Why did the Southern states secede in 1861?

From 1861 to 1865, the United States of America was fighting itself. The northern part of the United States, known as the Union or simply the North, was trying to end slavery in the southern part of the United States. The South seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. The North consisted of Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, California, Nevada, and Oregon. The South consisted of Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. The North wanted slavery to be abolished, but the South needed slaves for their economy; the conflict started war. The North and the South were both prepared for war.

David M. Potter theme of Impending Crisis is the study of sectional conflict dealing primarily with political events that led up to or caused southern states to secede from the Union resulting in the Civil War. Potter contends that during the expansionist period of the 1840s the country was experiencing a growth of American nationalism, but “the emergence of the sectionalism which almost destroyed the nation was symbolized by an amendment to an appropriation bill which was never enacted.” For the next fifteen years the Wilmot Proviso (1846) and the issue of slavery would become “a catalyst of all sectional antagonisms, political, economic, and cultural…opened the floodgates of sectionalism, for now all the pent-up moral indignation which had been walled in by the constitutional inhibition could be vented into the territorial question.”

In the late 1850s, tension between the North and the South were getting extremely high. Tension got so high that several of the southern states were succeeding from the Union. However, there were three major factors that sparked succession from the Union. First was the Dred Scott decision; the second was John Brown’s raid, and the third factor was Abraham Lincoln being elected president of the United States in 1860.

“In time, other plantation crops, especially cotton, sugarcane, and sugar beets, were found to thrive in the South”. It also says “As a result of those and other factors, the North's economy came to depend more on trade than on agriculture”(Doc 3). This means that the North and the South had different views on how to live and how to make money . This also means that the South and the North had different opinions that could not be solved. Southern states left the Union because they had different ways of making money and living.

America before the Civil War was the North and the South being completely divided. The South did one thing and the North did another. The North specialized in factories while the South specialized in slavery. The North and The South would debate over certain things and most of the time couldn’t come to an agreement. The South seceded from the Union because of slavery, sectionalism and differences between the South and the North.

The institution of slavery swiftly divided the Americans eventually causing the Civil War. Since the founding of the colonies, the southern colonies drastically differed from its New England neighbors. For example, South Carolina divided because the southern region exploited slavery for the production of cash crops, such as tobacco and sugar while the northern region held different political beliefs and specialized in lumber for ship making. Eventually, this division led to the creation of two new states—North and South Carolina. Similarly, slavery worsened this divide among Americans eventually causing the creation of two new nations—The Union and the Confederacy. Both sides held opposing beliefs and because neither would succumb, the method

Modifications between the North and the South was happening way before the American Revolution. Economic, social and political structures differed significantly between the two regions, and these disparities only enlarged in the 1800s. In 1861, the Civil War erupted between the two sides, and much of the conflict surrounded sectional differences. Once the war ended, Reconstruction reduced some sectional disparities but increased others. The major transformation between the North and the South, and the one most responsible for the Civil War was the institution of slavery. In the North, slavery was almost universally prohibited by the 1800s, while the institution was a basis of Southern society. In the North, many blacks were free, and in states such as Massachusetts, New York and Ohio, 100 percent of the black population was free. In the states of the Union, by contrast, few blacks were free. Virginia had the highest ratio of free blacks to slaves, but even there only 9 percent of the state's black population was free. The Emancipation Proclamation would eliminate slavery, but for the first half of the century, the issue divided the South and North. The South's slave economy supported agriculture, while the North's free society enabled development. By the beginning of the Civil War, only one-ninth of the United States' industrial capacity was situated in the South. The North, meanwhile, produced 97 percent of the country's firearms and 93 percent of its pig iron. The chances of

The Civil War was a time of fighting within the United States brought on by many events including the Missouri Compromise, abolition movement, presidential election of 1860, secession of Southern states, and other occurrences. Most Southern states seceded from the Union, forming the Confederate States of America. The big divide stemmed from the differing positions on slavery. The North had been gradually abolishing slavery and did not depend on such free labor in the way the South did. The agricultural dependant economy of the South relied on African American labor. Therefore, each side feared the stance the government would take on the issue of slavery and how that would affect the economy and politics of the nation. From 1861 to 1865, the

Southerners were basically farmers who made their living of agriculture, architecture, so they needed to tend the land they owned. To be able to maintain their crops they needed labor as well as slaves. If slaves were banned in the south the southern economy would drop because the lack of labor and the trade market of slaves would drop as well. Slavery existed for primary labor. Southerners claimed that the federal government was not allowed to stop them from having slavery; the issue of slavery became one of the main issues, because it was the most certain issue of the time. The slavery issue came to the front of laws later, and many in the south were discussing the possibility of freeing the slaves on their own. The north, which was controlled by radical republicans, was pushing for the abolition of slavery. Northerners aided the escape of runaway slaves, which was a constitutional violation that made a fugitive from one state a fugitive of every state. Slavery in the beginning existed in every state, and the writers of the Constitution avoided addressing the issue of conserving or ending slavery in order to obtain ratification from all states. When Americans acclaimed victory in the Mexican War, which resulted in the US expanding its territory from Texas all the way to the Pacific Ocean, the question of whether or not to permit slavery in the new territories was later issued. The

Debates over which powers were rightly the states and rightly the federal governments were already tense and the question of whether slavery should or shouldn’t exist in the new territories of America, added on to the already strained relationship between the two sides. Document A describes this situation as a cup on the edge of the shelf, certain things almost pushing it over the edge such as the addition of new states being free or under a slavery economy. Many compromises were formed to try and keep states’ rights as well as keep power for the government. The south wanted to assert their authority over the federal government so they could abolish federal rights they didn’t support, this was

“If slavery must not expand in your mind, it’s settled, we as a state secede from the governing of the Union and join a greater power, the Confederacy. We will no longer be hampered in your hatred towards our way of living. ”…“Then be on your way, I shall not dabble in your cruel pro-slavery reasoning. Just bear the knowledge in mind, we are stronger as a whole.” The Missouri Compromise kept inevitable split of the Nation at bay when it prohibited slavery north of the parallel 3630’ north line. This was later repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which implemented idea of popular sovereignty. This led to “Bleeding Kansas.” “Border Ruffians,” who were pro-slavery and the

Cotton was the king of the South. It was bringing in large amounts of money as the textile industry in the North grew. Slavery was vital to the economic well-being of the South, and when the North began to question the “peculiar institution” of the South the wall of civility between the two sectionalized areas began to crumble. Due to the growing issue of slavery in the 1850s, the United States of America was in a state of total disarray and turmoil. The tension that had always existed between the North and South over the matter of slavery was no longer ignorable. As the United States expanded to the West, the status of slavery in the new states erupted in a violence that could no longer be controlled by sectionalism. The peace treaties that had worked in the past became Band-Aids over stab wounds. Southern states began to leave the United States of America to form the Confederate States of America and war was declared as the South fired onto the forts of the North. The Civil War was caused directly by the issue of slavery; the fugitive slave act in the Compromise of 1850, Dred Scott v. Sandford, and Bleeding Kansas prove that slavery was the key factor in the eruption of the nation.

There were a number of major events that lead to the split of the union and ultimately this famous speech, “The Cornerstone of the Confederacy”. In 1820, the Missouri Compromise took place. This compromise allowed Missouri to be admitted into the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free state. With this compromise, it maintained the balance of slavery within the Union but it created a “physical” divide between the north and south. August of 1831 there was a slave rebellion in which 60 white individuals where killed. Between 1846 and 1850 there was an attempt to be passed a law, Wilmot Proviso, which would not allow slavery to expand into new territories. The Wilmot

The Civil War was fought from 1861-1865.(Masur,L 2011) One of its main components was slavery. Many northern states fought to end slavery, while the southern states wished to fight to keep slavery and protect its rights.(civilwar.org) The Southern states economy was dependent on cotton which to them made slavery a necessity, while the North was becoming a more industrialized economy.(Masur,L 2011)The separation in economic needs helped to create a divide between the two sections.(ushistory.org) In addition to the economy, southern states pushed for nullification. They did not believe that the Federal Government should impose its will on the states. (Masur,L 2011 pg4) The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 did little to reassure the south that their rights to own slaves would be upheld and was basically a final straw for many southern states. (civilwar.org) There were a total of eleven states that would secede from the Union from 1860-1861 prior to the start of the Civil War. These states in order of secession were

The controversy over slaves ultimately led to the secession. Abraham Lincoln thinks slavery is wrong and he wants to stop it from spreading. Earlier, he had warned that slavery could separate a nation. In the 1860 election Lincoln is elected, but southerners are worried he will end slavery forever. Southern states start to secede because they are worried. First South Carolina succeeds, then North, Texas, and then Florida too. They give themselves a new name called the Confederate States of America. (Wise...)