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What Led The South To Secede In 1860 Essay

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What led the Southern States to secede from the Union in 1860 and 1861? As the United States had just finished ratifying the Constitution and establishing democracy in the late 1700’s. Tensions between the North and South of the country began to rise as differences between the two were boiling over many issues both political and economic. Such issues were dealing with the laws regarding slavery and where certain jurisdictions would lie in those cases. The Southern states seceded from the Union in 1860 and 1861 due to the North’s reaction to the enforcement of the fugitive slave act, the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the election of 1860. There were many factors that ultimately led to the causes for the South to secede in 1860 and 1861. One very impactful event was …show more content…

Many anti-slavery protesters in the North viewed the passing of the act as cowardice as they gave into the demands of the slave owners. It was once addressed by Ralph Waldo Emerson, a transcendentalist writer known professionally as an American essayist, lecturer, and poet who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century in an address regarding the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, he wrote “As soon as the constitution ordains an immoral law, it ordains disunion.” (Document D) As the South viewed the enforcement of the act as a solution that would end the escape of many slaves through the Underground Railroad. Ultimately it failed in stopping the runaways as they hoped it would when persuading Congress to pass the act. Also in response to this many states passed personal liberty laws “which forbade the imprisonment of runaway slaves and guaranteed that they would have jury trials.” (Danzer 310) The North demonstrated that they wouldn’t be afraid to fight back and also demonstrated the power of state

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When the Constitution was created to establish national unity, the makers did not outline the subject that would plague a source of discord between the North and South, slavery. Whereas, the Constitution under loose and strict interpretations manifested the divide between the union and confederacy. In consideration to the South heavily relying on “Cotton King,” as their source of income, slavery had become relied upon within their society, and they were unwilling to relinquish their labor force. This eventually brought the South into a defensive stance over “slave labor” as the North began to visibly oppose the injustice after Uncle Tom’s Cabin became a phenomena throughout the North and abroad depicting slave life. Therefore, the tension

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Election of 1860/Secession of the South Have you ever wondered why the United States Presidential Election of 1860 was one of the most monumental presidential elections in the history of this country? The reason why is because it caused so much conflict between in north and the south in the late 1800’s. The south wished for slavery to be legal while the north thought otherwise. In the Election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected president of the United States as he was a Republican candidate and as a result, the south decided to make a dramatic move to make a “step forward” as a unit. The election of Abraham Lincoln caused the north and the south to grow their conflicts and caused the Civil War, but what caused the conflicts?

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The Southern States ultimately dissociated from the Union which led to succession. The combination of the succession of Southern states along with territorial disputes prompted sectional discord throughout.

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Secondly, Southern states seceded from the Union because of political disagreements. “Many Southerners favored secession as part of the idea that the states have rights and powers which the federal government cannot legally deny. The supporters of states’ rights held that the national government was a league of independent states….”(Document 5). This means that the Southerners seceded from the Union because they wanted their rights to leave the Union

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The Unsuccessful Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 In the time of slavery, the North and the South struggled to find a balance over African Americans civil rights. The United States began to segregate into the Union states, those who did not support slavery, and the Confederate states, those who did support slavery. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was among one of the many acts enforced during this time. It was ultimately unsuccessful in establishing peace between the North and the South because it was not a peace intended act, it was ineffective, and it upset both sides.

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The American Civil War initiated directly from the northern and southern strained relations on controversial matters along with their intransigent attitudes. The Presidential Election of Abraham Lincoln engendered the secession forming the Confederate States of America due to the matter of states’ rights opposed to federal supremacy, slavery, and economic sectionalism. The United States Secession in 1860 involved seven states withdrawing from the Union, following four states after the emerging battle of the Civil War. Republicans opposed the enlargement of slavery flowing throughout the territories, therefore restricting the practice of slavery. Southern states discerned on the depriving control of federal government eventually overpowering slavery resulting to its prohibition.

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By the 1850’s many Americans in the North began to oppose slavery in the South because many thought slavery to be religiously wrong and immoral. Additionally, slavery was causing a political division between slave and free states, and was coming in the way of the national growth of the United States. Moreover, the horror of how slavery was practiced, religious values, and the political crisis slavery were the main features of slavery that were affecting and influencing the opinions of Northerners. Those Americans who lived in the North didn’t’ just have a moral enlightenment.

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From November 1860 to May 1861 we have had 11 of our Southern states secede from the United States of America. They threatened to secede if our current president Abraham Lincoln was elected into office. The reason all 11 states seceded is because they believe that the government was becoming too strong, and they didn’t want them to tell them how they could live and how they couldn’t. In other words they didn’t want the government to tell them if they could have slaves and if they couldn’t. The Southerners felt that if they stayed with the United states that the Northern states would begin to control them.

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‘Slavery was the root cause of secession’. ‘November 6 1860, Lincoln was elected president of America which resulted in panic emerging in the South’ . The election of Lincoln as president who was a Republican leader meant that ideologies, movements and values from the North would be implemented in the South which meant the abolition of slavery. Slavery was a huge characteristic of the South as the economy; politics; social status and psychological mind-sets were influenced by the process of slavery. The southern white population then derived the idea of secession which meant the South would gain independence from Northern aggression .

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The Civil War resulted due to the division and the gradual collapse of the Union between the two sections. It can be argued that both the North and South were distinct regions. However, both regions initially displayed nationalism in various ways at the beginning of the Civil War. Southern nationalism allowed the Confederates to justify their secession and independence. The formation of the Confederacy and the established Confederate Constitution in February 1861, nationalism validated their status as an independent country.

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This complex debate generated a war over slavery that would tear the country apart. Three months prior to taking office, South Carolina seceded from the Union. Shortly after, it was joined by all of the other states in the Deep South, creating the Confederate States of America which included: South Carolina, Mississippi,

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Two fundamental questions normally surround the history of any war: whether the war was inevitable and if it was necessary. These same questions emerge any time during debates regarding the American Civil war. The most cited cause of the Civil war is the secession of certain southern states that formed the Confederate States of America in January 1861. Thomas Bonner writes "Civil War Historians and the "Needless War" Doctrine" arguing that Southern Carolina seceded in 1860, followed by six other states by January the following year. A deep analysis of the events leading to the war indicates that the Union and the Confederates had profound ideological, economic, political, and social differences.

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To a greater extent, slavery was the greatest cause of the outbreak of the civil war in 1860. Disputes of slavery caused economic and political troubles between the northern and southern states leading up to the civil war. The fact the the northern and southern states were different in almost every way caused them to turn out like completely different territories, one of their greatest differences was the fact that most southern states economy relied on hard labour, agricultural jobs like tobacco in Maryland, and cotton in Virginia; this caused their economy to be more based on the labour of slaves than the more developed territories in the north (Harrold), who after this time was starting to not need the slave labour in their territories because after early 1800’s, the industrial revolution had been spreading to America, and the country developed very quickly. But in this expansion, only the north states were getting the effect of the industrial revolution, meaning the north would not need slave

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Fearful of abolitionists seeking to incite a slave insurrection to overthrow the southern society, southerners resorted to mass burnings of mail from northern outlets in an attempt to quell the anti-slavery messages. Further, southerners viewed these efforts as an undermining of their right to property that “God...entrusted to [their] charge” and became further convinced of northern ambitions to eradicate slavery and the slaveholders themselves. Despite the abolitionists consisting of a small number of people, the overarching impact of their propaganda and literature caused southerners to take drastic measures as many in the slave states increasingly felt their livelihoods and safety were under attack by an anti-slavery north. The manifestation of this paranoia in slaveholders would in essence create a connotation of the anti-slavery movement with that of the entirety of the “free” states and northern

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Secession- the act of pulling out of the union. By 1861 many southerners felt the need to secede. On December 20, 1860, South Carolina voted to secede. By February 1861 Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Louisiana had voted to secede and formed the confederate state of America.

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