South Carolina, with other prominent politicians, met and unanimously
resolved that if Lincoln should win, the Palmetto State ought to
renounce the Union. Similar meetings were held in Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, and Florida. Governor Gist sent a confidential circular to
the governors of all the cotton States declaring that South Carolina
would secede with any other State, or would make the plunge alone if
others would promise to follow. The governors of Florida, Alabama, and
Mississippi replied that their States would certainly do this. Georgia
proposed to wait for some overt act by the National Government. North
Carolina and Louisiana, it was learned, would probably not go out at
all.

But the enthusiasts in South Carolina had got all the encouragement they
wanted, and bided their time. Their time was at hand. The presidential
election fell on November 6th. Next day the tidings flashed over the
land that Abraham Lincoln had been elected President by the vote of a
solid North against a solid South. The wires had scarcely ceased to
thrill with this message of death to slavery-extension, when South
Carolina sounded a trumpet-call to the South. Her Legislature ordered a
secession state convention to meet in December, issued a call for 10,000
volunteers, and voted money for the purchase of arms. Federal
office-holders resigned. Judge Magrath, of the United States District
Court, laid aside his robes, declaring, "So far as I am concerned, the
temple of Justice raised under the Constitution of the United States is
now closed." Militia organized throughout the State. The streets of
Charleston echoed nightly with the tramp of drilling minute-men.
Secession orators harangued enthusiastic crowds. Hardly a coat but bore
a secession cockade. November 17th, the Palmetto flag was unfurled in
Charleston. It was a gala day. Cannon roared, bands played the
Marseillaise, and processions paraded the streets bearing such mottoes
as "Let's Bury the Union's Dead Carcass!" "Death to All Abolitionists!"
The whole South was beside itself with excitement. One State after
another assembled its convention to decide the question of secession.
Even the Georgia Legislature, within a week after the election of
Lincoln, voted $1,000,000 to arm the State.

The South Carolina convention met at Charleston, and on December 20th
unanimously adopted an ordinance declaring:

"The union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under
the n