Election of 1860, Secession & Causes of the War
Essential Question:
What was the ultimate cause of Secession that led to the Civil War?
Election of 1860: Lincoln-Douglas Debates
- Series of seven debates between Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln during the 1858 Illinois state election campaign
- Douglas and Lincoln took their arguments directly to the people.
- Even though senators were elected by the state legislatures until 1913.
- They debated on 2 specific topics:
- Slavery
- Expansion of Slavery into territories
Stephen Douglas Background
- Proposed and established Kansas- Nebraska act
- Supported the Dred Scott Decision
- Jacksonian Democrat
Lincoln-Douglas Debates Outcome
- Douglas ultimately won due to Democrats being favorable in Congressional Districts.
- Lincoln’s stance on the Morality of Slavery grows stronger
- The Democratic party continued splitting due to differences of opinions on the extension of slavery into territories.
- Douglas won the Democratic Nomination
- Lincoln won the Republican Nomination
Election of 1860
- Elected the 16th president over a deeply divided Democratic Party,
- The first REpublican to win the presidency.
- Lincoln received only 40 percent of the popular vote
- Other candidates: Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge, Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, and Northern Democrat Stephen Douglas, a U.S. senator for Illinois.
South Carolina
December 20, 1860
- The state of South Carolina sounded the clarion call of secession that rapidly reverberated through the South.
- The plantation aristocrats who dominated the state legislature fearing for the livelihood of their cherished ” peculiar institution” voted unanimously to repeal South Carolina’s ratification of the US Constitution and thus leave the Union
Secession
- Within three months of Lincoln’s election, seven states had seceded from the Union.
- States to secede:
- Alabama
- Florida
- Georgia
- Louisiana
- Mississippi
- South Carolina
- Texas
- Arkansas
- North Carolina
- Tennessee
- Virginia
Government of the Confederate States of America
- A provisional government, established in February 1861 at Montgomery, Alaabama, was replaced by a permanent government at Richmond, Virginia a year later.
- Operating under a structure similar to that of the United States, was headed by Pres. Jefferson Davis and Vice Pres. Alexander H. Stephens. The self-declared nation soon acquired other symbols of sovereignty, such as its own stamps and a flag known as the Stars and Bars.