The Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, declaring all “all persons held as slaves” in the states that were in rebellion against the United States — including South Carolina — were “henceforward…free.”
However, the long road to emancipation came at the expense of the Union, which was split by the Civil War, leading to approximately 1.5 million casualties, including the deaths of 650,000 Americans.
South Carolina Secedes from the Union
After decades of increasing division over slavery, the Secession Crisis erupted after Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 Presidential Election. The path to secession in South Carolina included several important steps.
Values, ideals, needs, and fear all came together in South Carolinians’ defense of their way of life. There was no choice, said a united white South Carolina, but to leave the Union they had once embraced and helped to create. — South Carolina Encyclopedia
Christopher G. Memminger’s Speech in Support of Slave State Unification