Expansion and Succession Essay

Expansion and Succession Essay

Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860 was a turning point in United States history. All through the tumultuous 1850s, the fiery Southern States had been threatening to secede from the Union. With Lincoln being elected as president, these Southern States made good on their threat. Indeed, Lincoln as president who represented a Republican Party that was insistent on keeping slavery out of America even as it expanded westwards. This was a position that shocked the sensibilities of the Southern States who considered slavery a significant economic lifeline. Expansion and Succession

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Meanwhile the Southern States leaders thought that the abolitionists who were largely Republican would employ the same militant and violent tactics observed in John Brown to ensure the abolition of slavery in the South. In essence, the victory of the Republican Party in presidential election of 1860 spurred eleven of the Southern States to secede from the Union to form the Confederate States of America, a new government that would maintain and expand slavery in line with the Southern ideals.Expansion and Succession Essay. President Lincoln who led the Union was unwilling to accept that some members of the Union could secede at will and was committed to ensuring that the Union was restored by having the Southern States that had seceded back into the Union. This differences in opinions between the Union and seceding Confederacy States led to the brutal Civil War that occurred between 1861 and 1865. The war had 600,000 fatalities among the soldiers. By 1863, the Civil War was no longer only about restoring the Union, but had turned into one that had implications for slavery in the country. Only after 4 years of fighting did the Union prevail over the Confederacy so that the Union was preserved even as the slavery institution ended in the country.Expansion and Succession Essay.

The election of President Lincoln in 1860 helped to spark the secession fever among the Southern States. Decades before the election, the sectional differences between the Southern and Northern States had been widening. They had been engaging in agitation and inflammatory rhetoric even as emotions ran strong on the two sides. A significant irritant between the two sides was the issue of slavery and how it had been expanding westward. Lincoln’s Republican Party was insistent that slavery must end while the Southern States were insistent that they should be allowed the freedom to have slavery enterprises. Expansion and Succession Essay.The result was that seven states in the South seceded and formed their own government even as they made plans for a war with the North. These seceding Southern States argued that although they had been party to the federal Constitution that created the Union, this was not reason enough for the federal government to seek to control their slavery enterprises. The newly formed Confederacy Government decided to form a confederation rather than a federal union with the individual states retaining their autonomy and only uniting under the central government in certain issues such as national defense against foreign aggression. The constitution developed for the Confederacy made it clear that it would perpetuate and defend racial slavery and ensure that the slaveholding class retained leadership.Expansion and Succession Essay.

It is evident that Lincoln’s election as president in 1860 was a watershed event. Although it did not cause the Civil War, it acted as the spark for the culmination of the hostilities between the Union government’s antislavery stand and Southern States’ proslavery stand. In addition, one must acknowledge that the growing tensions led to Southern States seceding from the Union and forming a Confederacy government to maintain white supremacy and racial slavery. Efforts to reach a compromise and maintain the Union in a peaceful manner were thwarted with neither side willing to compromise thus causing the beginning of the Civil War.