition, Southern patriots feared that a strong central government might interfere with slavery. One of the largest disputes between North and South was over tariffs, or taxes placed on imported goods and increased the price of manufactured articles. Due to its resistance of industrialization, the South had to import almost all manufactured goods, making them strictly opposed to high tariffs. The North on the other hand, demanded them to protect its own products from cheap foreign competition. Contrasting social, economic and political points of view such as these gradually drove the two sections farther and farther apart. Each tried to impose its own interests on the country as a whole. Although compromises had kept the Union together for many years, in 1860 the situation was explosive. Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th president, which was viewed by the South as a grave threat to slavery and therefore a threat to the entire way of life. The only feasible course of action then was secession and war. So in 1861 seven states including South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas, initially seceded from the Union. Not long after Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee…

    • 1874 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays