f November 7th decided the result of the national election.
From this time onward everything was adroitly managed to swell the
revolutionary furor. The people of South Carolina, and especially of
Charleston, indulged in a continuous holiday, amid unflagging
excitement, and, while singing the Marseillaise, prepared for war!
Everybody appeared to be satisfied,--the conspirators, because their
schemes were progressing, and the people, because, innocently duped,
they hoped for success.

The first half of the month of December had worn away. A new governor,
Francis W. Pickens, ruled the destinies of South Carolina. A Convention,
authorized by the Legislature, met at Columbia, the capital of the
State, and, on the 20th of December, passed unanimously what it called
an ordinance of secession, in the following words:--

We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled,
do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, that the
ordinance adopted by us in convention on the 23d day of May, in the
year of our Lord 1788, whereby the Constitution of the United States
of America was ratified, and also all Acts and parts of Acts of the
General Assembly of this State ratifying amendments of the said
Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the Union now subsisting
between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the United
States of America, is hereby dissolved.

The ordinance was immediately made known by huge placards, issued from
the Charleston printing-offices, and by the firing of guns, the ringing
of bells, and other jubilations. The same evening South Carolina was
proclaimed an "independent commonwealth." Said one of the chief actors:
"The secession of South Carolina is not an event of a day. It is not
anything produced by Mr. Lincoln's election, or by the non-execution of
the Fugitive-Slave Law. It is a matter which has been gathering head for
thirty years." This was a distinct affirmation, which is corroborated by
other and abundant testimony, that the revolt was not only against
right, but that it was utterly without cause.

The events which took place in South Carolina were, in substance,
duplicated in her sister States of the South. Mississippi seceded on
January 9, 1861; Florida, on January 10; Alabama, on January 11;
Georgia, on January 18; Louisiana, on January 26; and Texas, on February
1; but not a single State, except Texas, dared to submit its or