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"The Civil War" is the most common term in the United States for this conflict. See Naming the American Civil War.

{| style="float: right; clear: right; background-color: transparent"|-| {{Infobox Military Conflict|image=|caption=Top left: William Starke Rosecrans at Battle of Stones River, Tennessee; top right: Confederate prisoners at Battle of Gettysburg; bottom: Battle of Fort Hindman, Arkansas] 1861 – April 9 1865|Southwestern regions|casus = [Battle of Fort Sumter| result=Union (American Civil War) victory; Reconstruction; History of slavery in the United States abolition of slavery|combatant1=United States (Union (American Civil War)) |combatant2=Confederate States of America (Confederacy (American Civil War))|commander1=Abraham Lincoln,Ulysses S. Grant ],Robert E. Lee,360,000 total dead,275,200 wounded|casualties2=93,000 killed in action,258,000 total dead137,000+ wounded|-->|-| |}The American Civil War (1861–1865) was a major [war between the United States (the "Union (American Civil War)") and eleven Southern United States slave states which declared that they had a right to secession and formed the Confederate States of America, led by President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis. The Union, led by President of the United States of America Abraham Lincoln and politically dominated by his History of the United States Republican Party, included all of the Free state (USA) and four slaveholding Border states (Civil War) that were later joined by pro-Union counties of Virginia (see West Virginia). Republicans opposed the expansion of slaveryShelby Foote, The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville, page 34Prevent, as far as possible, any of our friends from demoralizing themselves, and our cause, by entertaining propositions for compromise of any sort, on slavery extension. There is no possible compromise upon it, but which puts us under again, and leaves all our work to do over again. Whether it be a Mo. Line, or Eli Thayer's Pop. Sov. It is all the same. Let either be done, & immediately filibustering and extending slavery recommences. On that point hold firm, as with a chain of steel. - Abraham Lincoln to Elihu B. Washburne, December 13 1860Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and, ere long, must be done again. The dangerous ground—that into which some of our friends have a hankering to run—is Pop. Sov. Have none of it. Stand firm. The tug has to come, & better now, than any time hereafter. - Abraham Lincoln to Lyman Trumbull, December 10, 1860 into territories owned by the United States, which increased Southern desires for secession.James McPherson, Drawn With the Sword, from the article Who Freed the Slaves? However, Republicans (and the previous Democratic administration under Buchanan) rejected any right of secession. Fighting commenced on April 12 1861, when Battle of Fort Sumter a United States (federal) military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the first state to secede.

During the first year, the Union assumed control of the border states (Civil War) and established a Union blockade as both sides raised large armies. In 1862 large, bloody battles such as Battle of Shiloh and Battle of Antietam were fought, causing massive casualties unprecedented in U.S. military history. A deadly combination of new weapons (including rifles using the Minié ball) and old battlefield tactics such as mass infantry charges led to thousands of casualties per major battle. In September 1862, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made the freeing of slavery in the South a war goal and gave a higher moral cause to the war, despite opposition from Northern Copperheads (politics) who tolerated both secession and slavery. The likelihood of intervention from United Kingdom and France, both of which opposed slavery, was thus reduced. In addition, this policy allowed Union armies to liberate enslaved African-Americans, draining a valuable source of manpower from the South. The Border states (Civil War) and War Democrats opposed Abolitionism#History of abolition in the United States at first,James McPherson, Drawn With the Sword, from the article Who Freed the Slaves? but gradually accepted it as part of total war needed to save the Union.

In the East, Confederate general Robert Edward Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia and rolled up a series of victories over the Army of the Potomac, but his best general, Stonewall Jackson, was killed at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. Lee's invasion of the North was repulsed at the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania in July 1863; he barely managed to escape back to Virginia with his badly mauled force. The United States Navy captured the port of New Orleans in 1862, and Ulysses S. Grant seized control of the Mississippi River by capturing Battle of Vicksburg in July 1863, thus splitting the Confederacy in two. By 1864, long-term Union advantages in geography, manpower, industry, finance, political organization and transportation were overwhelming the Confederacy. Grant fought a number of bloody battles with Lee in Virginia in the summer of 1864. Lee's defensive tactics resulted in extremely high casualties for Grant's army, but Lee's army was shrinking daily due to casualties and desertions; he was forced to retreat into trenches around his capital, Richmond, Virginia. The stalemate near Petersburg, Virginia presaged the debacle fifty years later in Western Europe (see Trench warfare). Meanwhile, General William Sherman, the leader of the Union Military Division of the Mississippi, captured Atlanta, Georgia and began his Sherman's March to the Sea, during which he Total War a hundred-mile-wide swath of Georgia. In 1865, Confederate resistance collapsed after Lee surrendered to Grant at Battle of Appomattox.

All slaves in the Confederacy were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, which stipulated that slaves in Confederate-held areas, but not in border states or in Washington, D.C., were free. Slaves in the border states and Union-controlled parts of the South were freed by state action or by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, although slavery effectively ended in the U.S. in the spring of 1865. The full restoration of the Union was the work of a highly contentious postwar era known as Reconstruction. The war produced about 970,000 casualties (3% of the population), including approximately 620,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease. The war accounted for more casualties than all other U.S. wars combined.James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, page xix (from the introduction by C. Vann Woodward as of 1988) The Origins of the American Civil War, the reasons for its outcome, and even Naming the American Civil War are subjects of lingering controversy today. The main results of the war were the restoration and strengthening of the Union (mainly by permanently ending the issue of secession), and the end of African slave trade in the United States. About 4 million African American slavery were freed in 1865. European Immigration to the United States#Immigration 1790 to 1849 joined the Union Army in large numbers. 23.4% of all Union soldiers were German-Americans; about 216,000 were born in Germany.Faust, page 523. Quoting from an 1869 ethnicity study by B. A. Gould of the United States Sanitary Commission. Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all European American males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6% in the North and an extraordinary 18% in the South.

Causes of the war The likelihood of secession was greatly increased by the coexistence of a slave-owning South and an increasingly anti-slavery North. Lincoln did not propose federal laws against slavery where it already existed, but he had, in his 1858 Lincoln's House Divided Speech, expressed a desire to "arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction".Abraham Lincoln, House Divided Speech, Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858 Much of the political battle in the 1850s focused on the expansion of slavery into the newly created territories. All of the organized territories were likely to become free-soil states, which increased the Southern movement toward secession. Both North and South assumed that if slavery could not expand it would wither and die.James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, page 241 and 253Declarations of Causes for: Georgia, Adopted in January 29, 1861; Mississippi, Adopted in 1861 (no exact date found); South Carolina, Adopted in December 24, 1860; Texas, Adopted in February 2, 1861The New Heresy, Southern Punch, editor John Wilford Overall, September 19, 1864 is one of many references that indicate that the Republican hope of gradually ending slavery was the Southern fear.

Southern fears of losing control of the federal government to antislavery forces, and Northern fears that the slave power already controlled the government, brought the crisis to a head in the late 1850s. Sectional disagreements over the morality of slavery, the scope of democracy and the economic merits of free labor vs. slave plantations caused the Whig Party (United States) and "Know Nothing" parties to collapse, and new ones to arise (the Free Soil Party in 1848, the Republican Party (United States) in 1854, the Constitutional Union Party (United States) in 1860). In 1860, the last remaining national political party, the History of the United States Democratic Party, split along sectional lines.

Federal tariffs on British imported goods sold in the South led to resentment. Controversy over whether slavery was at the root of the tariff issue dates back at least as far as the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858.Lincoln-Douglas debate at Alton, October 15, 1858 During the debate at Alton, Lincoln said that slavery was the root cause of the Nullification crisis over a tariff, while his challenger Stephen Douglas disagreed. John C. Calhoun, who led South Carolina's attempt to nullify a tariff, supported tariffs and internal improvements at first, but came to oppose them in the 1820s as sectional tensions between North and South grew along with the increasingly sectional nature of slavery. Calhoun was a plantation owner who helped develop the positive good theory of slavery.James McPherson, The War of Southern Aggression While most leaders of Southern secession in 1860 mentioned slavery as the cause, Robert Rhett was a free trade extremist who opposed the tariff. However, Rhett was also a slavery extremist who wanted the Constitution of the Confederacy to legalize the African Slave Trade.William C. Davis, Look Away!, page 67 Republicans also saw support for a Homestead Act, a higher tariff and a transcontinental railroad as a flank attack on the slave power.James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, page 225 There were enough Southern Senators in the U. S. Senate to keep the tariff low after 1846.Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union: A House Dividing - 1852-1857, pages 267-269 Even when the tariff was higher three decades before the war, only South Carolina revolted, and the issue was nullification, not secession. The tariff was much lower by 1860.

Both North and South were influenced by the ideas of Thomas Jefferson. Southerners emphasized the states' rights ideas mentioned in Jefferson's Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and the right of revolution mentioned in the United States Declaration of Independence. Northerners ranging from the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to the moderate Republican leader Abraham LincolnLincoln's Speech in Chicago, December 10 1856 in which he said, "We shall again be able not to declare, that 'all States as States, are equal,' nor yet that 'all citizens as citizens are equal,' but to renew the broader, better declaration, including both these and much more, that 'all men are created equal.'"; Also, Lincoln's Letter to Henry L. Pierce, April 6 1859 emphasized Jefferson's declaration that all men are created equal. Lincoln mentioned this proposition in his Gettysburg Address.

All but one inter-regional crisis involved slavery, starting with debates on the three-fifths clause in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Other factors include modernization in the rapidly industrializing North, sectionalism (caused by the growth of slavery in the deep South while slavery was gradually phased out in Northern states) and economic differences between North and South, although most modern historians disagree with the extreme economic determinism of historian Charles Beard. Kenneth M. Stampp, The Imperiled Union: Essays on the Background of the Civil War (1981) p 198; Woodworth, ed. The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research (1996), 145 151 505 512 554 557 684; Richard Hofstadter, The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington (1969) There was controversy over adding the slave state of Missouri to the Union that led to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Nullification Crisis over the Tariff of 1828, the Gag Rule that prevented discussion in Congress of petitions for ending slavery from 1835-1844, the acquisition of Texas as a slave state in 1845 and Manifest Destiny as an argument for gaining new territories where slavery would become an issue after the Mexican American War (1846-1848), which resulted in the Compromise of 1850. William E. Gienapp, "The Crisis of American Democracy: The Political System and the Coming of the Civil War." in Boritt ed. Why the Civil War Came 79-123 The Wilmot Proviso was an unsuccessful attempt by Northern politicians to exclude slavery from the territories conquered from Mexico. There were unsuccessful attempts to end controversy over slavery in the territories through Popular Sovereignty and Southern attempts to annex Cuba (including the Ostend Manifesto) and Nicaragua as slave states. The extremely popular antislavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe greatly increased Northern opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.McPherson, Battle Cry pages 88-91 Most of her slave owners are "decent, honorable people, themselves victims" of that institution. Much of her description was based on personal observation, and the descriptions of Southerners; she herself calls them and Legree representatives of different types of masters.;Gerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, p.68; Stowe, Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1953) p. 39

There was the polarizing effect of slavery that split the largest religious denominations (the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian churches)James McPherson, Drawn With the Sword, page 11 and controversy caused by the worst cruelties of slavery (whippings, mutilations and families split apart). In Congress arguments over slavery became violent when United States House of Representatives Preston Brooks of South Carolina attacked Radical Republican (USA) United States Senate Charles Sumner with a gold-knobbed gutta-percha cane after Sumner's "Crime against Kansas" speech.Fox Butterfield; All God's Children page 17 Even rival plans for Northern vs. Southern routes for a transcontinental railroad became entangled in the Bleeding Kansas controversy over slavery. The old Second Party System broke down after passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. The Dred Scott v. Sandford of 1857, the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858,John Brown (abolitionist) in 1859 and the split in the Democratic Party (United States) in 1860 polarized the nation between North and South. The U.S. presidential election, 1860 was the final trigger for secession. During the secession crisis, many sought compromise—of these attempts, the best known was the "Crittenden Compromise"—but all failed.

Southern secession was triggered by the election of Republican Abraham LincolnDavid Potter, The Impending Crisis, page 485 because regional leaders feared that he would stop the expansion of slavery and put it on a course toward extinction. Many Southerners thought either Lincoln or another Northerner would abolish slavery, and that it was time to secede. The slave states, which had already become a minority in the House of Representatives, were now facing a future as a perpetual minority in the Senate and Electoral College against an increasingly powerful North. Deep South states with the most slavery seceded first, followed by the secession of four more states following the Battle of Fort Sumter and Lincoln's subsequent call for each remaining state to provide troops to retake forts and suppress the insurrection. Upper South states refused to send troops against their neighbors in what they considered an invasion.

Clarification of causes When the Civil War began, neither civil rights nor voting rights for blacks were stated as goals by the North. They became important afterward during Reconstruction. At first, though there was pressure to do so, not even the abolition of slavery was stated as a goal. While controversy over the morality of slavery could be contained, it was the issue of the expansion of slavery into the territories that made the conflict irrepressible.McPherson, James M., Battle Cry, page 41 Slavery was at the root of economic, moral and political differencesKenneth M. Stampp, America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink (Oxford University Press, 1990), pages 110-113 that led to control issues, states' rights and secession.

Slavery greatly increased the likelihood of secessionJames Ford Rhodes, Lectures on the American Civil War, pages 2-16 and 76-77 which in turn made war probable, irrespective of the North's stated war aims, which at first addressed strategic military concerns as opposed to ultimate political and Constitutional ones. Hostilities began as an attempt, from the Northern perspective, to defend the nation after it was attacked at Fort Sumter. Lincoln's war goals evolved as the war progressed. Lincoln mentioned the need for national unity in his March 1861 inaugural address after seven states had already declared their secession. At first Lincoln stressed the Union as a war goal to unite the War Democrats, border states and Republicans. In 1862 he added emancipation because it permanently removed the divisive issue of slavery that caused secession, an issue that Lincoln said was "somehow the cause of the war". Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 In his 1863 Gettysburg Address he added preserving democracy to emancipation and the Union as a war goal.

States' rights Questions such as whether the Union was older than the states or the other way around fueled the debate over states' rights. Whether the federal government was supposed to have substantial powers or whether it was merely a voluntary federation of sovereign states added to the controversy. According to historian Kenneth M. Stampp, each section used states' rights arguments when convenient, and shifted positions when convenient.Stampp, The Causes of the Civil War, page 59

Stampp mentioned Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens' A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States as an example of a Southern leader who said that slavery was the "cornerstone of the Confederacy" when the war began and then said that the war was not about slavery but states' rights after Southern defeat. Stampp said that Stephens became one of the most ardent defenders of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.Stampp, The Causes of the Civil War, pages 63-65

The historian William C. Davis also mentioned inconsistencies in Southern states' rights arguments. He explained the Confederate Constitution's protection of slavery at the national level as follows:

States' rights and slavery in the territories The "States' rights" debate cut across the issues. Southerners argued that the federal government was strictly limited and could not abridge the rights of states as reserved in the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and so had no power to prevent slaves from being carried into new territories. States' rights advocates also cited the fugitive slave clause to demand federal jurisdiction over slaves who escaped into the North. Anti-slavery forces took reversed stances on these issues. The fugitive slave clause in the Constitution was the result of compromises between North and South when the Constitution was written. It was later strengthened by the fugitive slave law that was part of the Compromises of 1850. The Southern politician and states' rights advocate John C. Calhoun regarded the territories as the "common property" of sovereign states, and said that Congress was acting merely as the "joint agents" of the states.McPherson, Battle Cry, page 57

States' rights and minority rights States' rights theories were a response to the fact that the Northern population was growing much faster than the population of the South, which meant that it was only a matter of time before the North controlled the federal government. Southerners were acting as a "conscious minority", and hoped that a strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution would limit federal power over the states, and that a defense of states' rights against federal encroachments or even nullification or secession would save the South.Kenneth M. Stampp, The Causes of the Civil War, page 14 Before 1860 most presidents were either Southern or pro-South. The North's growing population would mean the election of pro-North presidents, and the addition of free-soil states would end Southern parity with the North in the Senate. As the historian Allan Nevins described the Southern politician John C. Calhoun's theory of states' rights, "Governments, observed Calhoun, were formed to protect minorities, for majorities could take care of themselves". Nevins, Ordeal of the Union: Fruits of Manifest Destiny 1847-1852, page 155

Jefferson Davis stated that a "disparaging discrimination" and a fight for "liberty" against "the tyranny of an unbridled majority" gave the Confederate states a right to secede.Jefferson Davis' Second Inaugural Address, Virginia Capitol, Richmond, February 22, 1862 Transcribed from Dunbar Rowland, ed., Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist, Volume 5, pp. 198-203. Summarized in The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 8, p. 55. In 1860, Congressman Laurence M. Keitt of South Carolina said, "The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States." Lawrence Keitt, Congressman from South Carolina, in a speech to the House on January 25, 1860: Congressional Globe.

The South's chosen leader, Jefferson Davis, defined equality in terms of the equal rights of states,When arguing for the equality of states, Jefferson Davis said, "Who has been in advance of him in the fiery charge on the rights of the States, and in assuming to the Federal Government the power to crush and to coerce them? Even to-day he has repeated his doctrines. He tells us this is a Government which we will learn is not merely a Government of the States, but a Government of each individual of the people of the United States". - Jefferson Davis' reply in the Senate to William H. Seward, Senate Chamber, U.S. Capitol, February 29, 1860, From The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 6, pp. 277-84. Transcribed from the Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 916-18. andopposed the declaration that all men are created equal.When arguing against equality of individuals, Davis said, "We recognize the fact of the inferiority stamped upon that race of men by the Creator, and from the cradle to the grave, our Government, as a civil institution, marks that inferiority". - Jefferson Davis' reply in the Senate to William H. Seward, Senate Chamber, U.S. Capitol, February 29, 1860, - From The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 6, pp. 277-84. Transcribed from the Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 916-18. The Constitution does include some states' rights elements in that each state has the same number of Senators, and certain rights are reserved to the states or to the people. Southerners such as Davis interpreted these rights as a shield against a numerical majority of Northerners.

Slavery The institution of slavery, introduced into colonial North America in 1619, had become a contentious issue between the North and the South early in the 1800s. The Compromise of 1850 included a new, stronger fugitive slave law that required federal agents to capture and return slaves that escaped into northern free states. Since fewer than 800 of the almost 4 million slaves escaped in 1860, the fugitive slave controversy was not a practical reason for secessionJ. G. Randall, Lincoln the President, (1997), vol 1, pages 237-241 (More had escaped in previous years; see Underground Railroad). The number that escaped was offset by free Northern blacks who were kidnapped as slaves. And secession only did away with enforcement of the fugitive slave law altogether. Kansas had only two slaves in 1860U.S. Census Bureau; "Population of the United States in 1860; comp. from the original returns of the Eighth Census" published 1864; . because the territories had the wrong soil and climate for labor-intensive forms of agriculture. Nevertheless, the Fugitive Slave law and the Kansas-Nebraska Act greatly increased controversy over slavery.David Potter, The Impending Crisis, pages 130-160

There was a strong correlation between the number of plantations in a region and the degree of support for secession. The states of the deep South had the greatest concentration of plantations and were the first to secede. The upper South slave states of Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee had fewer plantations and rejected secession until the Battle of Fort Sumter crisis forced them to choose sides. Border states had fewer plantations still and never seceded.James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom 1988 p 242, 255, 282-83. Maps on page 101 (The Southern Economy) and page 236 (The Progress of Secession) are also relevantDavid Potter, The Impending Crisis, pages 503-505The percentage of Southern whites living in families that owned slaves was 36.7 percent in the lower South, 25.3 percent in the upper South and 15.9 percent in the border states that fought mostly for the Union.

The total number of individual slaveowners (as opposed to those living in a family with slaves) was 4.8 percent of the total population of the South, numbering almost 385,000 individuals. However, ninety-five percent of blacks lived in the South, comprising one third of the population there as opposed to one percent of the population of the North. Consequently, fears of eventual emancipation were much greater in the South than in the North.James McPherson, Drawn with the Sword, page 15

Slavery in the territories 16th President of the United States (1861–1865)

The specific political crisis that led to secession stemmed from a dispute over the expansion of slavery into new territories. The Republicans, while maintaining that Congress had no power over slavery in the states, asserted that it did have power to ban slavery in the territories. The Missouri CompromiseMcPherson, Battle Cry, pages 57-58 of 1820 maintained the balance of power in Congress by adding Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. It prohibited slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase Territory north of 36°30'N lat. (the southern boundary of Missouri). The acquisition of vast new lands after the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), however, reopened the debate—now focused on the proposed Wilmot Proviso,McPherson, Battle Cry, pages 52-60 which would have banned slavery in territories annexed from Mexico. Though it never passed, the Wilmot Proviso aroused angry debate. Northerners argued that slavery would provide unfair competition for free migrants to the territories; slaveholders claimed Congress had no right to discriminate against them by preventing them from bringing their legal property there.

The dispute led to open warfare in the Kansas Territory after it was organized by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.McPherson, Battle Cry, pages 121-129 This act repealed the prohibition on slavery there under the Missouri Compromise, and put the fate of slavery in the hands of the territory's settlers, a concept known as "popular sovereignty". Fighting erupted between pro-slavery border ruffians from neighboring Missouri and antislavery immigrants from the North (including John Brown (abolitionist), among other abolitionists). The Bleeding Kansas crisis included acts of violence such as the Sacking of Lawrence and the Pottawatomie Massacre.

The pro-slavery government of Kansas at Lecompton, Kansas, which was the result of massive vote fraud, was opposed by a rival free-soil government at Lawrence, Kansas that represented the majority. President James Buchanan made a controversial but unsuccessful attempt to admit Kansas to the Union as a slave state under the Lecompton Constitution.David Potter, The Impending Crisis, pages 297-327

The Supreme Court decision of 1857 in Dred Scott v. Sandford added to the controversy. Roger Taney decision said that slaves were "so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect",David Potter, The Impending Crisis, page 275 and that slaves could be taken to free states and territories. Lincoln warned that "the next Dred Scott decision"First Lincoln Douglas Debate at Ottawa, Illinois August 21, 1858 could threaten northern states with slavery.

Slavery as a cause of the war Historians describe many issues related to slavery as causes of the Civil War. As the historian Nevins said, "As the fifties wore on, an exhaustive, exacerbating and essentially futile conflict over slavery raged to the exclusion of nearly all other topics."Nevins, Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847-1852, page 163 Northern politician Abraham Lincoln said, "this question of Slavery was more important than any other; indeed, so much more important has it become that no other national question can even get a hearing just at present."Abraham Lincoln, Speech at New Haven, Conn., March 6, 1860 The slavery issue was related to sectional competition for control of the territories,McPherson, Battle Cry, page 195 and the Southern demand for a Slave codes for the territories was the issue used by Southern politicians to split the Democratic Party in two, which all but guaranteed the election of Lincoln and secession. When secession was an issue, South Carolina planter and state Senator John Townsend said that "our enemies are about to take possession of the Government, that they intend to rule us according to the caprices of their fanatical theories, and according to the declared purposes of abolishing slavery."John Townsend, The Doom of Slavery in the Union, its Safety out of it, October 29, 1860 Similar opinions were expressed throughout the South in editorials, political speeches and declarations of reasons for secession. Even though Lincoln had no plans to outlaw slavery where it existed, Southerners throughout the South expressed fears for the future of slavery.

Southern concerns included not only economic loss but also fears of racial equality.McPherson, Battle Cry, page 243David Potter, The Impending Crisis, page 461William C. Davis, Look Away, pages 130-140William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion, page 42 The Texas Declaration of Causes for Secession said that the non-slave-holding states were "proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color", and that the African race "were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race". Alabama secessionist E. S. Dargan said that emancipation would make Southerners feel "demoralized and degraded". Speech of E.S. Dargan, in the Convention of Alabama, Jan. 11, 1861

Abolitionism The Second Great Awakening of the 1820s and 1830s in religion inspired groups that attempted various types of social reform, one of the most notable of which was the abolitionists; these were later supported by Transcendentalism. "Abolitionist" had several meanings at the time. The followers of William Lloyd Garrison, including Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass, demanded the "immediate abolition of slavery", hence the name. A more pragmatic group of abolitionists, like Theodore Weld and Arthur Tappan, wanted immediate action, but that action might well be a program of gradual emancipation, with a long intermediate stage. "Antislavery men", like John Quincy Adams, did what they could to limit slavery and end it where possible, but were not part of any abolitionist group. For example, in 1841 Adams represented the United States v. The Amistad African slaves in the Supreme Court of the United States and argued that they should be set free. In the last years before the war, "antislavery" could mean the Northern majority, like Abraham Lincoln, who opposed expansion of slavery or its influence, as by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, or the Fugitive Slave Act. Many Southerners called all these abolitionists, without distinguishing them from the Garrisonians. James M. McPherson explains the abolitionists' deep beliefs: "All people were equal in God's sight; the souls of black folks were as valuable as those of whites; for one of God's children to enslave another was a violation of the Higher Law, even if it was sanctioned by the Constitution."McPherson, Battle Cry p. 8; James Brewer Stewart, Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery (1976); Pressly, 270ff

Slave owners were angry over the attacks on what some Southerners (including the politician John C. Calhoun) referred to as their peculiar institution of slavery. Starting in the 1830s, there was a vehement and growing ideological defense of slavery. David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage (2006) pp 186-192. Slave owners claimed that slavery was a positive good for masters and slaves alike, and that it was explicitly sanctioned by God. Biblical arguments were made in defense of slavery by religious leaders such as the Rev. Fred A. Ross and political leaders such as Jefferson Davis.Mitchell Snay, "American Thought and Southern Distinctiveness: The Southern Clergy and the Sanctification of Slavery", Civil War History (1989) 35(4): 311-328; Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese, The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders' Worldview (2005), pp 505-27. There were Southern biblical interpretations that directly contradicted those of the abolitionists, such as the theory that a curse on Noah's son Ham and his descendants in Africa was a justification for enslavement of blacks.William C. Davis, Look Away, page 134

Beginning in the 1830s, the U.S. United States Postmaster General refused to allow mail which carried abolition pamphlets to the South.Schlesinger Age of Jackson, p.190 Northern teachers suspected of any tinge of abolitionism were expelled from the South, and abolitionist literature was banned. Southerners rejected the denials of Republicans that they were abolitionists, and pointed to John Brown (abolitionist) attempt in 1859 to start a slave uprising as proof that multiple Northern conspiracies were afoot to ignite bloody slave rebellions. Although some abolitionists did call for slave revolts, no evidence of any other actual Brown-like conspiracy has been discovered. David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage (2006) p 197, 409; Stanley Harrold, The Abolitionists and the South, 1831-1861 (1995) p. 62; Jane H. and William H. Pease, "Confrontation and Abolition in the 1850s" Journal of American History (1972) 58(4): 923-937. The North felt threatened as well, for as Eric Foner concludes, "Northerners came to view slavery as the very antithesis of the good society, as well as a threat to their own fundamental values and interests". Eric Foner. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War (1970), p. 9

John Brown’s Raid John Brown (abolitionist) famous raid in October 1859, involved a band of 22 men who seized the federal Harpers Ferry Armory at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia knowing it contained tens of thousands of weapons. Brown believed that the South was on the verge of a gigantic slave uprising. Brown's supporters George Luther Stearns, Franklin B. Sanborn, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Theodore Parker, Samuel Gridley Howe and Gerrit Smith were all anti-slavery members of the Secret Six who provided financial backing for Brown's raid.David Potter, The Impending Crisis, pages 363-364 Brown's raid, says historian David Potter, "was meant to be of vast magnitude and to produce a revolutionary slave uprising throughout the South."David Potter, The Impending Crisis, pages 356-384 The raid was a fiasco. Not a single slave revolted. Lt. Colonel Robert E. Lee of the U.S. Army was dispatched to put down the raid, and Brown was quickly captured. Brown was tried for treason against Virginia and hanged. At his trial, Brown exuded a remarkable zeal and single-mindedness that played directly to Southerners' worst fears. Few individuals did more to cause secession than John Brown, because Southerners believed he was right about an impending slave revolt.In his exhaustive biography, David S. Reynolds said that Brown realized that his raid would "probably" not succeed in sparking a slave uprising, and that Brown's ultimate goal was to incite a civil war. Shortly before his execution, Brown prophesied, "the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away; but with Blood."David Potter, The Impending Crisis: 1848-1861 (1976), chapter 14, quote from p. 367. Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union: A House Dividing, pages 472-477 and The Emergence of Lincoln, vol 2, pages 71-97

Arguments for and against slavery William Lloyd Garrison, the most prominent abolitionist, was motivated by a belief in the growth of democracy. Because the Constitution had a three-fifths clause, a fugitive slave clause and a 20-year extension of the Atlantic slave trade, Garrison once publicly burned a copy of the U. S. Constitution and called it "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell". Mason I Lowance, Against Slavery: An Abolitionist Reader, (2000), page 26In 1854, he said:-->

Opposite opinions on slavery were expressed by Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens in his "Cornerstone Speech". Stephens said:

Southern fears of modernization According to the historian McPherson, exceptionalism applied not to the South but to the North after the North phased out slavery and launched an industrial revolution that led to urbanization, increased education and reform movements such as abolitionism. The fact that seven immigrants out of eight settled in the North, plus the fact that twice as many whites left the South for the North as vice versa, contributed to the South's defensive-aggressive political behavior. The Charleston Mercury read that on the issue of slavery the North and South "are not only two Peoples, but they are rival, hostile Peoples."James McPherson, "Antebellum Southern Exceptionalism: A New Look at an Old Question," Civil War History 29 (Sept. 1983)As De Bow's Review said, "We are resisting revolution ... We are not engaged in a Quixotic fight for the rights of man ... We are conservative."

Some historians have argued that the slaveowners were the most modern people in the South. The traditionalists were the poor and middling whites who owned few or no slaves. They are called Plain Folk of the Old South. Thornton, Politics and Power; Samuel C. Hyde Jr., "Plain Folk Reconsidered: Historiographical Ambiguity in Search of Definition" Journal of Southern History (Nov 2005) vol 71#4 The common people of the South fought for secession because they believed in the slogan that "Freedom is not possible without slavery" and thought that slavery created social equality among whites.James McPherson, The War of Southern Aggression Many Northerners (especially Republicans) had a different interpretation of the ideals of 1776.James McPherson, The War that Never Goes Away

Secession begins ]

]

Secession of South Carolina South Carolina adopted the "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union" on December 24 1860. It argued for states' rights for slave owners in the South, but contained a complaint about states' rights in the North in the form of opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act, claiming that Northern states were not fulfilling their federal obligations under the Constitution. At issue were:

• The refusal of Northern states to enforce the fugitive slave code, violating Southern personal property rights;
• Agitation against slavery, which "denied the rights of property".
• Assisting "thousands of slaves to leave their homes" through the Underground Railroad.
• The election of Lincoln "because he has declared that that 'Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,' and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction".
• "...elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens". Most Northerners opposed the Dred Scott decision, although only a few New England states allowed blacks an equal right to vote.James McPherson, The Negro's Civil War, page 3

Secession winter Before Lincoln took office, seven states had declared their secession from the Union. They established a Southern government, the Confederate States of America on February 9, 1861. They took control of federal forts and other properties within their boundaries with little resistance from President Buchanan, whose term ended on March 4, 1861. Buchanan asserted, "The South has no right to secede, but I have no power to prevent them."President James Buchanan, Message of December 8, 1860 One quarter of the U.S. Army—the entire garrison in Texas—was surrendered to state forces by its commanding general, David E. Twiggs, who then joined the Confederacy.

As Southerners resigned their seats in the Senate and the House, secession later enabled Republicans to pass bills for projects that had been blocked by Southern Senators before the war, including the Morrill Tariff, land grant colleges (the Morill Act), a Homestead Act, a trans-continental railroad (the Pacific Railway Acts), the National Banking Acts and the authorization of United States Notes by the Legal Tender Act of 1862. The Revenue Act of 1861 introduced the income tax to help finance the war.

The Confederacy Seven Deep South cotton states seceded by February 1861, starting with South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia (U.S. state), Louisiana, and Texas. These seven states formed the Confederate States of America (February 4 1861), with Jefferson Davis as president, and a Confederate States Constitution closely modeled on the U.S. Constitution. In April and May 1861, four more slave states seceded and joined the Confederacy: Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia. Virginia was split in two, with the eastern portion of that state seceding to the Confederacy and the northwestern part joining the Union as the new state of West Virginia on June 20 1863.

The Union states There were 23 states that remained loyal to the Union during the war: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. During the war, Nevada and West Virginia joined as new states of the Union. Tennessee and Louisiana were returned to Union control early in the war.

The territories of Colorado Territory, Dakota Territory, Nebraska Territory, Nevada Territory, New Mexico Territory, Utah Territory, and Washington Territory fought on the Union side. Several slave-holding Native Americans in the United States tribes supported the Confederacy, giving the Indian territory (now Oklahoma) a small bloody civil war.

Border states The Border States (Civil War) in the Union were West Virginia (which broke away from Virginia and became a separate state), and four of the five northernmost slave states (Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, and Kentucky).

Maryland had numerous pro-Confederate officials who tolerated anti-Union Baltimore riot of 1861 and the burning of bridges. Lincoln responded with martial law and called for troops. Militia units that had been drilling in the North rushed toward Washington and Baltimore.McPherson, Battle Cry, pages 284-287 Before the Confederate government realized what was happening, Lincoln had seized firm control of Maryland (and the separate District of Columbia), by arresting the entire Maryland statehouse and holding them without trial.

In Missouri, an elected convention on secession voted decisively to remain within the Union. When pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne F. Jackson called out the state militia, it was attacked by federal forces under General Nathaniel Lyon, who chased the governor and the rest of the State Guard to the southwestern corner of the state. (See also: Missouri secession). In the resulting vacuum the convention on secession reconvened and took power as the Unionist provisional government of Missouri.McPherson, Battle Cry, pages 290-293

Kentucky did not secede; for a time, it declared itself neutral. However, the Confederates broke the neutrality by seizing Columbus, Kentucky in September 1861. That turned opinion against the Confederacy, and the state reaffirmed its loyal status, while trying to maintain slavery. During a brief invasion by Confederate forces, Confederate sympathizers organized a secession convention, inaugurated a governor, and gained recognition from the Confederacy. The rebel government soon went into exile and never controlled the state.McPherson, Battle Cry, pages 293-297

Some Union supporters in the northwestern counties of Virginia opposed secession and formed a pro-Union government in Wheeling shortly after Richmond's secession in 1861. The northwestern counties of Virginia eventually seceded from Confederate Virginia as the new state of West Virginia, which was admitted into the Union on June 20, 1863. At one point the West Virginia statehood bill presented to the U.S. Senate contained 63 counties for inclusion, reaching from Botetourt up to Clarke counties.Curry's "A House Divided", Randall's "Civil War and Reconstruction" pgs. 236-242 Similar Unionist secessions appeared in East Tennessee, but were suppressed by the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis arrested over 3,000 men suspected of being loyal to the Union and held them without trial.Mark Neely, Confederate Bastille: Jefferson Davis and Civil Liberties 1993 p. 10-11

Overview Union army chaplain celebrating a Mass

Some 10,000 military engagements took place during the war, 40% of them in Virginia and Tennessee. Gabor Boritt, ed. War Comes Again (1995) p 247 Separate articles deal with every major battle and some minor ones. This article only gives the broad outline. For more information see Battles of the American Civil War and Military leadership in the American Civil War.

The war begins For more details on this topic, see Battle of Fort Sumter

Lincoln's victory in the U.S. presidential election, 1860 triggered South Carolina's declaration of secession from the Union. By February 1861, six more Southern states made similar declarations. On February 7, the seven states adopted a provisional constitution for the Confederate States of America and established their temporary capital at Montgomery, Alabama. A pre-war February peace conference of 1861 met in Washington in a failed attempt at resolving the crisis. The remaining eight slave states rejected pleas to join the Confederacy. Confederate forces seized most of the Federal forts within their boundaries (they did not take Fort Sumter); President Buchanan protested but made no military response aside from a failed attempt to resupply Fort Sumter via the ship Star of the West (the ship was fired upon by Citadel cadets), and no serious military preparations.McPherson, Battle Cry, pages 234-266 However, governors in Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania quietly began buying weapons and training militia units.

On March 4 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as President. In his Inauguration, he argued that the Constitution was a Preamble to the United States Constitution than the earlier Articles of Confederation, that it was a binding contract, and called any secession "legally void".Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, Monday, March 4, 1861 He stated he had no intent to invade Southern states, nor did he intend to end slavery where it existed, but tha

"The Civil War" is the most common term in the United States for this conflict. See Naming the American Civil War.

{| style="float: right; clear: right; background-color: transparent"|-| {{Infobox Military Conflict|image=|caption=Top left: William Starke Rosecrans at Battle of Stones River, Tennessee; top right: Confederate prisoners at Battle of Gettysburg; bottom: Battle of Fort Hindman, Arkansas] 1861 – April 9 1865|Southwestern regions|casus = [Battle of Fort Sumter| result=Union (American Civil War) victory; Reconstruction; History of slavery in the United States abolition of slavery|combatant1=United States (Union (American Civil War)) |combatant2=Confederate States of America (Confederacy (American Civil War))|commander1=Abraham Lincoln,Ulysses S. Grant ],Robert E. Lee,360,000 total dead,275,200 wounded|casualties2=93,000 killed in action,258,000 total dead137,000+ wounded|-->|-| |}The American Civil War (1861–1865) was a major [war between the United States (the "Union (American Civil War)") and eleven Southern United States slave states which declared that they had a right to secession and formed the Confederate States of America, led by President of the Confederate States of America Jefferson Davis. The Union, led by President of the United States of America Abraham Lincoln and politically dominated by his History of the United States Republican Party, included all of the Free state (USA) and four slaveholding Border states (Civil War) that were later joined by pro-Union counties of Virginia (see West Virginia). Republicans opposed the expansion of slaveryShelby Foote, The Civil War: Fort Sumter to Perryville, page 34Prevent, as far as possible, any of our friends from demoralizing themselves, and our cause, by entertaining propositions for compromise of any sort, on slavery extension. There is no possible compromise upon it, but which puts us under again, and leaves all our work to do over again. Whether it be a Mo. Line, or Eli Thayer's Pop. Sov. It is all the same. Let either be done, & immediately filibustering and extending slavery recommences. On that point hold firm, as with a chain of steel. - Abraham Lincoln to Elihu B. Washburne, December 13 1860Let there be no compromise on the question of extending slavery. If there be, all our labor is lost, and, ere long, must be done again. The dangerous ground—that into which some of our friends have a hankering to run—is Pop. Sov. Have none of it. Stand firm. The tug has to come, & better now, than any time hereafter. - Abraham Lincoln to Lyman Trumbull, December 10, 1860 into territories owned by the United States, which increased Southern desires for secession.James McPherson, Drawn With the Sword, from the article Who Freed the Slaves? However, Republicans (and the previous Democratic administration under Buchanan) rejected any right of secession. Fighting commenced on April 12 1861, when Battle of Fort Sumter a United States (federal) military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the first state to secede.

During the first year, the Union assumed control of the border states (Civil War) and established a Union blockade as both sides raised large armies. In 1862 large, bloody battles such as Battle of Shiloh and Battle of Antietam were fought, causing massive casualties unprecedented in U.S. military history. A deadly combination of new weapons (including rifles using the Minié ball) and old battlefield tactics such as mass infantry charges led to thousands of casualties per major battle. In September 1862, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation made the freeing of slavery in the South a war goal and gave a higher moral cause to the war, despite opposition from Northern Copperheads (politics) who tolerated both secession and slavery. The likelihood of intervention from United Kingdom and France, both of which opposed slavery, was thus reduced. In addition, this policy allowed Union armies to liberate enslaved African-Americans, draining a valuable source of manpower from the South. The Border states (Civil War) and War Democrats opposed Abolitionism#History of abolition in the United States at first,James McPherson, Drawn With the Sword, from the article Who Freed the Slaves? but gradually accepted it as part of total war needed to save the Union.

In the East, Confederate general Robert Edward Lee assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia and rolled up a series of victories over the Army of the Potomac, but his best general, Stonewall Jackson, was killed at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. Lee's invasion of the North was repulsed at the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania in July 1863; he barely managed to escape back to Virginia with his badly mauled force. The United States Navy captured the port of New Orleans in 1862, and Ulysses S. Grant seized control of the Mississippi River by capturing Battle of Vicksburg in July 1863, thus splitting the Confederacy in two. By 1864, long-term Union advantages in geography, manpower, industry, finance, political organization and transportation were overwhelming the Confederacy. Grant fought a number of bloody battles with Lee in Virginia in the summer of 1864. Lee's defensive tactics resulted in extremely high casualties for Grant's army, but Lee's army was shrinking daily due to casualties and desertions; he was forced to retreat into trenches around his capital, Richmond, Virginia. The stalemate near Petersburg, Virginia presaged the debacle fifty years later in Western Europe (see Trench warfare). Meanwhile, General William Sherman, the leader of the Union Military Division of the Mississippi, captured Atlanta, Georgia and began his Sherman's March to the Sea, during which he Total War a hundred-mile-wide swath of Georgia. In 1865, Confederate resistance collapsed after Lee surrendered to Grant at Battle of Appomattox.

All slaves in the Confederacy were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, which stipulated that slaves in Confederate-held areas, but not in border states or in Washington, D.C., were free. Slaves in the border states and Union-controlled parts of the South were freed by state action or by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, although slavery effectively ended in the U.S. in the spring of 1865. The full restoration of the Union was the work of a highly contentious postwar era known as Reconstruction. The war produced about 970,000 casualties (3% of the population), including approximately 620,000 soldier deaths—two-thirds by disease. The war accounted for more casualties than all other U.S. wars combined.James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, page xix (from the introduction by C. Vann Woodward as of 1988) The Origins of the American Civil War, the reasons for its outcome, and even Naming the American Civil War are subjects of lingering controversy today. The main results of the war were the restoration and strengthening of the Union (mainly by permanently ending the issue of secession), and the end of African slave trade in the United States. About 4 million African American slavery were freed in 1865. European Immigration to the United States#Immigration 1790 to 1849 joined the Union Army in large numbers. 23.4% of all Union soldiers were German-Americans; about 216,000 were born in Germany.Faust, page 523. Quoting from an 1869 ethnicity study by B. A. Gould of the United States Sanitary Commission. Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all European American males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6% in the North and an extraordinary 18% in the South.

Causes of the war The likelihood of secession was greatly increased by the coexistence of a slave-owning South and an increasingly anti-slavery North. Lincoln did not propose federal laws against slavery where it already existed, but he had, in his 1858 Lincoln's House Divided Speech, expressed a desire to "arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction".Abraham Lincoln, House Divided Speech, Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858 Much of the political battle in the 1850s focused on the expansion of slavery into the newly created territories. All of the organized territories were likely to become free-soil states, which increased the Southern movement toward secession. Both North and South assumed that if slavery could not expand it would wither and die.James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, page 241 and 253Declarations of Causes for: Georgia, Adopted in January 29, 1861; Mississippi, Adopted in 1861 (no exact date found); South Carolina, Adopted in December 24, 1860; Texas, Adopted in February 2, 1861The New Heresy, Southern Punch, editor John Wilford Overall, September 19, 1864 is one of many references that indicate that the Republican hope of gradually ending slavery was the Southern fear.

Southern fears of losing control of the federal government to antislavery forces, and Northern fears that the slave power already controlled the government, brought the crisis to a head in the late 1850s. Sectional disagreements over the morality of slavery, the scope of democracy and the economic merits of free labor vs. slave plantations caused the Whig Party (United States) and "Know Nothing" parties to collapse, and new ones to arise (the Free Soil Party in 1848, the Republican Party (United States) in 1854, the Constitutional Union Party (United States) in 1860). In 1860, the last remaining national political party, the History of the United States Democratic Party, split along sectional lines.

Federal tariffs on British imported goods sold in the South led to resentment. Controversy over whether slavery was at the root of the tariff issue dates back at least as far as the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858.Lincoln-Douglas debate at Alton, October 15, 1858 During the debate at Alton, Lincoln said that slavery was the root cause of the Nullification crisis over a tariff, while his challenger Stephen Douglas disagreed. John C. Calhoun, who led South Carolina's attempt to nullify a tariff, supported tariffs and internal improvements at first, but came to oppose them in the 1820s as sectional tensions between North and South grew along with the increasingly sectional nature of slavery. Calhoun was a plantation owner who helped develop the positive good theory of slavery.James McPherson, The War of Southern Aggression While most leaders of Southern secession in 1860 mentioned slavery as the cause, Robert Rhett was a free trade extremist who opposed the tariff. However, Rhett was also a slavery extremist who wanted the Constitution of the Confederacy to legalize the African Slave Trade.William C. Davis, Look Away!, page 67 Republicans also saw support for a Homestead Act, a higher tariff and a transcontinental railroad as a flank attack on the slave power.James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, page 225 There were enough Southern Senators in the U. S. Senate to keep the tariff low after 1846.Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union: A House Dividing - 1852-1857, pages 267-269 Even when the tariff was higher three decades before the war, only South Carolina revolted, and the issue was nullification, not secession. The tariff was much lower by 1860.

Both North and South were influenced by the ideas of Thomas Jefferson. Southerners emphasized the states' rights ideas mentioned in Jefferson's Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and the right of revolution mentioned in the United States Declaration of Independence. Northerners ranging from the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison to the moderate Republican leader Abraham LincolnLincoln's Speech in Chicago, December 10 1856 in which he said, "We shall again be able not to declare, that 'all States as States, are equal,' nor yet that 'all citizens as citizens are equal,' but to renew the broader, better declaration, including both these and much more, that 'all men are created equal.'"; Also, Lincoln's Letter to Henry L. Pierce, April 6 1859 emphasized Jefferson's declaration that all men are created equal. Lincoln mentioned this proposition in his Gettysburg Address.

All but one inter-regional crisis involved slavery, starting with debates on the three-fifths clause in the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Other factors include modernization in the rapidly industrializing North, sectionalism (caused by the growth of slavery in the deep South while slavery was gradually phased out in Northern states) and economic differences between North and South, although most modern historians disagree with the extreme economic determinism of historian Charles Beard. Kenneth M. Stampp, The Imperiled Union: Essays on the Background of the Civil War (1981) p 198; Woodworth, ed. The American Civil War: A Handbook of Literature and Research (1996), 145 151 505 512 554 557 684; Richard Hofstadter, The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington (1969) There was controversy over adding the slave state of Missouri to the Union that led to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Nullification Crisis over the Tariff of 1828, the Gag Rule that prevented discussion in Congress of petitions for ending slavery from 1835-1844, the acquisition of Texas as a slave state in 1845 and Manifest Destiny as an argument for gaining new territories where slavery would become an issue after the Mexican American War (1846-1848), which resulted in the Compromise of 1850. William E. Gienapp, "The Crisis of American Democracy: The Political System and the Coming of the Civil War." in Boritt ed. Why the Civil War Came 79-123 The Wilmot Proviso was an unsuccessful attempt by Northern politicians to exclude slavery from the territories conquered from Mexico. There were unsuccessful attempts to end controversy over slavery in the territories through Popular Sovereignty and Southern attempts to annex Cuba (including the Ostend Manifesto) and Nicaragua as slave states. The extremely popular antislavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe greatly increased Northern opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.McPherson, Battle Cry pages 88-91 Most of her slave owners are "decent, honorable people, themselves victims" of that institution. Much of her description was based on personal observation, and the descriptions of Southerners; she herself calls them and Legree representatives of different types of masters.;Gerson, Harriet Beecher Stowe, p.68; Stowe, Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1953) p. 39

There was the polarizing effect of slavery that split the largest religious denominations (the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian churches)James McPherson, Drawn With the Sword, page 11 and controversy caused by the worst cruelties of slavery (whippings, mutilations and families split apart). In Congress arguments over slavery became violent when United States House of Representatives Preston Brooks of South Carolina attacked Radical Republican (USA) United States Senate Charles Sumner with a gold-knobbed gutta-percha cane after Sumner's "Crime against Kansas" speech.Fox Butterfield; All God's Children page 17 Even rival plans for Northern vs. Southern routes for a transcontinental railroad became entangled in the Bleeding Kansas controversy over slavery. The old Second Party System broke down after passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. The Dred Scott v. Sandford of 1857, the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858,John Brown (abolitionist) in 1859 and the split in the Democratic Party (United States) in 1860 polarized the nation between North and South. The U.S. presidential election, 1860 was the final trigger for secession. During the secession crisis, many sought compromise—of these attempts, the best known was the "Crittenden Compromise"—but all failed.

Southern secession was triggered by the election of Republican Abraham LincolnDavid Potter, The Impending Crisis, page 485 because regional leaders feared that he would stop the expansion of slavery and put it on a course toward extinction. Many Southerners thought either Lincoln or another Northerner would abolish slavery, and that it was time to secede. The slave states, which had already become a minority in the House of Representatives, were now facing a future as a perpetual minority in the Senate and Electoral College against an increasingly powerful North. Deep South states with the most slavery seceded first, followed by the secession of four more states following the Battle of Fort Sumter and Lincoln's subsequent call for each remaining state to provide troops to retake forts and suppress the insurrection. Upper South states refused to send troops against their neighbors in what they considered an invasion.

Clarification of causes When the Civil War began, neither civil rights nor voting rights for blacks were stated as goals by the North. They became important afterward during Reconstruction. At first, though there was pressure to do so, not even the abolition of slavery was stated as a goal. While controversy over the morality of slavery could be contained, it was the issue of the expansion of slavery into the territories that made the conflict irrepressible.McPherson, James M., Battle Cry, page 41 Slavery was at the root of economic, moral and political differencesKenneth M. Stampp, America in 1857: A Nation on the Brink (Oxford University Press, 1990), pages 110-113 that led to control issues, states' rights and secession.

Slavery greatly increased the likelihood of secessionJames Ford Rhodes, Lectures on the American Civil War, pages 2-16 and 76-77 which in turn made war probable, irrespective of the North's stated war aims, which at first addressed strategic military concerns as opposed to ultimate political and Constitutional ones. Hostilities began as an attempt, from the Northern perspective, to defend the nation after it was attacked at Fort Sumter. Lincoln's war goals evolved as the war progressed. Lincoln mentioned the need for national unity in his March 1861 inaugural address after seven states had already declared their secession. At first Lincoln stressed the Union as a war goal to unite the War Democrats, border states and Republicans. In 1862 he added emancipation because it permanently removed the divisive issue of slavery that caused secession, an issue that Lincoln said was "somehow the cause of the war". Abraham Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865 In his 1863 Gettysburg Address he added preserving democracy to emancipation and the Union as a war goal.

States' rights Questions such as whether the Union was older than the states or the other way around fueled the debate over states' rights. Whether the federal government was supposed to have substantial powers or whether it was merely a voluntary federation of sovereign states added to the controversy. According to historian Kenneth M. Stampp, each section used states' rights arguments when convenient, and shifted positions when convenient.Stampp, The Causes of the Civil War, page 59

Stampp mentioned Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens' A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States as an example of a Southern leader who said that slavery was the "cornerstone of the Confederacy" when the war began and then said that the war was not about slavery but states' rights after Southern defeat. Stampp said that Stephens became one of the most ardent defenders of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy.Stampp, The Causes of the Civil War, pages 63-65

The historian William C. Davis also mentioned inconsistencies in Southern states' rights arguments. He explained the Confederate Constitution's protection of slavery at the national level as follows:

States' rights and slavery in the territories The "States' rights" debate cut across the issues. Southerners argued that the federal government was strictly limited and could not abridge the rights of states as reserved in the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and so had no power to prevent slaves from being carried into new territories. States' rights advocates also cited the fugitive slave clause to demand federal jurisdiction over slaves who escaped into the North. Anti-slavery forces took reversed stances on these issues. The fugitive slave clause in the Constitution was the result of compromises between North and South when the Constitution was written. It was later strengthened by the fugitive slave law that was part of the Compromises of 1850. The Southern politician and states' rights advocate John C. Calhoun regarded the territories as the "common property" of sovereign states, and said that Congress was acting merely as the "joint agents" of the states.McPherson, Battle Cry, page 57

States' rights and minority rights States' rights theories were a response to the fact that the Northern population was growing much faster than the population of the South, which meant that it was only a matter of time before the North controlled the federal government. Southerners were acting as a "conscious minority", and hoped that a strict constructionist interpretation of the Constitution would limit federal power over the states, and that a defense of states' rights against federal encroachments or even nullification or secession would save the South.Kenneth M. Stampp, The Causes of the Civil War, page 14 Before 1860 most presidents were either Southern or pro-South. The North's growing population would mean the election of pro-North presidents, and the addition of free-soil states would end Southern parity with the North in the Senate. As the historian Allan Nevins described the Southern politician John C. Calhoun's theory of states' rights, "Governments, observed Calhoun, were formed to protect minorities, for majorities could take care of themselves". Nevins, Ordeal of the Union: Fruits of Manifest Destiny 1847-1852, page 155

Jefferson Davis stated that a "disparaging discrimination" and a fight for "liberty" against "the tyranny of an unbridled majority" gave the Confederate states a right to secede.Jefferson Davis' Second Inaugural Address, Virginia Capitol, Richmond, February 22, 1862 Transcribed from Dunbar Rowland, ed., Jefferson Davis, Constitutionalist, Volume 5, pp. 198-203. Summarized in The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 8, p. 55. In 1860, Congressman Laurence M. Keitt of South Carolina said, "The anti-slavery party contend that slavery is wrong in itself, and the Government is a consolidated national democracy. We of the South contend that slavery is right, and that this is a confederate Republic of sovereign States." Lawrence Keitt, Congressman from South Carolina, in a speech to the House on January 25, 1860: Congressional Globe.

The South's chosen leader, Jefferson Davis, defined equality in terms of the equal rights of states,When arguing for the equality of states, Jefferson Davis said, "Who has been in advance of him in the fiery charge on the rights of the States, and in assuming to the Federal Government the power to crush and to coerce them? Even to-day he has repeated his doctrines. He tells us this is a Government which we will learn is not merely a Government of the States, but a Government of each individual of the people of the United States". - Jefferson Davis' reply in the Senate to William H. Seward, Senate Chamber, U.S. Capitol, February 29, 1860, From The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 6, pp. 277-84. Transcribed from the Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 916-18. andopposed the declaration that all men are created equal.When arguing against equality of individuals, Davis said, "We recognize the fact of the inferiority stamped upon that race of men by the Creator, and from the cradle to the grave, our Government, as a civil institution, marks that inferiority". - Jefferson Davis' reply in the Senate to William H. Seward, Senate Chamber, U.S. Capitol, February 29, 1860, - From The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 6, pp. 277-84. Transcribed from the Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 916-18. The Constitution does include some states' rights elements in that each state has the same number of Senators, and certain rights are reserved to the states or to the people. Southerners such as Davis interpreted these rights as a shield against a numerical majority of Northerners.

Slavery The institution of slavery, introduced into colonial North America in 1619, had become a contentious issue between the North and the South early in the 1800s. The Compromise of 1850 included a new, stronger fugitive slave law that required federal agents to capture and return slaves that escaped into northern free states. Since fewer than 800 of the almost 4 million slaves escaped in 1860, the fugitive slave controversy was not a practical reason for secessionJ. G. Randall, Lincoln the President, (1997), vol 1, pages 237-241 (More had escaped in previous years; see Underground Railroad). The number that escaped was offset by free Northern blacks who were kidnapped as slaves. And secession only did away with enforcement of the fugitive slave law altogether. Kansas had only two slaves in 1860U.S. Census Bureau; "Population of the United States in 1860; comp. from the original returns of the Eighth Census" published 1864; . because the territories had the wrong soil and climate for labor-intensive forms of agriculture. Nevertheless, the Fugitive Slave law and the Kansas-Nebraska Act greatly increased controversy over slavery.David Potter, The Impending Crisis, pages 130-160

There was a strong correlation between the number of plantations in a region and the degree of support for secession. The states of the deep South had the greatest concentration of plantations and were the first to secede. The upper South slave states of Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee had fewer plantations and rejected secession until the Battle of Fort Sumter crisis forced them to choose sides. Border states had fewer plantations still and never seceded.James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom 1988 p 242, 255, 282-83. Maps on page 101 (The Southern Economy) and page 236 (The Progress of Secession) are also relevantDavid Potter, The Impending Crisis, pages 503-505The percentage of Southern whites living in families that owned slaves was 36.7 percent in the lower South, 25.3 percent in the upper South and 15.9 percent in the border states that fought mostly for the Union.

The total number of individual slaveowners (as opposed to those living in a family with slaves) was 4.8 percent of the total population of the South, numbering almost 385,000 individuals. However, ninety-five percent of blacks lived in the South, comprising one third of the population there as opposed to one percent of the population of the North. Consequently, fears of eventual emancipation were much greater in the South than in the North.James McPherson, Drawn with the Sword, page 15

Slavery in the territories 16th President of the United States (1861–1865)

The specific political crisis that led to secession stemmed from a dispute over the expansion of slavery into new territories. The Republicans, while maintaining that Congress had no power over slavery in the states, asserted that it did have power to ban slavery in the territories. The Missouri CompromiseMcPherson, Battle Cry, pages 57-58 of 1820 maintained the balance of power in Congress by adding Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. It prohibited slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase Territory north of 36°30'N lat. (the southern boundary of Missouri). The acquisition of vast new lands after the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), however, reopened the debate—now focused on the proposed Wilmot Proviso,McPherson, Battle Cry, pages 52-60 which would have banned slavery in territories annexed from Mexico. Though it never passed, the Wilmot Proviso aroused angry debate. Northerners argued that slavery would provide unfair competition for free migrants to the territories; slaveholders claimed Congress had no right to discriminate against them by preventing them from bringing their legal property there.

The dispute led to open warfare in the Kansas Territory after it was organized by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.McPherson, Battle Cry, pages 121-129 This act repealed the prohibition on slavery there under the Missouri Compromise, and put the fate of slavery in the hands of the territory's settlers, a concept known as "popular sovereignty". Fighting erupted between pro-slavery border ruffians from neighboring Missouri and antislavery immigrants from the North (including John Brown (abolitionist), among other abolitionists). The Bleeding Kansas crisis included acts of violence such as the Sacking of Lawrence and the Pottawatomie Massacre.

The pro-slavery government of Kansas at Lecompton, Kansas, which was the result of massive vote fraud, was opposed by a rival free-soil government at Lawrence, Kansas that represented the majority. President James Buchanan made a controversial but unsuccessful attempt to admit Kansas to the Union as a slave state under the Lecompton Constitution.David Potter, The Impending Crisis, pages 297-327

The Supreme Court decision of 1857 in Dred Scott v. Sandford added to the controversy. Roger Taney decision said that slaves were "so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect",David Potter, The Impending Crisis, page 275 and that slaves could be taken to free states and territories. Lincoln warned that "the next Dred Scott decision"First Lincoln Douglas Debate at Ottawa, Illinois August 21, 1858 could threaten northern states with slavery.

Slavery as a cause of the war Historians describe many issues related to slavery as causes of the Civil War. As the historian Nevins said, "As the fifties wore on, an exhaustive, exacerbating and essentially futile conflict over slavery raged to the exclusion of nearly all other topics."Nevins, Fruits of Manifest Destiny, 1847-1852, page 163 Northern politician Abraham Lincoln said, "this question of Slavery was more important than any other; indeed, so much more important has it become that no other national question can even get a hearing just at present."Abraham Lincoln, Speech at New Haven, Conn., March 6, 1860 The slavery issue was related to sectional competition for control of the territories,McPherson, Battle Cry, page 195 and the Southern demand for a Slave codes for the territories was the issue used by Southern politicians to split the Democratic Party in two, which all but guaranteed the election of Lincoln and secession. When secession was an issue, South Carolina planter and state Senator John Townsend said that "our enemies are about to take possession of the Government, that they intend to rule us according to the caprices of their fanatical theories, and according to the declared purposes of abolishing slavery."John Townsend, The Doom of Slavery in the Union, its Safety out of it, October 29, 1860 Similar opinions were expressed throughout the South in editorials, political speeches and declarations of reasons for secession. Even though Lincoln had no plans to outlaw slavery where it existed, Southerners throughout the South expressed fears for the future of slavery.

Southern concerns included not only economic loss but also fears of racial equality.McPherson, Battle Cry, page 243David Potter, The Impending Crisis, page 461William C. Davis, Look Away, pages 130-140William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion, page 42 The Texas Declaration of Causes for Secession said that the non-slave-holding states were "proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color", and that the African race "were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race". Alabama secessionist E. S. Dargan said that emancipation would make Southerners feel "demoralized and degraded". Speech of E.S. Dargan, in the Convention of Alabama, Jan. 11, 1861

Abolitionism The Second Great Awakening of the 1820s and 1830s in religion inspired groups that attempted various types of social reform, one of the most notable of which was the abolitionists; these were later supported by Transcendentalism. "Abolitionist" had several meanings at the time. The followers of William Lloyd Garrison, including Wendell Phillips and Frederick Douglass, demanded the "immediate abolition of slavery", hence the name. A more pragmatic group of abolitionists, like Theodore Weld and Arthur Tappan, wanted immediate action, but that action might well be a program of gradual emancipation, with a long intermediate stage. "Antislavery men", like John Quincy Adams, did what they could to limit slavery and end it where possible, but were not part of any abolitionist group. For example, in 1841 Adams represented the United States v. The Amistad African slaves in the Supreme Court of the United States and argued that they should be set free. In the last years before the war, "antislavery" could mean the Northern majority, like Abraham Lincoln, who opposed expansion of slavery or its influence, as by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, or the Fugitive Slave Act. Many Southerners called all these abolitionists, without distinguishing them from the Garrisonians. James M. McPherson explains the abolitionists' deep beliefs: "All people were equal in God's sight; the souls of black folks were as valuable as those of whites; for one of God's children to enslave another was a violation of the Higher Law, even if it was sanctioned by the Constitution."McPherson, Battle Cry p. 8; James Brewer Stewart, Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery (1976); Pressly, 270ff

Slave owners were angry over the attacks on what some Southerners (including the politician John C. Calhoun) referred to as their peculiar institution of slavery. Starting in the 1830s, there was a vehement and growing ideological defense of slavery. David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage (2006) pp 186-192. Slave owners claimed that slavery was a positive good for masters and slaves alike, and that it was explicitly sanctioned by God. Biblical arguments were made in defense of slavery by religious leaders such as the Rev. Fred A. Ross and political leaders such as Jefferson Davis.Mitchell Snay, "American Thought and Southern Distinctiveness: The Southern Clergy and the Sanctification of Slavery", Civil War History (1989) 35(4): 311-328; Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese, The Mind of the Master Class: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders' Worldview (2005), pp 505-27. There were Southern biblical interpretations that directly contradicted those of the abolitionists, such as the theory that a curse on Noah's son Ham and his descendants in Africa was a justification for enslavement of blacks.William C. Davis, Look Away, page 134

Beginning in the 1830s, the U.S. United States Postmaster General refused to allow mail which carried abolition pamphlets to the South.Schlesinger Age of Jackson, p.190 Northern teachers suspected of any tinge of abolitionism were expelled from the South, and abolitionist literature was banned. Southerners rejected the denials of Republicans that they were abolitionists, and pointed to John Brown (abolitionist) attempt in 1859 to start a slave uprising as proof that multiple Northern conspiracies were afoot to ignite bloody slave rebellions. Although some abolitionists did call for slave revolts, no evidence of any other actual Brown-like conspiracy has been discovered. David Brion Davis, Inhuman Bondage (2006) p 197, 409; Stanley Harrold, The Abolitionists and the South, 1831-1861 (1995) p. 62; Jane H. and William H. Pease, "Confrontation and Abolition in the 1850s" Journal of American History (1972) 58(4): 923-937. The North felt threatened as well, for as Eric Foner concludes, "Northerners came to view slavery as the very antithesis of the good society, as well as a threat to their own fundamental values and interests". Eric Foner. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War (1970), p. 9

John Brown’s Raid John Brown (abolitionist) famous raid in October 1859, involved a band of 22 men who seized the federal Harpers Ferry Armory at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia knowing it contained tens of thousands of weapons. Brown believed that the South was on the verge of a gigantic slave uprising. Brown's supporters George Luther Stearns, Franklin B. Sanborn, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Theodore Parker, Samuel Gridley Howe and Gerrit Smith were all anti-slavery members of the Secret Six who provided financial backing for Brown's raid.David Potter, The Impending Crisis, pages 363-364 Brown's raid, says historian David Potter, "was meant to be of vast magnitude and to produce a revolutionary slave uprising throughout the South."David Potter, The Impending Crisis, pages 356-384 The raid was a fiasco. Not a single slave revolted. Lt. Colonel Robert E. Lee of the U.S. Army was dispatched to put down the raid, and Brown was quickly captured. Brown was tried for treason against Virginia and hanged. At his trial, Brown exuded a remarkable zeal and single-mindedness that played directly to Southerners' worst fears. Few individuals did more to cause secession than John Brown, because Southerners believed he was right about an impending slave revolt.In his exhaustive biography, David S. Reynolds said that Brown realized that his raid would "probably" not succeed in sparking a slave uprising, and that Brown's ultimate goal was to incite a civil war. Shortly before his execution, Brown prophesied, "the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away; but with Blood."David Potter, The Impending Crisis: 1848-1861 (1976), chapter 14, quote from p. 367. Allan Nevins, Ordeal of the Union: A House Dividing, pages 472-477 and The Emergence of Lincoln, vol 2, pages 71-97

Arguments for and against slavery William Lloyd Garrison, the most prominent abolitionist, was motivated by a belief in the growth of democracy. Because the Constitution had a three-fifths clause, a fugitive slave clause and a 20-year extension of the Atlantic slave trade, Garrison once publicly burned a copy of the U. S. Constitution and called it "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell". Mason I Lowance, Against Slavery: An Abolitionist Reader, (2000), page 26In 1854, he said:-->

Opposite opinions on slavery were expressed by Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens in his "Cornerstone Speech". Stephens said:

Southern fears of modernization According to the historian McPherson, exceptionalism applied not to the South but to the North after the North phased out slavery and launched an industrial revolution that led to urbanization, increased education and reform movements such as abolitionism. The fact that seven immigrants out of eight settled in the North, plus the fact that twice as many whites left the South for the North as vice versa, contributed to the South's defensive-aggressive political behavior. The Charleston Mercury read that on the issue of slavery the North and South "are not only two Peoples, but they are rival, hostile Peoples."James McPherson, "Antebellum Southern Exceptionalism: A New Look at an Old Question," Civil War History 29 (Sept. 1983)As De Bow's Review said, "We are resisting revolution ... We are not engaged in a Quixotic fight for the rights of man ... We are conservative."

Some historians have argued that the slaveowners were the most modern people in the South. The traditionalists were the poor and middling whites who owned few or no slaves. They are called Plain Folk of the Old South. Thornton, Politics and Power; Samuel C. Hyde Jr., "Plain Folk Reconsidered: Historiographical Ambiguity in Search of Definition" Journal of Southern History (Nov 2005) vol 71#4 The common people of the South fought for secession because they believed in the slogan that "Freedom is not possible without slavery" and thought that slavery created social equality among whites.James McPherson, The War of Southern Aggression Many Northerners (especially Republicans) had a different interpretation of the ideals of 1776.James McPherson, The War that Never Goes Away

Secession begins ]

]

Secession of South Carolina South Carolina adopted the "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union" on December 24 1860. It argued for states' rights for slave owners in the South, but contained a complaint about states' rights in the North in the form of opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act, claiming that Northern states were not fulfilling their federal obligations under the Constitution. At issue were:

• The refusal of Northern states to enforce the fugitive slave code, violating Southern personal property rights;
• Agitation against slavery, which "denied the rights of property".
• Assisting "thousands of slaves to leave their homes" through the Underground Railroad.
• The election of Lincoln "because he has declared that that 'Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,' and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction".
• "...elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens". Most Northerners opposed the Dred Scott decision, although only a few New England states allowed blacks an equal right to vote.James McPherson, The Negro's Civil War, page 3

Secession winter Before Lincoln took office, seven states had declared their secession from the Union. They established a Southern government, the Confederate States of America on February 9, 1861. They took control of federal forts and other properties within their boundaries with little resistance from President Buchanan, whose term ended on March 4, 1861. Buchanan asserted, "The South has no right to secede, but I have no power to prevent them."President James Buchanan, Message of December 8, 1860 One quarter of the U.S. Army—the entire garrison in Texas—was surrendered to state forces by its commanding general, David E. Twiggs, who then joined the Confederacy.

As Southerners resigned their seats in the Senate and the House, secession later enabled Republicans to pass bills for projects that had been blocked by Southern Senators before the war, including the Morrill Tariff, land grant colleges (the Morill Act), a Homestead Act, a trans-continental railroad (the Pacific Railway Acts), the National Banking Acts and the authorization of United States Notes by the Legal Tender Act of 1862. The Revenue Act of 1861 introduced the income tax to help finance the war.

The Confederacy Seven Deep South cotton states seceded by February 1861, starting with South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia (U.S. state), Louisiana, and Texas. These seven states formed the Confederate States of America (February 4 1861), with Jefferson Davis as president, and a Confederate States Constitution closely modeled on the U.S. Constitution. In April and May 1861, four more slave states seceded and joined the Confederacy: Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia. Virginia was split in two, with the eastern portion of that state seceding to the Confederacy and the northwestern part joining the Union as the new state of West Virginia on June 20 1863.

The Union states There were 23 states that remained loyal to the Union during the war: California, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin. During the war, Nevada and West Virginia joined as new states of the Union. Tennessee and Louisiana were returned to Union control early in the war.

The territories of Colorado Territory, Dakota Territory, Nebraska Territory, Nevada Territory, New Mexico Territory, Utah Territory, and Washington Territory fought on the Union side. Several slave-holding Native Americans in the United States tribes supported the Confederacy, giving the Indian territory (now Oklahoma) a small bloody civil war.

Border states The Border States (Civil War) in the Union were West Virginia (which broke away from Virginia and became a separate state), and four of the five northernmost slave states (Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, and Kentucky).

Maryland had numerous pro-Confederate officials who tolerated anti-Union Baltimore riot of 1861 and the burning of bridges. Lincoln responded with martial law and called for troops. Militia units that had been drilling in the North rushed toward Washington and Baltimore.McPherson, Battle Cry, pages 284-287 Before the Confederate government realized what was happening, Lincoln had seized firm control of Maryland (and the separate District of Columbia), by arresting the entire Maryland statehouse and holding them without trial.

In Missouri, an elected convention on secession voted decisively to remain within the Union. When pro-Confederate Governor Claiborne F. Jackson called out the state militia, it was attacked by federal forces under General Nathaniel Lyon, who chased the governor and the rest of the State Guard to the southwestern corner of the state. (See also: Missouri secession). In the resulting vacuum the convention on secession reconvened and took power as the Unionist provisional government of Missouri.McPherson, Battle Cry, pages 290-293

Kentucky did not secede; for a time, it declared itself neutral. However, the Confederates broke the neutrality by seizing Columbus, Kentucky in September 1861. That turned opinion against the Confederacy, and the state reaffirmed its loyal status, while trying to maintain slavery. During a brief invasion by Confederate forces, Confederate sympathizers organized a secession convention, inaugurated a governor, and gained recognition from the Confederacy. The rebel government soon went into exile and never controlled the state.McPherson, Battle Cry, pages 293-297

Some Union supporters in the northwestern counties of Virginia opposed secession and formed a pro-Union government in Wheeling shortly after Richmond's secession in 1861. The northwestern counties of Virginia eventually seceded from Confederate Virginia as the new state of West Virginia, which was admitted into the Union on June 20, 1863. At one point the West Virginia statehood bill presented to the U.S. Senate contained 63 counties for inclusion, reaching from Botetourt up to Clarke counties.Curry's "A House Divided", Randall's "Civil War and Reconstruction" pgs. 236-242 Similar Unionist secessions appeared in East Tennessee, but were suppressed by the Confederacy. Jefferson Davis arrested over 3,000 men suspected of being loyal to the Union and held them without trial.Mark Neely, Confederate Bastille: Jefferson Davis and Civil Liberties 1993 p. 10-11

Overview Union army chaplain celebrating a Mass

Some 10,000 military engagements took place during the war, 40% of them in Virginia and Tennessee. Gabor Boritt, ed. War Comes Again (1995) p 247 Separate articles deal with every major battle and some minor ones. This article only gives the broad outline. For more information see Battles of the American Civil War and Military leadership in the American Civil War.

The war begins For more details on this topic, see Battle of Fort Sumter

Lincoln's victory in the U.S. presidential election, 1860 triggered South Carolina's declaration of secession from the Union. By February 1861, six more Southern states made similar declarations. On February 7, the seven states adopted a provisional constitution for the Confederate States of America and established their temporary capital at Montgomery, Alabama. A pre-war February peace conference of 1861 met in Washington in a failed attempt at resolving the crisis. The remaining eight slave states rejected pleas to join the Confederacy. Confederate forces seized most of the Federal forts within their boundaries (they did not take Fort Sumter); President Buchanan protested but made no military response aside from a failed attempt to resupply Fort Sumter via the ship Star of the West (the ship was fired upon by Citadel cadets), and no serious military preparations.McPherson, Battle Cry, pages 234-266 However, governors in Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania quietly began buying weapons and training militia units.

On March 4 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as President. In his Inauguration, he argued that the Constitution was a Preamble to the United States Constitution than the earlier Articles of Confederation, that it was a binding contract, and called any secession "legally void".Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, Monday, March 4, 1861 He stated he had no intent to invade Southern states, nor did he intend to end slavery where it existed, but tha

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