Throughout the course of the Civil War, Southerner’s felt as if the North was impending upon state’s rights and their way of life, which was based on slavery, was put at risk by the Union . At different points in the war, Southerners felt that the Union posed a bigger threat than before, especially after Abraham Lincoln gave the Emancipation Proclamation speech. The Civil War was not only fought by free Americans, but as times changed, enslaved people also took up arms alongside the Union and fought the Confederacy. The inevitable Civil War resulted in the South’s demise and them rejoining the Union. When the Southern States began to secede, they felt as if the Union and Northern Democratic party we’re threatening the lifestyle they had grown so used to. The Northern Democratic party stated in their campaign platform that “it is the duty of the United States to afford ample and complete protection to all its citizens, whether at home or abroad, and whether native or foreign” (Northern Democratic Party Platform of 1860, page 1). After the events at Harper’s Ferry, South Carolina felt as if the security of the slave labor was …show more content…
At certain times throughout the Civil War and times leading up to it, the Union posed a bigger threat towards slavery than other times. In Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, he stated that he supported the fugitive slave law and he “[had] no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. [He believed he had] no lawful right to do so, and [had] no inclination to do so” (Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, page 1). This was when the South’s fears that the Union planned on abolishing slavery were at an all time