ABSTRACT
The previous chapters provided the general historical context of secession by concentrating on cases in which South Carolina was poised for confrontation with the federal government, only to back down. In this chapter, I provide a narrative of the immediate events surrounding secession, beginning with John Brown's raid and ending with the decision to secede on 20 December 1860. At the heart of this narrative is a discussion of the manner in which the changing strategies of South Carolina's leadership (from cooperative to unilateral secession) successfully brought about secession. This change in strategy brought about secession in South Carolina and lead to the sequential exit of most of the remaining Southern states. Secession did not occur simultaneously (or cooperatively)—as many had hoped. Instead, it occurred sequentially, with the most radical state leading other less radical states. The recognition of the importance of this using this strategy helped South Carolina to pursue a path that that radically altered the strategic context of choice in other states. The secession of South Carolina made secession nearly inevitable in the states of the Deep South. South Carolina's secession also set up an inevitable confrontation with the federal government—one that eventually forced the hand of most of the Upper South states.
