The 1860 United States presidential election was the 19th quadrennial presidential election, held on November 6, 1860. In a four-way contest, the Republican Party ticket of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin, absent from the ballot in ten slave states, won a national popular plurality, a popular majority in the North where states already had abolished slavery, and a national electoral majority comprising only Northern electoral votes. Lincoln's election thus served as the main catalyst of the American Civil War.
Columbia is the capital and second-largest city of the U.S. state of South Carolina, with a population estimate of 131,674 as of 2019. The city serves as the county seat of Richland County, and a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County. It is the center of the Columbia metropolitan statistical area, which had a population of 767,598 as of the 2010 United States Census, growing to 832,666 by July 1, 2018, according to 2018 U.S. Census estimates. This makes it the 70th-largest metropolitan statistical area in the nation, as estimated by the United States Census Bureau as of July 1, 2018. The name Columbia is a poetic term used for the United States, derived from the name of Christopher Columbus, who explored for the Spanish Crown. Columbia is often abbreviated as Cola, leading to its nickname as "Soda City."
Abbeville is a city in Abbeville County, South Carolina, United States, 86 miles (138 km) west of Columbia and 45 miles (72 km) south of Greenville. Its population was 5,237 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Abbeville County. Settled by French Huguenot settlers, it was named, along with the county, for the French town of the same name.
The 36th United States Congress was a meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, consisting of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. It met in Washington, D.C. from March 4, 1859, to March 4, 1861, during the third and fourth years of James Buchanan's presidency. The apportionment of seats in the House of Representatives was based on the Seventh Census of the United States in 1850. The Senate had a Democratic majority, and the House had a Republican plurality.
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".
An Ordinance of Secession was the name given to multiple resolutions drafted and ratified in 1860 and 1861, at or near the beginning of the Civil War, by which each seceding Southern state or territory formally declared secession from the United States of America. South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas also issued separate documents purporting to justify secession.
William Porcher Miles 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.
Milledge Luke Bonham was an American politician and Congressman who served as the 70th Governor of South Carolina from 1862 until 1864. He was a Confederate General during the American Civil War.
Francis Wilkinson Pickens was a political Democrat and Governor of South Carolina when that state became the first to secede from the United States.
Donald Livingston is a former Professor of Philosophy at Emory University and a David Hume scholar. In 2003 he founded the Abbeville Institute, which is devoted to the study of Southern culture and political ideas.
The Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union, also known as the South Carolina Declaration of Secession, 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. The declaration stated the primary reasoning behind South Carolina's declaring of secession from the U.S., which was described as "increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the Institution of Slavery".
South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union in December 1860, and was one of the founding member states of the Confederacy in February 1861. The bombardment of the beleaguered U.S. garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861 is generally recognized as the first military engagement of the war.
James Louis Petigru was an American lawyer, politician, and jurist in South Carolina. He is best known for his service as the Attorney General of South Carolina, his juridical work that played a key role in the recodification of the state's law code. He was also known for opposing nullification and, in 1860, state secession.
William Henry Gist was the 68th Governor of South Carolina from 1858 to 1860 and a leader of the secession movement in South Carolina. He was one of the signers of the Ordinance of Secession on December 20, 1860, which effectively launched the Confederacy.
Columbia, the capital city of South Carolina, was an important political and supply center for the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. Much of the town was destroyed during occupation by Union forces under Major General William T. Sherman during the Carolinas Campaign in the last months of the war. Sherman was accused almost immediately of having deliberately and needlessly burned the city, which he denied. Modern historians say that multiple causes were responsible.
In the United States, Southern Unionists were white Southerners living in the Confederate States of America opposed to secession. Many fought for the Union during the Civil War. These people are also referred to as Southern Loyalists, Union Loyalists, or Lincoln's Loyalists. Pro-Confederates in the South derided them as Tories. During Reconstruction, these terms were replaced by “scalawag”, which covered all Southern whites who supported the Republican Party.
The James Petigru Boyce Chapel is a historic church building at 1306 Hampton Street in Columbia, South Carolina. It is a Greek Revival building built in 1859. A convention met here on December 17, 1860, whose delegates voted unanimously for South Carolina to secede from the United States, leading to the American Civil War. It was designated a National Historic Landmark as First Baptist Church, the role it played at the time.
Abbeville Historic District is a historic district in Abbeville, South Carolina. It includes several properties listed separately in the National Register of Historic Places, including the Abbeville County Courthouse and the Abbeville Opera House. The district was listed in National Register on September 14, 1972.
Rose Hill Plantation State Historic Site is a historic site in Union County, South Carolina, that preserves the home of William H. Gist (1807-1874), the 68th governor of South Carolina. Gist helped instigate a Secession Convention in South Carolina, which led to the creation of the Ordinance of Secession that preceded the Civil War.
The Virginia Secession Convention of 1861 was called in Richmond to determine whether Virginia would secede from the United States, to govern the state during a state of emergency, and to write a new Constitution for Virginia, which was subsequently voted down in referendum under the Confederate Government.
