These views, however, soon fell into disfavor throughout the North, and the period of indecision on either side ceased when Fort Sumter was fired upon. The Gulf States openly made their preparations as soon as the result of the Presidential election was known, as a rule pursuant to a previous understanding. The following, condensed from Hon. Edward McPherson’s “Political History of the United States of America during the Great Rebellion,” is a correct statement of the movements which followed, in the several Southern States:
SOUTH CAROLINA.
November 5th, 1860. Legislature met to choose Presidential electors, who voted for Breckinridge and Lane for President and Vice-President. Gov. William H. Gist recommended in his message that in the event of Abraham Lincoln’s election to the Presidency, a convention of the people of the State be immediately called to consider and determine for themselves the mode and measure of redress. He expressed the opinion that the only alternative left is the “secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.”
7th. United States officials resigned at Charleston.
10th. U. S. Senators James H. Hammond and James Chestnut, Jr., resigned their seats in the Senate. Convention called to meet Dec. 17th. Delegates to be elected Dec. 6th.
13th. Collection of debts due to citizens of non-slaveholding States stayed. Francis W. Pickens elected Governor.
17th. Ordinance of Secession adopted unanimously.
21st. Commissioners appointed (Barnwell, Adams, and Orr) to proceed to Washington to treat for the possession of U. S. Government property within the limits of South Carolina. Commissioners appointed to the other slaveholding States. Southern Congress proposed.
24th. Representatives in Congress withdrew.
Gov. Pickens issued a proclamation “announcing the repeal, Dec. 20th, 1860, by the good people of South Carolina,” of the Ordinance of May 23d, 1788, and “the dissolution of the union between the State of South Carolina and other States under the name of the United States of America,” and proclaiming to the world “that the State of South Carolina is, as she has a right to be, a separate, sovereign, free and independent State, and, as such, has a right to levy war, conclude peace, negotiate treaties, leagues, or covenants, and to do all acts whatsoever that rightfully appertain to a free and independent State.