Secession

secession

leaving•With the election of Lincoln, many white Southerners remembered his words from the 1858 Illinois Senate race:

leaving• “A house divided against

itself cannot stand…this government cannot endure half slave and half free…It will become all one thing, or all the other.”

leaving•They believed that now was

the time to follow through on their threat to leave the Union and set up their own nation, arguing that the Northern states had already broken the Constitution.

leaving•23 days after Lincoln’s election, South Carolina led a parade of 7 states, the “Lower South” in seceding from the Union.

Why was South Carolina justified in leaving?

leaving•In addition to South Carolina, the “Lower South” included Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Georgia.

Return?•Before he left office,

President Buchanan argued that states did not have the right to secede from the Union, but that the national government could do nothing to stop them from going.

Return?• When South Carolina fired on

an unarmed ship trying to re-supply Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor (eager to provoke war), Buchanan recalled the ship, hoping to avoid war.

Return?•In his Inaugural Address on March 4, 1861, Lincoln held open the possibility that conciliation might be necessary.

Return?•However, this conciliation

would be done on Union terms and Lincoln added that he would protect all Union holdings in the now called Confederate States of America.

Return?•Lincoln made it clear that if

force were necessary to preserve the Union, then he intended to use it and then sent a re-supply ship to Fort Sumter and told South Carolina that he was doing it.

The Battle Begins•When Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy, received Lincoln’s message, he saw an opportunity to test Lincoln.

The Battle Begins•The Confederates were not

going to rejoin the Union and decided to see just how far Lincoln was willing to go and vowed to take Fort Sumter before it could be re-supplied.

The Battle Begins•When the Union garrison at

Fort Sumter refused to surrender to Confederate forces, the Confederates opened fire on the morning of April 12, 1861.

The Battle Begins•Two days later, the

commander of the fort, Major Robert Anderson, surrendered the fort to the Confederacy.

The Battle Begins• Lincoln immediately called

for 75,000 volunteers to serve for 90 days to put down the insurrection and convinced by political maneuvering and military force, four border slave states from seceding.

The Battle Begins•Those border states were

Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri and were joined by the mountain counties of Virginia, which became the state of West Virginia in 1863.

The Battle Begins•When Lincoln called for

volunteers, four states from the “Upper South,” Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina, joined the Confederacy.

The Battle Begins•What would quickly become

apparent was the request for 90-day volunteers would not nearly be enough to last a 4-year war that would be known be many different names.

The Battle Begins•The Civil War, The War Between the States, The Great Rebellion (North), The War of Northern Aggression (South)