Download The South Breaks Away

Chapter 15, Section 5

1860 Abraham Lincoln was nominated to run
for president with the Republican Party

Democrats held their convention in Charleston,
South Carolina
 Southerners wanted the party to support
slavery
 Northerners Democrats refused
 The party split in two

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Northern Democrats choose Stephen Douglas to
run for President
Southern Democrats choose John Breckinridge of
Kentucky
Constitutional Union Party: new political party
 Tried to heal the split between North and South
 Choose John Bell of Tennessee to run for
President
 He was a moderate who wanted to keep the
Union together

Lincoln won the election
 Even though his name was not even on the
ballot in 10 southern states

To many Southerners Lincoln ‘s election meant
that the South no longer had a voice in the
federal government
 Even before the election the governor of
South Carolina wrote to other Southern states
that if Lincoln won the election it was their
duty to leave the Union

Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky made one
last effort to save the Union
 He introduced a bill to extent the Missouri
Compromise Line all the way to the Pacific

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Southerners believe they had put an
abolitionist in the White House
The first state to secede was South Carolina on
December 20, 1860
By February 1, 1861 Alabama, Florida, Georgia,
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas had seceded.

Confederate States of America: seven states
that seceded
 Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was named
President of the Confederacy

Southerners believed they had every right to
secede
 Declaration of Independence states it is the
right of the people to alter or abolish a
government that denies the right of its
citizens
 Believed Lincoln would deny white
southerners the right to own slaves


Lincoln stated that no state can lawfully get out
of the Union
He pledged there would be no war unless the
South started it

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The Confederacy started seizing federal forts in
the South
 South felt they were a threat because the
United States was now a foreign power
By April 1861 the Confederacy controlled
nearly all forts post offices and federal
buildings in the South

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Fort Sumter, in South Carolina guarded
Charleston Harbor
 Confederates asked for the fort’s surrender
 Major Robert Anderson , Union commander,
refused
Confederate guns opened fire
Union ran out of ammunition and surrendered
Marked the beginning of the Civil War.