outh Carolina, and the radical champion of States Rights,
Nullification, and Slavery, his brilliant fame was the pride, but his
false theories became the ruin, of his State and section.

[Sidenote] South Carolina "House Journal," Called Session, 1860,
pp. 16, 17.

Governor Gist and his secession coadjutors had evidently still a
lingering hope that the election might by some unforeseen contingency
result in the choice of Breckinridge. On no other hypothesis can we
account for the fact that on the 6th of November, when Northern
ballots were falling in such an ample shower for Lincoln, the South
Carolina Legislature, with due decorum and statute regularity,
appointed Presidential electors for the State, and formally instructed
them to vote for Breckinridge and Lane. The dawn of November 7
dispelled these hopes. The "strong probability" had become a stubborn
fact.

When the certain news of Lincoln's election finally came, it was
hailed with joy and acclamation by both the leaders and the people of
South Carolina. They had at length their much coveted pretext for
disunion; and they now put into the enterprise a degree of
earnestness, frankness, courage, and persistency worthy of a better
cause. Public opinion, so long prepared, responded with enthusiasm to
the plans and calls of the leaders. Manifestations of disloyalty
became universal. Political clubs were transformed into military
companies. Drill-rooms and armories were alive with nightly meetings.
Sermons, agricultural addresses, and speeches at railroad banquets
were only so many secession harangues. The State became filled with
volunteer organizations of "minute men."

The Legislature, remaining in extra session, and cheered and urged on
by repeated popular demonstrations and the inflamed speeches of the
highest State officials, proceeded without delay to carry out the
Governor's programme. In fact, the members needed no great incitement.
They had been freshly chosen within the preceding month; many of them
on the well-understood "resistance" issue. Their election took place
on the 8th and 9th days of October, 1860. Since there was but one
party in South Carolina, there could be no party drill; but a
tyrannical and intolerant public sentiment usurped its place and
functions. On the sixteen different tickets paraded in one of the
Charleston newspapers, the names of the most pronounced disunionists
were the most frequent and conspicuous. "Southern rights at all