9781422274200

After Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, eleven southern states tried to break away from the United States. Lincoln’s commitment to restore the Union using whatever means he could, including an end to slavery, changed the United States forever.

C. Breckinridge, the sitting vice president, who promised to extend slavery into all new western territories. The split enabled Lincoln to win the 1860 election, carrying most of the electoral votes from the Northern states. Despite Lincoln’s pre-election statements, some prominent southern leaders, nicknamed the Fire Eaters , argued that the Republican election victory would mark the end of slavery and would disrupt the established way of life in the South. Several of the slaveholding states soon declared their intent to break away from the United States and form a new country. On December 20, 1860, the people of South Carolina voted in a state convention to secede from the United States. The next month, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas also voted to secede. By the time Lincoln was sworn in as president on March 4, 1861, the rebellious states had agreed to work together as the Confederate States of America. They formed a government, and elected Jefferson Davis as their president. In April, Confederates attacked and captured the federal garrison at Fort Sumter, in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. They seized weapons there for the Confederacy. In response, President Lincoln issued a called for troops to put down

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RECONSTRUCTION AND ITS AFTERMATH