Chapter 15, Section 3

 In April, the Democratic Convention was held in Charlestown, S.C. It was clear that Northern and Southern Democrats held differing ideologies about slavery. The democratic party began to split along sectional lines.  The Southerners wanted the parties platform to defend slavery.  The Northerners wanted popular sovereignty to decide whether a territory or state can become a free or slave state.  The Northerners won the platform. The Northern and Southern democrats would nominate two different candidates.

 The proslavery Southerners put their support behind proslavery candidate John Breckinridge of Kentucky.  The Northerners backed Stephen A. Douglas.  The republican nominated Abraham Lincoln.  The Constitution Party- whose aim was to preserve the Union, nominated John Bell of Tennessee.

 The election of 1860 turned into two different races for the presidency- one in the North and one in the South. Lincoln and Douglas were the only candidates with support in the North. Breckinridge and Bell competed for Southern Votes.

 Lincoln- opposed the expansion of slavery into the territories.  Breckinridge- insisted that the federal gov’t be required to protect slavery in any territory.  Douglas and Bell- did not want the gov’t to pass any new laws on slavery.

 Lincoln defeated Douglas in the North.  Breckinridge carried most of the South.  Because the North had a larger population, Lincoln won the election.  Most Southerners did not believe Lincolns statements of not wanting to ban slavery. Many Southerners saw Lincoln as a threat to their way of life.

 Before the election of 1860, the Southerners had warned the U.S. gov’t that if Lincoln won the election, the South would secede from the Union.

 Southerners based their arguments on states’ rights- the idea that states have certain rights that the federal gov’t cannot overrule.  On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede. Shortly after, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas joined.  In early February 1861, the states that seceded met in Montgomery, Alabama and formed the Confederate States of America and named Jefferson Davis president of the Confederacy.

 The convention drafted a constitution modeled after the U.S. Constitution, however with a few changes. Supported States’ Rights Protected slavery in the Confederacy, including any territories it might acquire.

 Northerners considered the secession unconstitutional. President James Buchanan argued against it and believed that the states did not have the right to withdraw from the union.  The federal gov’t, not the states were sovereign.  The South complained that the North intended to use majority rule as a means to force the South to abolish slavery. The North believed the South felt bitter about the recent presidential election results.

 Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky proposed a plan that: 1. Slavery should be protected south of the line established in the Missouri Compromise. 2. Congress should not abolish slavery in a slave state, and 3. the federal gov’t should compensate the owners of fugitive slaves.  The Crittenden Compromise was present to congress in 1861, but was defeated in the Senate.

 On March 4, Lincoln took the oath of office and gave his first inaugural speech.  He assured the South that he had no intentions of abolishing slavery.  He spoke forceful against secession.

 Lincoln did not want to invade the South, but he would not abandon the government’s forts of which stood on Southern soil. He noted that these forts would quickly need to be resupplied.  From March to April, Americans waited anxiously to see what would happen next.