South Carolina, the first state to secede from the union, dispatched with a lasting symbol of the Civil War on Thursday as Gov. Nikki R. Haley signed a law removing the Confederate battle flag from the grounds of the State House.
The flag, which flies in front of the graceful 19th-century capitol building here, is set to come down at 10 a.m. Friday.
Ms. Haley, a Republican, signed the bill in a capitol building where, the night before, members of the House of Representatives had engaged in a 13-hour legislative argument over the flag, which was introduced on capitol grounds by white lawmakers in the early 1960s at the height of anti-integration sentiment.
