How Did Lincoln Try To Prevent The Civil War

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After Abraham Lincoln was elected as President of the United States, the South became very concerned that the end of life as they knew it was near, (Shultz, n.d.). President Lincoln was opposed to slavery and he was against the spread of it in the West. The southerners assumed that if the all the western territories remained free, the Republicans would accomplish their abolition efforts. Secession began with the states in the deep south, (Shultz, n.d.). South Carolina was the first southern state to secede from the Union and several others began to follow. The states wanted to maintain their right to own slaves and they did not want to continue to live where that was not possible. These states were dependent upon slavery in order for their cotton production to be a success. The southern states that had left the Union established the Confederate States of America on February 7,1861 and they elected Jefferson Davis as their first President. There were many attempts by Lincoln to avoid a war and to reconcile with the Confederacy, however, none of them proved …show more content…

He wanted to assure the southern states that if they would remain in the Union he would do nothing to abolish slavery in the states where it was already allowed. He did however, maintain that no state should be able to withdrawal from the Union and that the arsenals, forts, and other federal property that happen to stand in these southern states were still the Union’s property. I suppose you could say he used a bit of reverse psychology. I believe he knew that the Confederate States would become aggressive and want to fight for their beliefs and I believe he knew that the Union States would be successful if there was to be a war. He left it all up to the Confederacy and left no blame for himself. For all intents and purposes, he was trying to unite the Confederacy and the Union