5.7: Election of 1860 and Secession Crisis

Lincoln's First Inaugural Address

Speech delivered by Abraham Lincoln in March 1861 which was primarily addressed to the people of the South. It succinctly stated Lincoln's determination that the federal government would not interfere with slavery in the states where it already existed, but insisted his government would uphold the Constitution, protect the Union, and react only in defense from southern aggression.

Jefferson Davis

A U.S. Senator from Mississippi who left federal elected office to serve as President of the Confederate States of America from 1861 - 1865.

Fort Sumter

A federal fort in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina which Lincoln refused to turn over to South Carolina authorities in March 1861. The fort is where Confederate forces first attacked federal troops on federal property, thus prompting Lincoln to request troops from northern states to put down the rebellion and sparking the Civil War.

Crittendon Compromise

A futile last-minute attempt to postpone the breakup of the Union by guaranteeing slavery in the South and simultaneously reinstating the Missouri Compromise line. Lincoln refused to accept these proposals as they would have enabled slavery's expansion into western territories.

Stephen Douglas

A moderate Democratic Senator from Illinois, he introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854 and popularized the idea of popular sovereignty. He defeated Abraham Lincoln in the 1858 Illinois Senate race before losing to Lincoln in the 1860 presidential election, during which he promoted enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act and popular sovereignty as solutions to the nation's debate about slavery.

John Brown

A radical abolitionist who advocated violence to overthrow slavery in the south, he was hanged after leading an unsuccessful raid on the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia in October 1859. He planned to use the arsenal's guns to spark a slave uprising in Virginia.

Confederate States of America

A slave-holding republic formed in February of 1861 and ultimately composed of eleven Southern states that seceded from the United States in the wake of Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860.

John Bell

A wealthy slaveowner from Tennessee who served in both the House and the Senate, he ran for U.S. President against Lincoln, Breckinridge, and Douglas in 1860 with the Constitutional Union Party on a moderate pro-slavery platform.

William Seward

An abolitionist Republican Senator in the 1850s, he ran unsuccessfully for the Republicans' 1860 presidential nomination but became Secretary of State under Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. He was responsible for purchasing Alaskan Territory from Russia in 1867.

secession

Formal withdrawal of states or regions from a nation. In the winter and spring of 1860 - 1861, eleven southern states did this.

Constitutional Union Party

Formed by moderate, mostly southern Whigs and Know-Nothings in an effort to elect a compromise candidate and avert a sectional crisis in 1860, this political party ran Tennessean John Bell as their candidate in the 1860 presidential election.

Republican Party

Founded in 1854, this political party was made up of anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats, Free Soilers and reformers from the Northwest committed to keeping slavery out of western territories. They also adopted a range of Whig policies, including government support for internal improvements and a national banking system, which was reintroduced during the Civil War.

martial law

Military government involving the suspension of ordinary law. The Lincoln administration imposed this in certain regions of border states during the U.S. Civil War, like Maryland, to prevent those states' secession.

John C. Breckinridge

The South's pro-slavery Democratic candidate in the election of 1860 and James Buchanan's Vice President. His campaign decisively the split the Democratic Party in 1860, allowing Republican Abraham Lincoln to win the presidency despite winning only a plurality of the popular vote.