The topic of slavery dominated politics during the mid-19th Century. \u00a0It divided social classes, political parties, and most importantly the North and the South. \u00a0Adamant on maintain slavery’s presence and expansion, Southerners repeatedly threatened seceding from the United States for decades. \u00a0Beginning in late 1860, shockingly soon after the election of Abraham Lincoln, this threat became a reality, as South Carolina seceded, and several other states soon followed suit. In this post I will attempt to answer ANBURTON’s question (http:\/\/sites.davidson.edu\/his141\/secession-becomes-a-reality\/), “[Was] secession\u00a0an inevitable result of the presidential turnover, or was it really due to Lincoln\u2019s particular election?” \u00a0Also, I will explore the factors causing the South to secede.<\/p>\n

I do think Lincoln’s election directly caused the immediate secession of the South. \u00a0This decision, however, seemed overly radical, especially considering Lincoln’s moderate nature. \u00a0Lincoln firmly believed that the spread of slavery needed to halt, but he never threatened altering the institution where it already existed. \u00a0In addition, he did not support radical abolitionists, such as John Brown (Fun Fact: Today is the 154th anniversary of his execution). \u00a0The South’s severe opposition to Lincoln struck me as greedy, as his election did not threaten slaveholders’ social structure at home, only their long-enjoyed national dominance in politics. The reaction also may have resulted from misinformation about Lincoln’s positions. \u00a0Other candidates certainly tried to damage Lincoln’s campaign by attributing radical ideals to him. \u00a0Furthermore, I suspected that fire-eaters manipulated the public into believing that Lincoln posed a direct threat to the entire institution of slavery. \u00a0The fact that southern fire-eaters enjoyed Lincoln’s victory provided evidence, “No less pleased, though, were the southern fire-eaters … southern militants took the next step toward creating their slaveholders’ republic” (Wilentz 434). Clearly the South made a regrettable decision by seceding from the Union. \u00a0Whether the reaction resulted from a greedy attempt to preserve widespread dominance, or from misinformation about Lincoln’s moderation, the election of Lincoln certainly ignited the amount of panic necessary to end in secession.<\/p>\n

I really enjoyed and appreciated Wilentz’s coverage of the election of 1860 and secession. \u00a0I found his treatment of the topic thorough, interesting, and easy to follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The topic of slavery dominated politics during the mid-19th Century. \u00a0It divided social classes, political parties, and most importantly the North and the South. \u00a0Adamant on maintain slavery’s presence and expansion, Southerners repeatedly threatened seceding from the United States for decades. \u00a0Beginning in late 1860, shockingly soon after the election of Abraham Lincoln, this threat … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Election of 1860 and Secession”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[113,185,266],"class_list":["post-813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-election-of-1860","tag-lincoln","tag-secession"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.shroutdocs.org\/his141-fall2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}