It is not correct to say that the election of Lincoln was the cause of the Rebellion; it was rather the signal.  To the Southern leaders, it was the striking of the appointed hour.  His defeat would have meant only postponement.  South Carolina led the way.  On December 17, 1860, her convention came together, the Palmetto flag waving over its chamber of conference, and on December 20 it issued its “Ordinance."[115] This declared that the Ordinance of May 23, 1788, ratifying the Constitution, is “hereby repealed,” and the “Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved.”  A Declaration of Causes said that South Carolina had “resumed her position among the nations of the world as a separate and independent State.”  The language used was appropriate for the revocation of a power of attorney.  The people hailed this action with noisy joy, unaccompanied by any regret or solemnity at the severance of the old relationship.  The newspapers at once began to publish “Foreign News” from the other States.  The new governor, Pickens, a fiery Secessionist, and described as one “born insensible to fear,”—­presumably the condition of most persons at that early period of existence,—­had already suggested to Mr. Buchanan the impropriety of reinforcing the national garrisons in the forts in Charleston harbor.  He now accredited to the President three commissioners to treat with him for the delivery of the “forts, magazines, lighthouses, and other real estate, with their appurtenances, in the limits of South Carolina; and also for an apportionment of the public debt, and for a division of all other property held by the government of the United States as agent of the Confederate States of which South Carolina was recently a member.”  This position, as of the dissolution of a copartnership, or the revocation of an agency, and an accounting of debts and assets, was at least simple; and by way of expediting it an appraisal of the “real estate” and “appurtenances” within the state limits had been made by the state government.  Meanwhile there was in the harbor of Charleston a sort of armed truce, which might at any moment break into war.  Major Anderson in Fort Moultrie, and the state commander in the city, watched each other like two suspicious animals, neither sure when the other will spring.  In short, in all the overt acts, the demeanor and the language of this excitable State, there was such insolence, besides hostility, that her emissaries must have been surprised at the urbane courtesy with which they were received, even by a President of Mr. Buchanan’s views.