Why Did The Americans Win The Election Of 1860

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In the 1860’s South Carolina decided to secede from the union. This caused an uprising of many other states that decided the United States was not working out for them and many others decided to secede too. President Lincoln felt that this violated the Constitution and felt that it was not the states choice whether or not they were part of the union. On the contrary, the states felt that if they joined the union they should be able to leave it, no questions asked. Slavery was a act that was questioned for a long time. Some people felt that slavery was okay and that slaves were here to work for the wealthy. Whereas others felt that slaves deserved to be treated the same as any human and should not be allowed in America. Slavery was a diverse …show more content…

This really introduced the idea of popular sovereignty. This left California as a free state, but let New Mexico and Utah to have slavery decided by popular sovereignty. Washington DC had eliminated slave trade. This also caused an uprising of people that felt slavery should not be banned. It came time for the election of 1860. Douglas was running for Northern Democracy, Beckinridge for Southern Democracy, Bell for the Moderates and Lincoln for Republican. The Democrats were split between the two sides, Northern and Southern, this weakened the Democracy party severely, this led to Lincoln winning the election because they were highly outnumbered. The Southern Democrats were outraged that they did not win the election and they felt that there was no choice for what they believed in and so they finally succeeded. Lastly, Southern secession was not constitutional. This is because in the constitution it states “New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.” This is saying that not states shall be formed on their own, but this is what they were doing, the people were making their own states/union so that they only had to listen to their own