requirements to run for governor of south carolina
Governor of South Carolina There are three legal requirements set forth in Section 2 of Article IV of the South Carolina Constitution. (1) Be at least 30 years of age. (2) Citizen of the United States and a resident of South Carolina for 5 years preceding the day of election.[3][4] The final requirement, (3) "No person shall be eligible to the office of Governor who denies the existence of the Supreme Being," is of extremely doubtful validity in light of the 1961 Supreme Court decision Torcaso v. Watkins, which reaffirmed that religious tests for public offices violated the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This requirement, however, has still not been removed from the Constitution of South Carolina.[5]
South Carolina in the American Civil War On November 10, 1860 the S.C. General Assembly called for a "Convention of the People of South Carolina" to consider secession. Delegates were to be elected on December 6.[7] The secession convention convened in Columbia on December 17 and voted unanimously, 169-0, to declare secession from the United States. The convention then adjourned to Charleston to draft an ordinance of secession. When the ordinance was adopted on December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first slave state in the south to declare that it had seceded from the United States.[8][9] James Buchanan, the United States president, declared the ordinance illegal but did not act to stop it.