The Republic of South Carolina was declared when the State of South Carolina declared its secession from the United States on December 20, 1860. This was the second Republic of South Carolina, since South Carolina declared its independence (from Britain) the first time on March 26, 1776, more than three months prior to the United States Declaration of Independence. On February 8, 1861, South Carolina joined other Southern states to form the Confederate States of America. South Carolina after secession was frequently called the Palmetto Republic.
By a unanimous vote of 169–0 in a special state convention held in Columbia, South Carolina chose to secede from the Federal union. It adopted the palmetto flag as its national banner.
After South Carolina declared its secession, former congressman James L. Petigru famously remarked, "South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum." Soon afterwards, South Carolina began preparing for a presumed Federal military response while working to convince other southern states to secede as well and join in a confederacy of southern republics.
Read more about Republic Of South Carolina: Background, Secession
Famous quotes containing the words republic of, republic, south and/or carolina:
“Paper is cheap, and authors need not now erase one book before they write another. Instead of cultivating the earth for wheat and potatoes, they cultivate literature, and fill a place in the Republic of Letters. Or they would fain write for fame merely, as others actually raise crops of grain to be distilled into brandy.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Absolute virtue is impossible and the republic of forgiveness leads, with implacable logic, to the republic of the guillotine.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“The South Wind is a baker.”
—Vachel Lindsay (1879–1931)
“The great problem of American life [is] the riddle of authority: the difficulty of finding a way, within a liberal and individualistic social order, of living in harmonious and consecrated submission to something larger than oneself.... A yearning for self-transcendence and submission to authority [is] as deeply rooted as the lure of individual liberation.”
—Wilfred M. McClay, educator, author. The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America, p. 4, University of North Carolina Press (1994)