ely to
a public and official revolutionary act.

On the 12th of October, 1860, he issued his proclamation convening the
Legislature of South Carolina in extra session, "to appoint electors
of President and Vice-President ... and also that they may, if
advisable, take action for the safety and protection of the State."
There was no external peril menacing either the commonwealth or its
humblest citizen; but the significance of the phrase was soon
apparent.

[Sidenote] South Carolina "House Journal," Called Session, 1860,
pp. 10, 11.

A caucus of prominent South Carolina leaders is said to have been held
on October 25, at the residence of Senator Hammond. Their
deliberations remained secret, but the determination arrived at
appears clearly enough in the official action of Governor Gist, who
was present, and who doubtless carried out the plans of the
assemblage. When the Legislature met on November 5 (the day before the
Presidential election) the Governor sent them his opening message,
advocating both secession and insurrection, in direct and undisguised
language. He recommended that in the event of Lincoln's election, a
convention should be immediately called; that the State should secede
from the Federal Union; and "if in the exercise of arbitrary power and
forgetful of the lessons of history, the Government of the United
States should attempt coercion, it will be our solemn duty to meet
force by force." To this end he recommended a reorganization of the
militia and the raising and drilling an army of ten thousand
volunteers. He placed the prospects of such a revolution in a most
hopeful and encouraging light. "The indications from many of the
Southern States," said he, "justify the conclusion that the secession
of South Carolina will be immediately followed, if not adopted
simultaneously, by them, and ultimately by the entire South. The
long-desired cooeperation of the other States having similar
institutions, for which the State has been waiting, seems to be near
at hand; and, if we are true to ourselves, will soon be realized."

Governor Gist's justification of this movement as attempted was (in
his own language) "the strong probability of the election to the
Presidency of a sectional candidate by a party committed to the
support of measures, which if carried out will inevitably destroy our
equality in the Union, and ultimately reduce the Southern States to
mere provinces of a consolidated despotism to be go