History | Graded Assignment | South Carolina Secedes

Name: Vinicius Seiji Takata Date: 12/4/2021

Graded Assignment
South Carolina Secedes
The following question asks you to write a clear essay that analyzes South Carolina’s reasons for seceding from
the Union. Use both the documents listed on next two pages and your knowledge of the time period. You may
also use the timeline you previously completed.
(100 points)

1. What were South Carolina’s stated reasons for seceding from the United States in Score
December 1860? Do you believe that the stated reasons were the complete explanation for
South Carolina’s secession? Was South Carolina justified in seceding?

Explain your answer in a well-organized essay that demonstrates your understanding of the
documents and your knowledge of the time period.
Answer:
South Carolina was one of the thirteen original colonies of United States, during the Revolution she
became the eight state to ratify the U.S Constitution. This was because in the same state there was a convention
after the election of Abraham Lincoln on a platform that opposed the expansion of slavery in US territories.
One of the state reasons to South Carolina seceding the United States was increase hostility of non-
slaveholding States to the slavery.
I believe the reasons stated were not the full explanation of the situation, because there must be more
reasons for secession from the United States even though slavery is one of them.
South Carolina was justified in seceding, because as said, the situation was increasing hostility towards
slavery.

Your Score ___ of 100

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 History | Graded Assignment | South Carolina Secedes

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 History | Graded Assignment | South Carolina Secedes

Document A
Source: Confederate States of America Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the
Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union; adopted December 24, 1860

Excerpt 1
Thus were established the two great principles asserted by the Colonies, namely: the right of a State to govern
itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was
instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact that each Colony became and
was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE.

Excerpt 2
…an amendment was added [to the United States Constitution], which declared that the powers not delegated to
the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or
to the people.

Excerpt 3
…in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting
parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no
arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its
consequences.

Excerpt 4
The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."
These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an
equal, and had separate control over its own institutions.

Excerpt 5
…a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

Excerpt 6
We, therefore, the People of South Carolina … solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between
this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved…

Document B
Source: Jefferson Davis’s inaugural address, February 8, 1861

“Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to
order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that
balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the
lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest
of crimes."

Document C
Source: Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address, March 4 1861

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that by the accession of a Republican
Administration, their property, and their peace, and personal security, are to be endangered. There has never
been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the
while existed, and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now
addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or
indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to
do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I
had made this, and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them.”

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 History | Graded Assignment | South Carolina Secedes

Document D

Source: Map of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, K12 Inc.

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