Civil War Dbq

The years leading up to the Civil War were filled with great tension between the North and the South. Unfortunately after the result of the Kansas- Nebraska Act of 1854 it became clear to many Americans that the tension between the north and the south no longer had a resolution. The defining moment that solidified the war’s inevitability was in 1860. This year is significant because of the Election of 1860 which placed Abraham Lincoln into power. Now that Lincoln was president it gave southern sates a reason to secede. Many slaveholding states feared that the abolishment of slavery would be detrimental to their economic and political prosperity. Southerners argued that “ends for which the Government was instituted had been defeated, and the

The south believed him to be a radical Republican while the north believed him to be an anti- slavery moderate. Either way Lincoln’s election “demonstrated that the South was politically overwhelmed” because of this South Carolina was the first states that decided to succeed from the Union, and ultimately take the first step toward the Civil War. As a result, Lincoln declared that secession was legally void which only hindered the prevention of the war. Although Lincoln made this declaration “he did not intend to invade Southern states, but he would use force to maintain possession of federal property within seceded states.” This statement only proved that Lincoln was willing to fight at any measure to preserve the Union. The act of preserving federal property is seen in the battle of Fort Sumter. Although the battle was a loss for the Union army it still holds importance because the first shots fired in this battle by the Confederacy represented the start of the Civil War. The attack towards the Union resulted in Lincoln calling up 75,000 militia men. The win for the Confederacy at Fort Sumter showed that the south was powerful enough to stand up for themselves and Lincoln calling up the militia proved that the federal government was bound to over step their boundaries. These two factors played a key role in the succession of more southern states. Even in his Second Inaugural Address

He states that “both parties deprecated war; one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.” Although compromises were made between both sides of the nation they were unable to resolve the political issues between the north and the south. The war stemmed from Lincoln’s presidency and the decisions he made with his presidential power. As a result the South felt as though the threat to their institution of slavery was becoming too great. The south felt that in order to preserve their culture of slavery it would have to become its own nation and the only way the north felt they could stop the Confederacy and preserve the union was by retaliating back. Thus, making the Civil War inevitable to