Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union

The Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union was a legal proclamation issued on December 24, 1860, by the government of South Carolina, explaining its reasons for seceding from the United States.* South Carolina and offers a legal justification for its secession.It asserts that the right of states to secede is implicit in the Constitution and this right was explicitly reaffirmed by South Carolina in 1852.* The next section asserts that the government of the United States and of states within that government had failed to uphold their obligations to South Carolina.The specific issue stated was the refusal of some states to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act and clauses in the US Constitution protecting slavery and the federal government’s perceived role in attempting to abolish slavery.* The next section states that while these problems have existed for twenty-five years, the situation had recently become unacceptable due to the election of a President (this was Abraham Lincoln although he is not mentioned by name) who was planning to outlaw slavery.

* The final section concludes with a statement that South Carolina had therefore seceded from the United States.No, they were not likely all the reasons for SC’s secession, but they read well.While later claims have been made that the decision to secede was prompted by other issues such as tariffs, these issues were not mentioned in the declaration.The primary focus of the declaration is the perceived violation of the Constitution by northern states in not extraditing escaped slaves (as the Constitution required in Article IV Section 2) and actively working to abolish slavery.The main thrust of the argument was that since the Constitution, being a contract, had been violated by some parties (the northern abolitionist states), the other parties (the southern slave-holding states) were no longer bound by it.They thought they were justified and that’s all that counts.The economy of South Carolina relied on slavery.