[The following is a very early incident that would kick off the secession of South Carolina from the Union, and later, the American Civil War. I included this because I think it’s incredible that we can look back to the beginnings of earth-shattering historical events and piece together the moments that snowballs rolling downhill became the boulders we recognize today.]
Yet the legislature [of South Carolina] reacted with surprising caution. Its representatives accepted the right of secession, but many, perhaps even a majority, favored waiting for their cotton-state brethren to join them. They were tipped into immediate action, however, when they learned of an incident in Charleston.
A grand jury was in session at the U.S. District Court in Charleston, Judge Andrew Gordon Magrath presiding. The jury foreman was Robert Gourdin, an extremely wealthy commercial leader of the city. Early on November 7, as telegrams arrived confirming Lincoln’s election, the court began its day. Magrath opened the day’s session officially asking Gourdin if the jury had any presentments to make. Gourdin rose, and in the solemn, silent courtroom he intoned that Lincoln’s election had “swept away the last hope for the permanence, for the stability, of these Sovereign States.” He concluded, “In these extraordinary circumstances, the grand jury respectfully declines to proceed with their presentments.”
Gourdin, acting as an official of an American court, had just cut the South’s first link to the federal government.
Judge Magrath stood. A charming gentleman, if a bit of a windbag, he had been a federal judge the past four years. While muted sobs broke the silence, he melodramatically removed his robe and announced he was resigning his office. “As far as I am concerned,” he said, “the Temple of Justice, raised under the Constitution of the United States, is now closed.” Magrath thus became the first paid federal official to publicly resign his position as a result of Lincoln’s election.
Source:
Detzer, David. “Asunder.” Allegiance: Fort Sumter, Charleston, and the Beginning of the Civil War. New York: Harcourt, 2002. 14. Print.
Original Source Listed:
Lillian A. Kibler, “Unionist Sentiment in South Carolina in 1860, Journal of Southern History, August 1938, IV, 346-66.
Further Reading:
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