The Temple of Justice reopens, sort of

One of Charleston's most dramatic events in the run-up to the Civil War unfolded inside U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Gordon Magrath's courtroom at 23 Chalmers St.

Upon learning that Abraham Lincoln had won the presidency, Magrath — perhaps the city's most prominent federal official — stood up and declared that he would step down, saying, "So far as I am concerned, the Temple of Justice, raised under the Constitution of the United States, is now closed."

Today, almost 148 years later, the spacious second-floor room is now open, recreated for a new life as a private meeting space.

To appreciate the change, one must understand just how much the war shaped the building between Magrath's resignation and the recent restoration.

Magrath actually returned to his former chambers once South Carolina seceded and served there as a Confederate judge until 1865, when the war drew to a close and Confederate shells began hammering the southernmost peninsular city.

In fact, contractor Jim Wigley says Civil War historian Jack Thomson visited the building during its work, and they discovered a beam shattered by a Union shell.

Read more in Monday's editions of The Post and Courier.