flag of the United States South Carolina and six other southern states were no longer a part of the United States and did not pledge their allegiance to its flag They had formed their own nation the Confederate States of America Once just another federal fort Fort Sumter was now enemy territory This ill will between the northern states which represented the Union and the southern Confederate states began long before that fateful month of April 1861 It was a conflict that had been brewing since the U S Constitution had been adopted in 1788 The Constitution called for a balance of power between the federal government and the governments of the individual states But this balance was threatened by the issue of slavery
Enslaved Africans had been brought to America since the early 1600s By the 1700s slavery was thriving in the South where the agricultural economy depended on unpaid labor to support its large plantations and smaller farms In the North the economy was becoming more based on manufacturing and trade so unskilled labor was less in demand and slavery gradually disappeared A growing number of northerners opposed slavery on moral grounds as well Some became abolitionists who actively supported making slavery illegal in the United States Through the first half of the 19th century Congress debated the slavery issue The debate grew more intense as new territories were created Proslavery groups wanted slavery allowed in
these territories while antislavery groups wanted to stop its spread Congress came up with a number of compromises to try to satisfy both sides These included the policy of popular sovereignty where the population of a new territory or state would vote to determine whether it would be a slave state or a free state But these compromises were only temporary solutions to a more complex problem THE ELECTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN The Republican Party was born in the 1850s It included groups that opposed slavery and its spread It also favored economic and political policies that benefited the North In 1860 the Republicans
nominated Abraham Lincoln a former congressman from Illinois as their presidential candidate Lincoln a Unionist who believed in a strong federal government was a moderate on the slavery issue He believed slavery should not be abolished in the South but it also shouldn't be allowed elsewhere in the country The Democratic Party was divided on the slavery question and split into several groups each with its own candidate Stephen Douglas of Illinois ran on a campaign promoting popular sovereignty Southern Democrats nominated John C Breckinridge of Kentucky Breckinridge was in favor of protecting the rights of slaveholders in all new territories as well as in the South A fourth candidate John Bell of
