Origins of the American Civil War

The origins of the American Civil War lay in the complex issues of slavery, expansionism, sectionalism, and political party politics of the Antebellum Period.

The emergence of Lincoln

Elections of 1860

For further details see the main articles U.S. presidential election, 1860, Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858, and Abraham Lincoln.

Related Topics:
U.S. presidential election, 1860 - Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 - Abraham Lincoln

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Initially, William H. Seward of New York, Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, and Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania were the leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination. But Lincoln, a former one-term House member who gained fame amid the Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 had fewer political opponents within the party and out-maneuvered the other contenders. On May 16, he received the Republican nomination at their convention in Chicago, Illinois.

Related Topics:
William H. Seward - New York - Salmon P. Chase - Ohio - Simon Cameron - Pennsylvania - Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858 - Chicago - Illinois

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The schism in the Democratic Party over the Lecompton constitution caused Southern "fire-eaters" to oppose frontrunner Stephen A. Douglas' bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. Southerners left the party and in June nominated John C. Breckinridge, while Northern Democrats supported Douglas. As a result, the Southern planter class lost a considerable measure of sway in national politics. Because of the Democrats' division, the Republican nominee would face a divided opposition.

Related Topics:
Fire-eaters - Stephen A. Douglas' - John C. Breckinridge

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Adding to Lincoln's advantage, ex-Whigs from the border states had earlier formed the Constitutional Union Party, nominating John C. Bell for president. Thus, party nominees waged regional campaigns. Douglas and Lincoln competed for Northern votes, while Bell and Breckinridge competed for Southern votes.

Related Topics:
Whigs - Border states - Constitutional Union Party - John C. Bell

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"Vote yourself a farm— vote yourself a tariff" was a slogan for the Republicans in 1860. In sum, business was to support the farmers' demands for land (popular also in industrial working-class circles) in return for support for a higher tariff. In this sense, the Republican platform that elected Abraham Lincoln in 1860 was touted as a "marriage of iron and rye." The Civil War has been called a "second American revolution." To an extent, after all, the elections of 1860 bolstered the political power of new social forces unleashed by the Industrial Revolution. A few days before President Buchanan left office, for example, Congress, with the absence of Southern members, passed the Morrill Tariff Act, which increased duties and brought the rates up to approximately what they had been before 1846 -- an action that many in the South found comparable to the "Tariff of Abominations" that had triggered the Nullification Crisis.

Related Topics:
1860 - Tariff - Morrill Tariff Act

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Southern secession

See Fort Sumter and American Civil War for coverage of events after South Carolina's secession from the Union.

Related Topics:
Fort Sumter - American Civil War

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With the emergence of the Republicans as the nation's first major sectional party by the mid-1850s, politics became the stage on which sectional tensions were played out. Although much of the West— the focal point of sectional tensions— was unfit for cotton cultivation, Southern secessionists read the political fallout as a sign that their power in national politics was rapidly weakening. Before, the slave system had been buttressed to an extent by the Democratic Party, which was increasingly seen as representing a more pro-Southern position that unfairly permitted Southerners to prevail in more and more of the nation's territories and to dominate national policy before the Civil War. But they suffered a significant reverse in the electoral realignment of the mid-1850s. 1860 was a critical election that marked a stark change in existing patterns of party loyalties among groups of voters; Abraham Lincoln's election was a watershed in the balance of power of competing national and parochial interests and affiliations.

Related Topics:
1850s - Civil War - 1860

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Once the election returns were certain, a special South Carolina convention declared "that the Union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states under the name of the 'United States of America' is hereby dissolved," heralding the secession of ten more Southern states by May 21, 1861. With Southern opposition removed in Congress, the Republicans did not attempt to satisfy Southern demands in a way that could have produced a compromise.

Related Topics:
South Carolina - May 21 - 1861

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