The 1860 presidential election saw the Democratic party split along sectional lines, nominating two separate candidates. The Republican party nominated Abraham Lincoln, while a new Constitutional Union party nominated John Bell. Lincoln won the election, causing many southerners to believe the South had lost its voice in government. After several failed compromise attempts in Congress, seven southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America. This divided the nation and led to the outbreak of the Civil War when Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina in April 1861.

1. Chapter 16 Section 5
A Nation Divides

2. The Election of 1860
 The Democrats
– Southerners wanted the party to support slavery
– Northerners did not want to support slavery
– Party splits in two
 Northern Democrats
– Chose Stephen Douglas as their candidate
 Southern Democrats
– Chose John Breckinridge of Kentucky

3. The Election of 1860 cont’d
 The Republicans
– Chose Abraham Lincoln
for President
 A new party on the
horizon: The
Constitutional Union
– Tried to heal the split
between the North and
the South
– Chose John Bell of
Tennessee

4. Americans go to the Polls
 Americans made their
opinions clear
 Lincoln carried the
North and effectively
won the election
 Bell only got a few
southern states, and
Douglas got most of the
South

5. The South Reacts
 Many southerners believed that Lincoln’s
election showed that the South no longer had
a voice in government.
 Senator John Crittenden (KY) made one last
attempt to save the Union
– Extend the Missouri Compromise line to the
Pacific
– Proposed that states south of the Compromise
line could hold slaves.

6. The South Reacts cont’d
– This bill received little support
 Many southerners believed that the North
had put an abolitionist in the White House
 They felt that secession was their only choice
 The first state to secede was South Carolina
(12/20/1860) Alabama, Florida, Georgia,
Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas soon
followed

7. The Confederacy
 Many southerners believed
that the Declaration of
Independence supported
them
– “it is the right of the people
to alter or abolish” a
government that denies the
rights of its citizens
 They felt that Lincoln had
denied them the right to hold
slaves

8. The Civil War Begins
 In his inaugural address,
Lincoln warned that “no
state…can lawfully get out of
the Union.”
 Jefferson Davis began to
order forces to begin seizing
federal forts in the South
 Fort Sumter (SC) was one of
the only forts not taken over
by the Confederacy
Fort Sumter, 1861

9. The Civil War Begins cont’d
 President Lincoln learned that supplies at
Fort Sumter were running low
 Lincoln notified the S. Carolina government
that he was going to only send food, not
troops or weapons
 On April 11, 1861, the Confederates
demanded that Fort Sumter surrender

10. This Means War!
 Major Robert Anderson,
the Union commander,
refused to give in
 Confederate guns
opened fire
 Union troops quickly
ran out of ammunition
 On April 13, Anderson
surrendered the fort.