USA HISTORY

____ was the first state to break away from the United States.

(A) Florida

(B) Georgia

(C) ** South Carolina

Concept note-1: -South Carolina became the first state to secede from the federal Union on December 20, 1860. The victory of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election triggered cries for disunion across the slaveholding South.

Concept note-2: -At the war’s end, South Carolina became the eighth state to join the Union when it ratified the United States Constitution on May 23, 1788.

Concept note-3: -South Carolina withdrew from the United States on December 20, 1860. The state seceded because a Republican, Abraham Lincoln, had been elected president. The Republicans were a new party, and Lincoln was the first to be elected president. They wanted to stop slavery from spreading into the western territories.

Concept note-4: -The secession of South Carolina was followed by the secession of six more states-Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas–and the threat of secession by four more-Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. These eleven states eventually formed the Confederate States of America.

Concept note-5: -The victory of Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 elections convinced South Carolina legislators that it was no longer in their state’s interest to remain in the Union. South Carolina declared its secession from the United States.