Sectionalism


 
Abraham Lincoln
[audio]The Steps That Led to War
Public polarization over slavery made compromise between the North and the South more difficult.

Choosing sides was hard

  • Some people in the North supported the Confederacy because:
    1) they did not want to abolish slavery,
    2) they had familiar ties to the South,
    3) and they believed states should be able to make and enforce their own laws.
  • Some people in the South supported Confederacy because they wanted to get rid of slavery and believed that states should not make and enforce their own laws without a central government.
  • To end slavery wasn't a goal of Lincoln's for fighting the Civil War.


African Americans tried to join the Union Army

  • Lincoln did not allow African Americans into the Union Army to ensure that the border states would not leave the Union and join the Confederacy.


[audio] All the States Took Sides

The South

  • 11 States of the Confederacy include South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Virginia.
  • Gray was the color of uniform the soldiers in the Confederate Army wore.
  • Rebels and Johnny Rebs were the two names for Confederate soldiers.
  • Confederate States of America, also known as the Confederacy was what the seceded southern states called their new country.


The North

  • Blue was the color of uniform the soldiers in the Union Army wore. Yankees and Yanks were the two names for Union soldiers.


The Border States

  • Slave states that did not join the Confederacy were Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia.
  • The Border States remained with the Union because politics and economics of the North had more influence on these states than the South.
  • Lincoln had to be very careful about passing laws to limit slavery because he did not want to lose support from the Border States.
  • The North wanted Maryland to stay in the Union, so the Union's capitol, Washington, D.C., would then be encircled by Confederate states, making it easy to seize.
  • Lincoln's purpose for fighting, at the beginning of the Civil War was to maintain the Union.
  • Secede is to break away from a formal partnership.
  • Civil War is a war that the people living in the same country engage in combat against each other.
  • The Battle of Fort Sumter was important because it was the first battle that began the Civil War.


[audio] The Election of 1860

  • South Carolina was the first state to secede.
  • President-elect Lincoln first tried to solve the problem of southern states seceding from the United States by allowing slavery in the South and carrying out the Fugitive Slave Act as long as the South agreed that there would be no slavery in the new states.

President Buchanan did nothing

  • President Buchanan's solution to the secession problem was not to try stopping the secession.


The Seceding States Formed a Country

  • First difference between the Confederate Constitution and the U.S. Constitution was slavery was allowed and laws forbidding slavery within the south could not be created in the Confederate Constitution.
  • Second difference between the Confederate Constitution and the U.S. Constitution was the Confederate Constitution allowed states to create and carry out its laws.
  • Jefferson Davis was elected President of the Confederacy