conclusion to the decades-long series of regional issues that threatened American unity and South Carolinas identity as one of the United States. To understand how South Carolina came to be at the center of this conflict, you will be able to evaluate the arguments of unionists, cooperationists, and secessionists on the issues of states rights and slavery and the ways that these arguments contributed to South Carolinas secession.
Members of the South Carolina
secession convention in 1860 voted unanimously to secede from the Union. However, there were South Carolinians who strongly discouraged secession prior to the national election of 1860. Unionists favored the idea of remaining part of the Union. Although Unionists did not necessarily agree with the actions of the Northern states or the federal government, they did believe that the United States Constitution was well equipped to protect South Carolinas way of life. Cooperationists were South Carolinians who favored seceding from the Union but only as a last resort and if other southern states joined with South Carolina. They believed to secede alone would be a big mistake. Secessionists, or fire-eaters, were radicals who felt that leaving Image from: http://www.quibblo.com/quiz/fOaZQfE/Wouldthe Union was the only answer to preserve South Carolinas you-have-been-a-Confederate-or-Unionculture. Fire-eaters had supported secession since 1852, but soldier-in-the-Civil-War most South Carolinians only supported this view after the 2. Which perspective (unionist, turbulent 1850s and Lincolns election.
1. How do you feel this cartoon represents antebellum
America?
cooperationist, secessionist) do you feel was the correct and why?
Once Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United
States in 1860, South Carolina carried out its threat to secede. The South Carolina legislature called a special convention that met at the First Baptist Church in Columbia. The convention moved to Charleston, where support for secession was the strongest, after a small pox outbreak was rumored to be
perspective (unionist, cooperationist, secessionist) was in the majority in the South?
spreading in Columbia. The
leaders voted unanimously to adopt an Ordinance of Secession, a political statement that said the federal government should not interfere with states rights. Many South Carolinians felt that since Lincoln was a Republican that the federal government would make slavery illegal-ending southern culture and influence. Before Lincoln could be inaugurated, South Carolina was joined by six other southern states that seceded from the Union in attempt to protect the institution of slavery upon which their way of life depended.