Why did Lincoln's election in 1860 lead to Civil War in 1861?

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Why did Lincoln's election in 1860 lead to Civil War in 1861?

B.Pringle

By 1860 sectional tensions within the Union had reached their peak.  Buchanan's presidency saw a major increase in sectional animosity.  This was due to events such as the Dred Scott ruling, John Browns raid and the support of the Lecompton Constitution by Buchanan.  The raid of John Brown was the exemplification of the aggression in politics of that time.  It seemed that by the time of Lincoln's election, peaceful debate was as rare as it was fruitless.

Lincoln's election was achieved by purely sectional voting.  Lincoln did not win a single southern state.  When this is acknowledged, it is not at all surprising that the South immediately considered secession after the newly elected President didn't carry a single state in the more populous half of the country.  In southern pro-slavers minds, it was like they were going to have laws against their livelihood forced on them by a foreign power who they didn't vote for but was still supposedly democratically legitimate.  The South felt they had no representation in government; although this was not true, the South were represented a lot less then they had ever previously been.  This considered, it was not difficult for fire-eaters to stir up anti-Union opinions.  The South saw Lincoln's election as the amalgamation of injustices against them and they felt the only way out of the hole they were in was secession.

A summary of these things is made clear in the South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession, December 24th 1860.  South Carolina felt that their rights as a state under the American constitution had been violated.  Especially in relation to fugitive slaves in their state being ignored by the North.  They also felt that they could not remain part of a union which, they thought, had intention to dissolve their current slave-holding rights and exclude them from the territories.

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Even though the South were to some extent justified to secede after Lincolns election, they would find it hard to allocate blame to many more people than themselves.  Lincoln's election in 1860 was as much due to the internal dissolution of the Democrat Party as was to do with Republican policy and election campaigns.  The inability of the Democrats to decide on a single candidate, which would carry votes not only in the South but also in the North, meant that both Democrats and the South were doomed from the start of the election campaign.  The southern vote was ...

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