21 The Election of 1860 and Secession

The 1860 presidential race showed just how divided the nation had become. The Republicans were united behind Lincoln. The Democrats, however, had split between Northern and Southern factions, with Northern Democrats nominating Stephen Douglas for president and Southern Democrats supporting John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. The election became even more confusing when a group called the Constitutional Union Party nominated John Bell of Tennessee.

Abraham Lincoln Is Elected President With his opposition divided three ways, Lincoln sailed to victory, but it was an odd victory. Lincoln won the presidential election with just 40 percent of the votes, all of them cast in the North. In ten Southern states, he was not even on the ballot.

For white Southerners, the election of 1860 delivered an unmistakable message. The South was now in the minority. It no longer had the power to shape national events or policies, and white Southerners feared that, sooner or later, Congress would try to abolish slavery. And that, wrote a South Carolina newspaper, would mean “the loss of liberty, property, home, country—everything that makes life worth having.”

The South Secedes from the Union In the weeks following the election, talk of secession filled the air. Alarmed senators formed a committee to search for yet another compromise that might hold the nation together. They knew that finding one would not be easy, but they still had to do something to stop the rush toward disunion and disaster.

The Senate committee held its first meeting on December 20, 1860. Just as the senators began their work, events in two distant cities dashed their hopes for a settlement.

In Illinois, a senator named Lyman Trumbull asked President-Elect Abraham Lincoln whether he could support a compromise on slavery. Lincoln's answer was clear. He would not interfere with slavery in the South, and he would support enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. However, Lincoln drew the line at letting slavery extend into the territories. On this question, he declared, “Let there be no compromise.”

Meanwhile, in Charleston, South Carolina, delegates attending a state convention voted that same day—December 20, 1860—to leave the Union. The city went wild as church bells rang and crowds filled the streets, roaring their approval. A South Carolina newspaper boldly proclaimed, “The Union Is Dissolved!” Six more states soon followed South Carolina's lead, and in February 1861, those states joined together as the Confederate States of America.

The Civil War Begins On March 4, 1861, Lincoln became president of the not-so-united United States. In his inaugural address, Lincoln stated his belief that secession was both wrong and unconstitutional. He then appealed to the rebellious states to return in peace. “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine,” he said, “is the momentous issue of civil war.”

The opening shots of the Civil War were fired at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. No one was killed in the bombardment. It was a bloodless opening to the bloodiest war in U.S. history.
The following month on April 12, 1861, Confederates in Charleston, South Carolina, forced the issue when they opened fire on Fort Sumter, a federal fort in Charleston Harbor. After more than 30 hours of heavy shelling, the defenders of the fort hauled down the Stars and Stripes and replaced it with the white flag of surrender.

The news that the Confederates had fired on the American flag unleashed a wave of patriotic fury in the North. All the doubts that people had about using force to save the Union vanished. A New York newspaper reported excitedly, “There is no more thought of bribing or coaxing the traitors who have dared to aim their cannon balls at the flag of the Union … Fort Sumter is temporarily lost, but the country is saved.”

The time for compromise was over. The issues that had divided the nation for so many years would now be decided by a civil war.