Republic of South Carolina 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 . Background . South Carolina had long before the War of Secession / American Civil War been a region that had to some extent supported individual states ' rights , especially to maintain the rights of slaverholders as the state saw fit , which South Carolina and many other states saw as in jeopardy from increasing Abolitionist sentiment in the North . As much as historical revisionism painted the state as a bulwark for states ' Rights , South Carolina had actually been an ardent supporter of the federal government , especially in the federal enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act . As northern states failed to fulfill their obligations under the act , the state began to see Washington as increasingly ineffective in protecting its economy . Therefore , political leaders such as John C . Calhoun and Preston Brooks had inflamed regional ( and national ) passions , and voices cried for secession . South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union , and saw the first shots of the Civil War when Citadel cadets fired on a civilian merchant ship " Star of the West " bringing supplies to the beleaguered Federal garrison at Fort Sumter on January 9 , 1861 . Very few South Carolina whites saw emancipation as an option . Whites feared that if blacks – the vast majority in most parts of the state – were freed , they would try to " Africanize " their cherished society and culture as they had seen happen after slave revolutions in some areas of the West Indies . Many white Southerners also believed that slavery , as practiced in the South , was " the mildest and most humane of all institutions to which the name of ' slavery ' has ever been applied , " and that this " benign institution " had transformed " unprofitable savages " into " efficient Christian laborers . " Carolinian leaders were divided between devoted Unionists that opposed any sort of secession , and those who believed secession was a state ' s right . John C . Calhoun noted that the dry and barren West could not support a plantation system and would remain slaveless . Thus , Calhoun proposed that Congress should not exclude slavery from territories but let each state choose for itself whether it would allow slaves within its borders . After Calhoun ' s death in 1850 , however , South Carolina was left without a leader great enough in national standing and character to prevent more militant Carolinian factions ' desire to secede immediately . Andrew Pickens Butler argued against Charleston publisher Robert Barnwell Rhett , who advocated immediate secession and , if necessary , independence . Butler won the battle , but Rhett outlived him . Secession . When it was seen that President Abraham Lincoln would be elected , a number of conventions organized around the Deep South to discuss the options . States with strong pro - secession movements such as Alabama and Mississippi sent delegates to the convention where they advised the Carolinians to " take the lead and secede at once " . On December 20 , 1860 , South Carolinians in Charleston voted to secede from the Union . President James Buchanan declared the secession illegal but did not act to stop it . Six days later , on the day after Christmas , Major Robert Anderson , commander of the U . S . troops in Charleston , withdrew his men into the island fortress of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor . South Carolina militia swarmed over the abandoned mainland batteries and trained their guns on the island . Sumter was the key position to preventing a naval invasion of Charleston , so Carolina could not afford to allow federal forces to remain there indefinitely . More important , having the Union control its largest harbor meant that the Confederacy was not really independent . On February 4 , a congress of Southern states met in Montgomery , Alabama , and approved a new constitution for the Confederate States of America . Lincoln argued that the United States were " one nation , " indivisible " " and denied the Southern states ' right to secede . Upper Southern states such as Virginia and North Carolina , which had not yet seceded , called a peace conference , to little effect . South Carolina entered the Confederacy on February 8 , 1861 ending less than six weeks of being an independent State of South Carolina .