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Elections in South Carolina |
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The 1860 United States presidential election in South Carolina took place on November 6, 1860, as part of this 1860 United States presidential election. The state legislature chose eight representatives, or electors to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president. By 1860, South Carolina was the only state using this procedure in a presidential election and would be the last time the state would do so.
Secessionists under the leadership of Robert Barnwell Rhett and unionists under the leadership of James Lawrence Orr fought for control over the South Carolina Democratic Party during the 1850s. James H. Hammond, who was more aligned with Orr, defeated Rhett in the 1857 U.S. Senate election. [1]
The Democratic Party's state convention was held on April 16, and was controlled by Orr's faction. The convention advocated for party unity, maintaining the union, and rejected the Alabama platform's plan to have the southern delegations walk out of the national convention. [2] Orr served as president of the convention, which endorsed him for the presidential nomination. [3] Muscoe R. H. Garnett communicated with South Carolinian leaders, such as William Porcher Miles, and advocated supporting Robert M. T. Hunter, Benjamin Fitzpatrick, James Guthrie, John C. Breckinridge, or Orr for the presidential nomination. [4] An uninstructed sixteen member delegation was sent to the national convention. [2]
South Carolina's delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Charleston included Arthur Simkins, James Simons, Thomas Young Simons, Samuel McGowan, Benjamin H. Wilson, Franklin Gaillard, and Benjamin Franklin Perry. The delegation supported Hunter during the presidential balloting. On April 30, 1860, all except for three members of the delegation (Simkins, Perry, and Lemuel Boozer) joined other southern states in bolting the convention. [5]
A new state convention, pushed by Rhett and his supporters against the opposition of Perry and Orr, was held on May 30. Only 52 of the 161 delegates to the first convention were reelected to attend this one. Rhett, his brother Edmund Rhett, and his son R. Barnwell Rhett Jr. were among the delegates elected. John Hugh Means, who previously supported secession in 1851, was selected as permanent chairman of the convention. [6] [7]
The state's four at-large delegates were selected by a vote of the whole convention rather than by a committee based on the congressional districts. This system benefited the more radical and pro-secessionist delegates. Rhett was elected as a delegate to the national convention in Baltimore and was the leader of the delegation. [8] This delegation supported the presidential ticket of Breckinridge and Joseph Lane. [9]
The elections held for the state legislature on October 8 resulted in a pro-secessionist legislature. Governor William Henry Gist convened the legislature on October 12, and [10] South Carolina cast eight electoral votes for Breckinridge. These electors were chosen by the state legislature rather than by popular vote. [11]
1860 United States presidential election in South Carolina [11] | ||||||||
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Party | Candidate | Running mate | Popular vote | Electoral vote | ||||
Count | % | Count | % | |||||
Southern Democratic | John Cabell Breckinridge of Kentucky | Joseph Lane of Oregon | – | – | 8 | 100.00% |
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Robert Barnwell Rhett was an American politician who served as a deputy from South Carolina to the Provisional Confederate States Congress from 1861 to 1862, a member of the US House of Representatives from South Carolina from 1837 to 1849, and US Senator from South Carolina from 1850 to 1852. As a staunch supporter of slavery and an early advocate of secession, he was a "Fire-Eater", nicknamed the "father of secession".
William Porcher Miles was an American politician who was among the ardent states' rights advocates, supporters of slavery, and Southern secessionists who came to be known as the "Fire-Eaters." He is notable for having designed the most popular variant of the Confederate flag, originally rejected as the national flag in 1861 but adopted as a battle flag by the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee before it was reincorporated.
Francis Wilkinson Pickens was a politician who served as governor of South Carolina when that state became the first to secede from the United States. A cousin of Senator John C. Calhoun, he was born into the Southern planter class. A member of the Democratic Party, Pickens became an ardent supporter of nullification of federal tariffs when he served in the South Carolina House of Representatives before he was elected to the United States House of Representatives.
Colonel Thomas Patterson Brockman was an American merchant and planter in the Greenville District and also owned land in the Spartanburg District. He was born in the Greenville District, South Carolina, the son of Susannah Patterson and Henry Brockman. According to the 1850 slave schedules, he possessed thirty slaves in Greenville. He was also a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives and the South Carolina Senate.
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The South Carolina Declaration of Secession, formally known as 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 government 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. The declaration is a product of a convention organized by the state's government in the month following the election of Abraham Lincoln as U.S. president, where it was drafted in a committee headed by Christopher Memminger.
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The Robert Barnwell Rhett House is a historic house at 6 Thomas Street in Charleston, South Carolina. A National Historic Landmark, it is significant as the home of Robert Barnwell Rhett, a leading secessionist politician. He opposed John C. Calhoun to lead the Bluffton Movement for separate state action on the Tariff of 1842. Rhett was one of the leading fire-eaters at the Nashville Convention of 1850, which failed to endorse his aim of secession.
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