Download Aim #39: What led southern states to secede

Aim #39: What led southern states to secede from the U.S. in 1860?
Do now!
1. Please have out your hw from last night
2. Answer the questions comparing the US and Confederate Constitutions
3. Read the handout (speech by Jefferson Davis) why does he feel it is
necessary to secede?
The Election of Abraham Lincoln was the trigger which set off
the first wave of secession in the southern slave states.
2
(I) Secession Background
a. December 1860, South Carolina unanimously voted to secede from the
Union
b. grounds:
1. North’s attacks on slavery
2. Power in the hands of the Republican party and the election of a president
who is hostile to slavery (Lincoln only favored keeping slavery out of the
territories, not out of states where it already existed)
(II) Crittenden Compromise (prosed by senator from Kentucky)
a. Designed to appease the south
b. Provisions
1. Slavery in the territories would be prohibited north of the 36-30 line, but
given full federal protection south of that line, even if new territories were
acquired
2. Popular sovereignty for all future states
3. Rejected by Lincoln
c. “Fire Eaters”: nickname for most prominent secessionists
1. Uncompromising devotion to cause of southern independence
d. Confederacy formed (February 4, 1861)
1. Jefferson Davis chosen as president of the provisional government
d. President Buchanan did little to prevent southern secession
1. Believed Constitution didn’t give him authority to stop secession
with force
2. Many of his advisors were prosouthern
e. Lincoln’s Inaugural
f. Ft. Sumter (April 12, 1861)
1. Was fired upon by Southern troops, considered start of Civil War
Fort Sumter today and scenes from the attack and Confederate
occupation
5
On a separate sheet of paper answer the following questions
1. Do you find Lincoln‘s argument for maintaining the Union
convincing? Why or why not?
2. Predict what would have happened in the Confederate states if they
had been allowed to secede and go their own way with government
and society.