The Secession of South Carolina, December 20, 1860

But the means which may be sufficient to prevent diseases are not usually sufficient to remedy them. In slight cases of recent date, they may be; but additional means are necessary to restore health, when the system has been long and deeply disordered. Such, at present, is the condition of our political system. The very causes which have occasioned its disorders have, at the same time, led to consequences not to be removed by the means which would have prevented them. They have destroyed the equilibrium between the two great sections, and alienated the mutual attraction between them, which led to the formation of the Union, and the establishment of a common government for the promotion of the welfare of all.

—John C. Calhoun, A Disquisition on Government and a Discourse on the Constitution and Government of the United States

The voice of sectionalism had been dead for ten years when South Carolina seceded from the Union on December 20, 1860. John C. Calhoun served his state and country as a representative, secretary of war, vice president, and ultimately, senator. He had been very much a nationalist until he could no longer tolerate the federal threat of increasing the tariff and the abolitionist discourse. Calhoun, however, had spoken loudly enough in his day for the echo yet to be heard in the legislative halls of the state in the weeks after the 1860 presidential election.

The South Carolina Ordinance of Secession—the first signature act that would propel the United States into civil war—was not the first time that the state had reacted against federal sovereignty. In 1832, led by Calhoun, South Carolina approved an Ordinance of Nullification, which was intended to serve notice on the United States government that South Carolina would not tolerate a high tariff. An eventual reduction of the tariff caused the South Carolina state legislature to repeal its act of nullification, but the debate over the rights of the states versus centralized federal control was merely brought down to a simmer from a boil. It would boil again soon, and then catch fire.

South Carolina's secession was the first in a series to occur before Abraham Lincoln's inauguration in March 1861. As if to instruct the rest of the South in the protocol of rebellion, South Carolina not only led the way in secession from the United States, but it would also provide the first battleground for the Civil War when Fort Sumter was fired upon by Confederate troops on April 12, 1861.

—Warren Perry, Catalog of American Portraits, National Portrait Gallery

Special thanks to James Barber, NPG historian, for discussing sectionalism and secession with me during the preparation of this article.

For an interesting story on the multiple copies of the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession, please visit the South Carolina State Archives link: http://wayback.archive-it.org/1455/20090406143534/http://www.scdah.sc.gov/virtual/ordsec.htm

For a brief account of the Battle of Fort Sumter, please see the National Park Service link: http://www.nps.gov/hps/abpp/battles/sc001.htm