Secession

• Compare the candidates in the election of 1860, and analyze the results.

• Analyze why southern states seceded from the Union.

• Assess the events that led to the outbreak of war.

Objectives

• Jefferson Davis – Mississippi senator who became president of the Confederacy

• John C. Breckinridge –Southern Democrat nominated for president in the 1860 election

• Confederate States of America – formed in February 1861 by seven states that left the Union

• Crittenden Compromise – proposed constitutional amendment allowing slavery in all territories south of the Missouri Compromise line

• Fort Sumter – federal fort in Charleston, South Carolina, where first shots of Civil War were fired

Terms and People

How did the Union finally collapse into a civil war?

Disagreement between the North and South over slavery continued, despite last-minute attempts such as the Crittenden Compromise.

With the election of Lincoln to the presidency, the crisis came to a head.

The election of 1860 had four candidates.

He believed the federal government must protect slavery.

A Democrat, John C. Breckinridge was from Kentucky.

He believed popular sovereignty should decide the slavery issue when territories became states.

A Democrat, Stephen A. Douglas was from Illinois.

He believed slavery should not be allowed in the territories.

A Republican, Abraham Lincoln was from Illinois.

He believed the federal government should support slavery and defend the Union.

Constitutional Unionist John Bell wasfrom Tennessee.

With no national candidate dominating the campaign, Lincoln won with just over half of the electoral votes needed and 40 percent of the popular vote.

The vote for Abraham Lincoln was mostly a vote for moderation toward the issue of slavery and a vote for the Union.

However, the South felt it no longer had a voice in the national government and did not see how it could remain in the Union.

South Carolina was the first southern state to leave the Union.

At a state convention held six weeks after Election Day, legislators voted to secede. It was a unanimous vote.

-December 1860

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Outgoing President Buchanan publicly condemned South Carolina’s action.

However, he did not use force to prevent it.

Within weeks, six other Southern states followed South Carolina.

Lincoln’s First Inaugural AddressMarch 1861

• Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States that . . . their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension.

• . . . I declare that—I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.

• In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."

State Date of SecessionSouth Carolina December 20, 1860

Mississippi January 9, 1861

Florida January 10, 1861

Alabama January 11, 1861

Georgia January 19, 1861

Louisiana January 26, 1861

Texas February 1, 1861

Virginia April 17, 1861

Arkansas May 6, 1861

North Carolina May 20, 1861

Tennessee June 8, 1861

The states with the largest enslaved populations seceded.

• closely resembled the U.S. Constitution.

• stressed the independence of each state.

• implied that states had the right to secede.

• forbid importing new slaves from other countries.

The constitution of the Confederate States of America:

Jefferson Davis, former senator from Mississippi, became president of the Confederate States of America.

• he urged peace between the Confederacy and the Union.

• he decided to try to hold on to the Union forts the Confederacy claimed, such as Fort Sumter.

When Lincoln took office:

However, Confederate forces attacked and captured the fort in defiance of Lincoln. –April 1861

After Fort Sumter fell, Lincoln declared that insurrection existed.

Four more southern states immediately joined the Confederacy.

The issue of slavery had long divided the nation, even at the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

A Nation Divided by Civil War

The economic sectional differences in the mid-1800s also greatly contributed to the national division.

Predictions were the Civil War would be short, but it lasted for four terrible years.