Secession and War
American History before
1877
Secession Crisis
Election:
Nov. 6, 1860
Lincoln wins without a single Southern state
Not even on the ballot in 11 Southern states
1860
census: North +41%, South +27%
South
Carolina secedes, Dec. 20
Divided
cabinet paralyzes Buchanan
Condemns Northern troublemakers; secession
illegal
Crittenden
Compromise
Extend 36°30" Missouri Compromise line to
Pacific
Slavery protected where it is
Lincoln opposes
Cotton states secede
Union holds Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor
Buchanan sends secret ship to reinforce
Rumors: Buchanan sending invasion force
Reinforcement of Ft. Sumter prevented, Jan. 11
Jan. 9-Feb. 1: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana,
Texas secede, seize federal property
Feb. 7: Constitution of the Confederate States of America
President: one 6-year term
Constitutional protection for slavery
No internal improvements; no tariffs
Convention chooses Jefferson Davis as President
Slavery or States’ Rights?
Texas
. . . We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of
the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively
by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race
had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and
regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could
their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
That in this free government all white men are and of right
ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of
the African race . . . is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is
abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the
revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations;
while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as
advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both
and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states.
By the secession of six of the slave-holding States, and the
certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but
to remain in an isolated connection with the North, or unite her destinies with
the South.
Cornerstone of the
Confederacy
Confederate Vice
President Alexander Stephens’s “Cornerstone Speech,” Mar. 21, 1861
The
new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating
to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper
status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause
of the late rupture and present revolution. . . . Those ideas [that slavery was
evil and must pass away] were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the
assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy
foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the “storm came and
the wind blew, it fell.”
Our
new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are
laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal
to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his
natural and moral condition.
Lincoln’s Inauguration
Long
trip to Washington
Reports of assassination plot; sneaks through Baltimore
A
plea for peace: the First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
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.”
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but
friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not
break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from
every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all
over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again
touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Firm, but not aggressive
Delicate
task: holding on to 8 other slave states
Public
non-military resupply ship to Fort Sumter
April
4: Virginia votes against secession!
Pressure
on Confederate government
April
12: Confederacy attacks Fort Sumter
Lincoln
calls for 75,000 volunteers for 3 months
Perhaps a million volunteer
Virginia,
North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas secede
The
Civil War begins