Secession, sequence, and the state : South Carolina's decision to lead the secession movement in 1860

In the United States, the transition from aristocratic agriculturalism to liberal democratic industrialism was distinguished from instances of this transformation in other countries by a threat to the territorial integrity of the Union. In this dissertation, I provide novel insight into this unique challenge and its link to American political development. Drawing on recent works on the process of secession, I have developed an innovative framework for the analysis of secession in which the institutional design of the state plays a central role in facilitating this act of territorial and political withdrawal. This framework specifies five factors that contribute to the development, timing, and success of a movement for secession: grievance, the institutional design of the state, boundaries, leadership, and sequence. My framework is generalizable and can be used to illuminate the desire for secession in other regions of the world.In order to provide a thorough analysis of this case of secession, I examine the historical background of the decision to secede, with an emphasis on the nullification crisis and the first secession crisis. Without the steps and missteps taken in these moments, secession would have been unlikely. In addition, I examine the actions of the other states of the South: the early-seceders of the Deep South, the late-seceders of the Upper South, and the non-seceders of the Border South.I conclude that secession in South Carolina was the result of a number of dynamically interacting factors, beginning with the grievance experienced by the elites and the rest of the white, male population of South Carolina. This grievance was produced by demographic changes in the Union that allowed Republican Abraham Lincoln to be elected president without needing electoral support in the South. The grievance (fear) wrought by these changes animated the desire for secession, but secession was politically feasible because of the institutional design of the American state. Central to my argument is the notion that federal states are both easier to enter, because they facilitate the maintenance of local autonomy, and easier to exit (than other states), because the maintenance of state capacity and a high degree of autonomy at the state level makes withdrawal from the federal state possible with minimal disruption.The very sequence by which secession was accomplished provides essential insight into the dynamics of secession. The South did not secede simultaneously, but sequentially---with South Carolina seceding unilaterally, and forcing the hand of the remaining states. Given the divisions present in the South, this strategy of seeking sequential exit through unilateral secession in South Carolina was the best possible strategy to realize the goal of a Southern Confederacy