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The Battle Of The American Civil War

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On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union. Within six months, ten other states would follow. These eleven states would form the Confederacy. Southern secession was the first step leading to the American Civil War. This war was the bloodiest war in American history, killing roughly 600,000 American soldiers. The Civil War would have never happened if it wasn’t for the secession of the Southern states. Because of Lincoln’s election, States’ rights, economic issues, and slavery, eleven Confederate states seceded from the Union. By the presidential election of 1860, the United States was divided over the controversial topic of slavery. The Democratic Party had separated into three parties. Each group was fighting for control of the Democratic Party, and each group had conflicting views on how to deal with slavery in the new states in the West. Abraham Lincoln was the Republican presidential candidate and believed slavery should be abolished in both the West and the South. The South feared that if Lincoln was elected then slavery would be abolished. The South relied heavily on the manual labor of slaves for their economy and, because of this, threatened to secede from the Union if Lincoln was elected. Because the Democratic Party had separated into three groups, the Democratic vote was split between three candidates. The split vote allowed for Lincoln to defeat Douglas, Bell, and Breckenridge in the 1860 presidential election without

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