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In 1860-1861, the United States split apart. How did we get to that point?
Why did the Southern states leave the Union? Was war inevitable? What were the
combatants fighting about? You can explore these and other questions at the
Center and learn what motivated Unionists, Confederates, and African Americans.
The first section of the exhibit will focus on the causes of the conflict, beginning
with ideas, tensions, and compromises evident at the nation's founding. In 1787 at
the Constitutional Convention, the crucial compromise to preserve the Union going
forward was the Northern delegates' acceptance of the continuation of slavery. In the
eyes of some Americans, that compromise put the Constitution at odds with the Declaration
of Independence and its pronouncement that "all men are created equal." In the ensuing
decades, westward expansion diverging economic
systems and growth patterns; and differences over slavery and the
Constitution fueled a power struggle between North and South.
By the 1850s, the gradual shift in the balance of political power toward the more populous
North, coupled with the growth of the new anti-slavery Republican Party, had made slaveholders
and Southern politicians fear for their place within the Union and for the future of slavery.
Positions hardened as Republicans asserted the sanctity of majority rule, slaveholders perceived
a growing threat to their way of life, and abolitionists—both black and white—sought to end slavery.
Abraham Lincoln's election to the Presidency in 1860 on a platform of preventing the extension
of slavery to the territories propelled the states of the Deep South to secede from the Union
and form a new confederacy for the defense of slavery.
The Confederate shelling of Fort Sumter South
Carolina, on April 12, 1861, prompted Lincoln to call for 75,000 volunteers from the states
to put down the "rebellion" and preserve the Union by force. Slave states that had refused to
secede over slavery—Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas-realized that they could
not escape war. Compelled to choose sides, they joined the Confederacy. Now the line was firmly
drawn between those who would save the Union and those who would leave it. |
