Secession

The Civil war was a war fought between the years 1861 and 1865. The war was a result of decades of sectional tensions between the north and south areas of the United States of America. This war focused on the issues pertaining to slavery and states’ rights. These issues came up following the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Less than two months after this event South Carolina decided to secede from the union, and then followed ten other states. These eleven states turned to secession because of the Election of 1860, the sustainment of slavery and the continuance of the states’ rights. The election of 1860 was between four candidates, although the two big ones were Abraham Lincoln and Stephan A. Douglas. The central issue was slavery and its expansion into the new territories. These issues were intensified by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The result of this election was that Lincoln won. Document number three states that the Republicans say they have the right to conjure up laws with codes for the South to follow. Not only in the states but in the territories as well; the laws will control or prohibit slavery. Document three is a newspaper and is endorsed by Douglas. It also said that the Union would be endangered if Lincoln was elected as the president. Templeton Strong wrote in his diary that secession was inevitable at the time (Doc 5). He also brought up the fact that one cannot forget that Douglas had gotten the Missouri Compromise repealed to get more votes from the south. Jefferson Davis wrote (Doc 7) that The Election was the final straw leading up to the secession of the south. Through out the years leading up to the Civil War, slavery has gotten to be a bigger deal than ever before. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a book by the name of, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and it told the story of how a slave was treated, the horrors and this book greatly influenced American politicians and how they viewed slavery. Another novel was written and it goes by the name, “The Impending Crisis of the South” it was written by Hinton Rowan Helper. This novel condemns the institution of slavery as do Northerners at the time. The Republican Party is completely against slavery and would not give the people the legal right to own slaves in any United States territory (Doc 1). Abraham Lincoln was a Republican and the south was not ready to take the chance in having their way of income outlawed. Document number six is an excerpt from the South Carolina ordinance of secession and it states that the public mind must be okay with believing that Slavery is on the road to being completely abolished. People in the south would lose everything and then some if they let slavery slip beneath them at this time. The Compromise of 1850 is a series of five bills that were intended to ease the strife within the Nation. The goal was to deal with the expansion of slavery to the territories in order to keep the north and the south states in balance. Among the five of the bills, one was the Fugitive Slave Act and it was a law that compelled citizens to help return escaping slaves to their owners. And those of which who refused to assist, or helped slaves to escape were subject to heavy penalties. The southern states want to maintain their states’ rights, and with popular sovereignty it was possible. In addition to popular sovereignty there was the Kansas-Nebraska Act, this act annulled the Missouri Compromise. It also provided the organization of the territories of the north and the south. It permitted the territories to decide for themselves whether they wanted to permit slavery or not. The southern states wanted to know which territories would have slavery for a definite fact. And with all the new acts and bills it would not work for them. In fear that their rights would be lost, they left the union. The southern states seceded from the union because they did not agree with the turnout of the election of 1860, they did not want slavery to be abolished, and they felt their state rights were in jeopardy. The south was completely against having Lincoln as a president because he was a Republican. Lincoln was not against slavery, he was for it in the sense that he knew that the white people would never accept having all of the African Americans become slaves. That is why he stood up to keep the union together, and that is when the south seceded because they did not want to tolerate slavery being abolished, nor did they want to lose their state rights as they stood at the time.