ss was encouraging devotion to the Union, and its Committees
striving for some mode by which the impending perils might be averted
without a wholesale surrender of all just principles, the South Carolina
Convention met (December 17, 1860) at Columbia, and after listening to
inflammatory addresses by commissioners from the States of Alabama and
Mississippi, urging immediate and unconditional Secession, unanimously
and with "tremendous cheering" adopted a resolution: "That it is the
opinion of the Convention that the State of South Carolina should
forthwith Secede from the Federal Union, known as the United States of
America,"--and then adjourned to meet at Charleston, South Carolina.

The next day, and following days, it met there, at "Secession Hall,"
listening to stimulating addresses, while a committee of seven worked
upon the Ordinance of Secession. Among the statements made by orators,
were several clear admissions that the rebellious Conspiracy had existed
for very many years, and that Mr. Lincoln's election was simply the
long-sought-for pretext for Rebellion. Mr. Parker said: "It is no
spasmodic effort that has come suddenly upon us; it has been gradually
culminating for a long period of thirty years. At last it has come to
that point where we may say, the matter is entirely right." Mr. Inglis
said: "Most of us have had this matter under consideration for the last
twenty years; and I presume that we have by this time arrived at a
decision upon the subject." Mr. Keitt said: "I have been engaged in
this movement ever since I entered political life; * * * we have
carried the body of this Union to its last resting place, and now we
will drop the flag over its grave." Mr. Barnwell Rhett said: "The
Secession of South Carolina is not an event of a day. It is not
anything produced by Mr. Lincoln's election, or by the non-execution of
the Fugitive Slave Law. It has been a matter which has been gathering
head for thirty years." Mr. Gregg said: "If we undertake to set forth
all the causes, do we not dishonor the memory of all the statesmen of
South Carolina, now departed, who commenced forty years ago a war
against the tariff and against internal improvement, saying nothing of
the United States Bank, and other measures which may now be regarded as
obsolete."

On the 20th of December, 1860--the fourth day of the sittings--the
Ordinance of Secession was reported by the Committee, and was at once
unanimously passed,