Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Key People
Abraham Lincoln - 16th U.S. president; his Republican roots and association with abolitionism prompted South Carolina to secede in 1861 John Bell - Constitutional Union candidate for president in 1860; campaigned for compromise, Union, and slavery John C. Breckinridge - Vice president under Buchanan and Democratic candidate for president in 1860; supported by Southern Democrats Stephen Douglas - Democratic presidential candidate in 1860; supported primarily by Northern Democrats Jefferson Davis - Former senator from Mississippi selected as president of the Confederate States of America in 1861 William Seward - Radical abolitionist who led Whig Party and, later, Republican Party John Brown - Radical abolitionist who incited a slave uprising in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859; was convicted of treason and hanged
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trial, Brown was convicted of treason and hanged. Before his death, he announced that he would gladly die if his death brought the nation closer to justice. Browns execution was met with cheers in the South and wails in the North. His raid had touched on Southerners deepest fear that their slaves would one day rise up against them, and many in the South viewed him as a criminal and a traitor of the worst kind. Most Northerners, however, saw Brown as a martyr, especially after he so boldly denounced slavery with his final words.
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Democrat Douglas delivered antisecession speeches, and Southern Democrat Breckinridge defended slavery. In the end, Lincoln won a resounding victory, with 40 percent of the popular vote. He won a total of 180 electoral votes, while the other candidates combined won 123.
Secession
A month after Lincolns election, legislators in South Carolina voted unanimously to secede; within several weeks, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas followed suit. Despite Honest Abes reputation in the North as a moderate, he was vilified as a radical abolitionist Black Republican in the South. Much to the dismay of anxious Northerners, lameduck president James Buchanan did nothing to address the secession crisis. Lincoln also waited to take action until he had officially become president.
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support a war only in which the Southerners were the aggressors. Lincoln could thus continue to claim honestly that he was fighting to defend and save the Union from those who wished to tear it apart.
Fort Sumter
Jefferson Davis, on the other hand, announced in his inaugural speech that the South might be required to use force to secure its aims, and that spring, the South made good on its word. On April 12, 1861, General P. T. Beauregard ordered his South Carolinian militia unit to attack Fort Sumter, a Union stronghold on an island in Charleston Harbor. After a day of intense bombardment, Major Robert Anderson surrendered the fort to Beauregard. South Carolinas easy victory prompted four more statesArkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginiato secede. The Civil War had begun.