The South Carolina Ordinance

Immediately on the election of Lincoln to the Presidency the legislature of South Carolina called a convention to meet December 17 to consider the question of succession. The convention, chosen by popular vote, was overwhelmingly in favor of immediate Succession. It met at Charleston and on December twenty voted unanimously for Secession. They developed an Ordinance to Dissolve the Union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled …

…became a major force in American politics. In the elections of that year. the Republicans won enough seats in Congress to permit them, in combination with allies among the Know-Nothings, to organize the House of Representatives. Events in Kansas itself in the next two years increased the popular excitement in the North. White settlers from both the North and the South began moving into the territory almost immediately after the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.