South Carolina Declaration of Secession

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The Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union was a proclamation issued on December 24, 1860, by the secession convention of South Carolina to explain its reasons for seceding from the United States. It followed the brief Ordinance of Secession that had been issued on December 20. Both the ordinance, which accomplished secession, and the declaration of immediate causes, which justified secession, were the products of a state convention called by South Carolina's legislature in the month following the election of Abraham Lincoln as U.S. president. The declaration of immediate causes was drafted in a committee headed by Christopher Memminger. The declaration laid out the primary reasoning behind South Carolina's decision to secede from the U.S., which was described as "increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the Institution of Slavery". The declaration states, in part, "A geographical line...

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