Why did the South secede from the Union?

South Carolina withdrew from the United States on December 20, 1860. The state seceded
because a Republican, Abraham Lincoln, had been elected president. The Republicans were a
new party, and Lincoln was the first to be elected president. They wanted to stop slavery from
spreading into the western territories.

Southern states believed they had a constitutional right to take property -- including slaves --
anywhere. They also feared that any interference with slavery would end their way of life.

This week in our series, Frank Oliver and Larry West tell what happened after South Carolina
left the Union.

South Carolina faced several problems after it seceded. The most serious problem was what to
do with property owned by the federal government. There were several United States forts in
and around the Port of Charleston. Fort Moultrie had fewer than seventy soldiers. Castle
Pinckney had only one. And Fort Sumter -- which was still being built -- had none.

Can a state legally secede from the Union?

Many, including Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, suggest no. In a 2006 letter, Scalia
argued that a the question was not in the realm of legal possibility because 1) the United
States would not be party to a lawsuit on the issue 2) the “constitutional” basis of secession
had been “resolved by the Civil War,” and 3) there is no right to secede, as the Pledge of
Allegiance clearly illustrates through the line “one nation, indivisible.”