Following the election of Abraham Lincoln, South Carolina convoked a special convention in Charleston to debate her long dissatisfaction with the Federal government and many Northern citizens' views on slavery. They believed that the avowed views of the new President-elect made abolition a likely goal of his administration. On December 20, 1860, the Secession Convention voted for South Carolina to secede from the Union. As the first state to do so, they also issued a Declaration of the Immediate Causes which explained her decision to part company from her erstwhile sister states. Beginning with the Missouri Compromise in 1820, the defense of slavery, more than tariffs or states' rights, was the main factor contributing to sectionalism in South Carolina. The Secession Convention declared: