Secession Of South Carolina Essay

The document that I chose is the "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union". This document was addressed to the United States government. This document's main point is that the people of South Carolina decided on April 26, 1852 to secede from the United States due to "...encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States," but they were not allowed to and that "Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue." In essence, this document is the State of South Carolina declaring, and also giving their reasons for, their secession from the United States. The convention that met to draft this document met in the
This is a very significant document because it is documentation of the first state to secede from the United States. The other states that seceded after South Carolina followed the example set by South Carolina and used roughly the same reasoning as to why they were seceding too. These states would then form the Confederate States of America and fight the United States in a civil war. This document best represents the mentality of the South around the date of March, 1861, because it shows the fear the South felt of the North. They were afraid that the North's abolitionist and antislavery way of life would supersede the South’s slave-dependant way of life. The South’s economy heavily depended on the use of slaves while the North was much more industrialized and did not require the heavy labor usually reserved for slaves, so many northern states abolished slavery. If this happened in the South, the large plantation owners were afraid that they would no longer have the power, money, or influence that they once had. This fearful mentality was rampant in the South and South Carolina was the first to act on it through this