9781422274200

This map shows the United States in 1861. Several border states where slavery was legal remained loyal to the Union, as did the mountainous western part of Virginia. West Virginia would be admitted as a separate state in 1863.

US laws. From the southerners perspective, the Civil War was a conflict between two separate countries: the United States and the Confederate States. President Lincoln and other northern leaders disagreed with this perspective. Under the US Constitution, states did not have the authority to withdraw from the United States. This meant the Civil War was an unlawful rebellion by the southern states against federal authority. The US government had the right to use force against the rebels to ensure that federal laws were respected and obeyed throughout the southern states. Lincoln insisted publicly that the purpose of fighting the Civil War was to preserve the union of the thirty-four states that were part of the United States in 1861. It was not, Lincoln stressed, about

10

RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS AFTERMATH