Thursday, December 20, 1860
South Carolina secedes. According to Ordinance of Secession passed by the state legislature , the “ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding 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 and purloin 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…”
Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War 