prohibit slavery or allow a
Territorial Legislature to prohibit slavery in the Territories, and
that the Missouri compromise of 1820 was unconstitutional and void.
The Southern Democrats entered the election of 1860 with this distinct
decision of the highest judicial body of the country to back them. The
Republican party had refused to admit that the decision of the Dred
Scott case was law or binding. Given a Republican majority in both
Houses and a Republican President, there was nothing to hinder the
passage of a law increasing the number of Supreme Court justices to any
desired extent, and the new appointments would certainly be of such
a nature as to make the reversal of the Dred Scott decision an easy
matter. The election of 1860 had brought only a Republican President;
the majority in both Houses was to be against him until 1863 at least.
But the drift in the North and West was too plain to be mistaken, and it
was felt that 1860--would be the last opportunity for the Gulf States
to secede with dignity and with the prestige of the Supreme Court's
support.

Finally, there seems to have been a strong feeling among the extreme
secessionists, who loved the right of secession for its own sake, that
the accelerating increase in the relative power of the North would soon
make secession, on any grounds, impossible. Unless the right was to be
forfeited by non-user, it must be established by practical exercise, and
at once.

Until about 1825-9 Presidential electors were chosen in most of the
States by the Legislature. After that period the old practice was kept
up only in South Carolina. On election day of November, 1860, the
South Carolina Legislature was in session for the purpose of choosing
electors, but it continued its session after this duty was performed. As
soon as Lincoln's election was assured, the Legislature called a State
Convention for Dec. 17th, took the preliminary steps toward putting the
State on a war footing, and adjourned. The convention met at the State
capital, adjourned to Charleston, and here, Dec. 20, 1860, passed
unanimously an Ordinance of Secession. By its terms the people of South
Carolina, in convention assembled, repealed the ordinance of May 23,
1788, by which the Constitution had been ratified, and all Acts of the
Legislature ratifying amendments to the Constitution, and declared the
union between the State and other States, under the name of the United
States of America, to be dissolved.