5.7 Election of 1860 and Secession

The Democratic Party split in 1860. Northern Democrats nominated Stephen Douglas, who supported popular sovereignty. Southern Democrats nominated Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky and demanded federal protection for slavery in all territories. The new Constitutional Union Party, made up largely of former Whigs from the border states, nominated John Bell of Tennessee and avoided the slavery issue, calling simply for preserving the Union.

The Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln. Their platform opposed slavery's expansion into the territories but promised not to interfere with slavery where it existed. It also supported a protective tariff, a homestead law and a transcontinental railroad.

Lincoln won a clear majority of the Electoral College by sweeping the free states, even though he had only about 40 percent of the popular vote and was not even on the ballot in most Southern states. To many Southerners this proved that the North could now elect a president without any Southern support, and that the South had lost its power to protect slavery in the national government.

South Carolina seceded on December 20, 1860. By February 1, 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas had followed. In February they formed the Confederate States of America at Montgomery, Alabama, with Jefferson Davis as president. The Confederate constitution explicitly protected slavery.

Seceding states justified their action with the compact theory, the idea that the states had created the Union and could leave it. But their official declarations of causes made clear that protecting slavery was their central reason. Mississippi's declaration, for example, said its position was 'thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery'.

Last-minute compromises failed. The Crittenden Compromise proposed extending the 36°30′ line to the Pacific and protecting slavery with constitutional amendments, but Lincoln would not accept slavery's expansion, and it died in Congress.

In his inaugural address in March 1861, Lincoln promised not to interfere with slavery in the states but declared secession illegal. He decided to resupply Fort Sumter, a federal fort in Charleston harbor, sending only food. Confederate forces fired on the fort on April 12, 1861, and it surrendered the next day.

Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to put down the rebellion. Rather than fight fellow Southern states, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee seceded, bringing the Confederacy to eleven states. Richmond, Virginia, became its capital.

Four slave states, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, stayed in the Union. They were vital: they had large populations, factories, and rivers such as the Ohio, and Maryland surrounded Washington, D.C., on three sides. Keeping them loyal shaped Lincoln's early caution about emancipation. Western Virginia broke away from Virginia and joined the Union as West Virginia in 1863.