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DBQ Essay: The First Secession

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Secession Essay The Southerners felt they had to secede from the Union for many reasons. They wanted to make their own Confederate government so they could do what they wanted. Like for instance, have control of slavery in their territories. The state South Carolina was the first to secede, on December 20, 1860, followed by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee. According to those states, they all think slavery should be allowed in their region. Convinced that their way of life, based on slavery, was threatened by the election of Abraham Lincoln, those seven states of the deep South seceded. Jefferson Davis felt like the election was the final straw in secession or as he put it, “ the last feather which you know breaks the camel’s back”(Doc 7 Jefferson Davis). This meant that the election made the decision clear to the Southern states. So they broke off and created the …show more content…

When the election took place, there were regional lines for voting and some states in the South didn’t even have Lincoln on the ballot! They did that because Lincoln, to them, was a threat to their beliefs that slavery was okay. So because it was along regions Lincoln won due to the larger amount of people past the line. All of the Southern leaders wanted to have a more powerful government that fit their wants and needs. They didn’t want the North to have an advantage, so they then wanted to secede. Abraham Lincoln didn’t want them to split off because it would be a weaker nation and they might have wars over slavery and state’s rights. That’s what led up to the civil war. This hostility, really fueled the conflict between the two and they started the fighting April 12, 1861. The war started officially when the South attacked Fort Sumter. They did this because the fort was a source of tension between them and the Union for several

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