Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Short essay question document 1 the presidential election of 1860
The importance of slavery in America
President Lincoln and slavery
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In the year of 1860, one election changed a lot for America. This election determined who would be in charge of America. This election determined what morals the young country of the United States would take. After the results of the Election of 1860 came in, this meant great controversy between the Southern and Northern States. When Lincoln was elected president the South rebelled due to their opposing values. This election changed America. In the election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln was titled the president of the United States. The Democratic Party had been separated into two divisions, the Southern Democrats and the Northern Democrats. During the election, Lincoln was aware that he would not gain popular vote in the Southern states. However, he knew that if he could win the ballots of the North, he stood a chance in …show more content…
Prior to the election, the South had harsh feelings towards Lincoln. As an adherent of the Free Soil Party, which later was renamed the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln encouraged the outlaw of expanding slavery to the new territories that the United States was gaining so quickly. The South looked at Abraham Lincoln as a menace. They were troubled by his opposing beliefs of slavery’s role in America. So whenever Lincoln was elected president of the United States in 1860, the South was very uneasy. After Lincoln won the election with a 41% of votes, despite the fact that his name was not even in the polls of ten Southern states, the South was enraged. The South began separating from the North state by state. The first state to branch away from the North was South Carolina. After that, the Southern states of America quickly took South Carolinas lead and began breaking away from the North as well. The reason is because their principles were different from those of the North. They did not agree in the freedom that Lincoln wanted to grant the
Lincoln received more popular votes than the Democrats; this was an important shift in Illinois. Lincoln gained a strong reputation through out the entire north. By Douglas winning, he further alimented Presidents Buchanan’s administration and especially the south. The south soon lost its power in the Senate; the division of the Democratic Party was even more splintered. Lincoln assured the south that he would not interfere with slavery in their states where it already excited. Also, Lincoln assured the north that he was not ready for political or social equality of the races.
Disapproval, the Confederacy, and slavery were amongst the many crises Abraham Lincoln faced when addressing his First Inaugural speech (Lincoln, First Inaugural, p.37). Above all, Lincoln’s speech was stepping on the boundaries of the southern slave states. Once states began to secede, new territories formed and the disapproval of Lincoln grew. Despite Lincoln’s attempts of unifying the antislavery and confederate views, many whites refused to follow his untraditional beliefs. Lincoln encountered hostile and admirable emotions from the people of the Union and the Confederacy. However, despite his representation of the Union, not everyone agreed with his views.
At the time, the South depended on slavery to support their way of life. In fact, “to protect slavery the Confederate States of America would challenge the peaceful, lawful, orderly means of changing governments in the United States, even by resorting to war.” (635) Lincoln believed that slavery was morally wrong and realized that slavery was bitterly dividing the country. Not only was slavery dividing the nation, but slavery was also endangering the Union, hurting both black and white people and threatening the processes of government. At first, Lincoln’s goal was to save the Union in which “he would free none, some, or all the slaves to save that Union.” (634) However, Lincoln realized that “freeing the slaves and saving the Union were linked as one goal, not two optional goals.” (634) Therefore, Lincoln’s primary goal was to save the Union and in order to save the Union, Lincoln had to free the slaves. However, Paludan states that, “slave states understood this; that is why the seceded and why the Union needed saving.” (634) Lincoln’s presidential victory was the final sign to many Southerners that their position in the Union was
As the result, due to the difference between the north and south. They north and south viewed each other differently as two different kind of people. Stephen Douglas explained that the view of southern plantation owners (document 5). They believed the laws fit the northern, not the southern. Therefore, they made their own rules and treated themselves as individual nation which then turned into the confederacy. As a result, Abraham Lincoln gives a speech explaining that in order to succeed we need to work as a nation instead diving each other setting disputes with one in others. (document 4) Therefore, Lincoln goes on to say that two house can’t be divided because they can’t not stand by themselves, but Lincoln challenge the secession of the south because he wonders it would be erupting but he inferred because of slavery. Therefore, the north and south began to have
Both constitutional and social developments greatly changed the United States to a revolutionary proportion between 1860 and 1877. The new amendments and the fight for civil rights altered the previous way of life and forever changed American society. Inequality, fear, and corruption sent the United States into turmoil that would transform the country and lead to a revolution of change.
President Lincoln was elected into presidency at a horrible time for the country but he still fought to do the best he could. After the civil war the main focus of Lincoln was to rebuild the North but still keep the South happy. His plans consisted of making the North's reconstruction a main focal point and distributing 10% of the damages done to the south to aid their reconstruction. President Lincoln thought that the states that seceded last should be given less guilt than the ones who seceded first. He gave more money to Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Virginia and he treated them better because they were the last to secede. Along with his plans for reconstruction came the Radical Republicans who were a small minority in congress. They were very strict on giving all rights to African Americans and wanted to punish the south. All of these ideas and plans for Lincoln were all good ideas and could have been successful but they came to an abrupt end when Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in 1865.
The Illinois Senate race of 1858 between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas had famous Lincoln- Douglas debates that helped elevate Lincoln to a higher star status within the Republican party which greatly influenced his popularity for the 1860 presidential elections. Douglas’ Freeport Doctrine decreased Douglas’ influence and popularity in the South, making the election of 1860 largely sectional which the more populated, more Republican North won. The underlying discussion over slavery ─ i.e. Dred Scott decision, Freeport Doctrine, etc. ─ brought up the ideological debate of the position and place of blacks, thus the ideological battle of race in America that was fought and largely dominated by the South for almost a century. Without the crisis of the 1850’s and what was the central debate at the time. Neither the Civil War, fourteenth through fifteenth amendment, nor the ideological battle over rave would have happened when they did.
The election of Abraham Lincoln, an anti-slavery advocate, in 1860 resulted in the secession of the South from the United States of America. The South seceded from the Union and encouraged others to do the same, as Abraham Lincoln was against popular sovereignty and the Constitution. (Doc 7) Abraham Lincoln condemned the institution of slavery, which led the the secession of the South upon his presidential nomination.
In 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected as president of the United States of America, the repercussions of which led to civil war. However it was not only Lincoln’s election that led to civil war but also the slavery debate between the northern and southern states and the state of the economy in the United States. Together with the election of Lincoln these caused a split, both politically and ideologically, between the North and South states which manifested into what is now refereed to as the American Civil War.
Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860, Southern states began progress from the Union. Though personally against slavery and convinced the United States couldn’t be both, but was going to have to be all free or all slave states. Repeatedly he said he would not interfere with slavery where it already exists. But he was against in its expansion into territories where it did not exist; and slave owners were determined that they had to be free to take their human property with them if they chose to his move into those
On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected as president in the United State. But, the United States had been divided in the 1850s, due to the question about expansion of slavery and the rights of the slave owner. The issue of slavery had heated the nation to the boiling point. Fourth Months later, after Abraham presidential election, the seven states in the deep southern part of the United States, like South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia. Louisiana, and Texas, had seceded and seized many federal facilities. Although President Lincoln is the president of the United State, he still had no official powers to do anything about the Southern forming a new nation. On April 15, Lincoln called 75,000 volunteers to put down the Southern rebellion, and to reverse the seven states to vote in favor of session. After the nation drifted toward conclusion, Abraham Lincoln traveled all over the North, so he can make campaign speeches for the Republicans party. Abram Lincoln used his influence, as the leader of the Republican Party, by reaching out to the political leader of the Republican party, writing privately letters, demanded that the Republican party needs to hold firm to its opposition to the extension of slavery and to also reassure the southern that the Republicans composed no threats. When Civil War begins, Abr...
Contrary to what today’s society believes about Lincoln, he was not a popular man with the South at this time. The South wanted to expand towards the West, but Lincoln created a geographical containment rule keeping slavery in the states it currently resided in. Despite his trying to rationalize with the South, Lincoln actually believed something different ”Lincoln claimed that he, like the Founding Fathers, saw slavery in the Old South as a regrettable reality whose expansion could and should be arrested, thereby putting it on the long and gradual road ”ultimate extinction” (216). He believed it to be “evil” thus “implying that free southerners were evil for defending it”(275). Lincoln wanted to wipe out slavery for good, and the South could sense his secret motives.
The presidential elections of 1860 was one of the nation’s most memorable one. The north and the south sections of country had a completely different vision of how they envision their home land. What made this worst was that their view was completely opposite of each other. The north, mostly republican supporters, want America to be free; free of slaves and free from bondages. While on the other hand, the south supporters, mostly democratic states, wanted slavery in the country, because this is what they earned their daily living and profit from.
Democrats and Whigs built party organizations throughout the nation, and both sought to enlarge their bases of support by growing the right to vote. In some measure, the Whigs were the successors of the federalists. Yet conflict between the two parties revolved more around personalities than policies. The Whigs were a diverse group united more by opposition to the democrats than by agreement on programs. During the late 1840s and early 1850s, conflicts over slavery produced sharp divisions within both the Whig and the democratic parties, despite the efforts of party leaders to develop compromises. By 1856 the Whig party had all but disintegrated under the strain, and many Whig politicians and voters, alongside with antislavery Democrats, joined the new Republican Party. In the 1860 the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln for the presidency. During the course of the wars, President Lincoln depended heavily on republican governors and state legislatures to raise troops, provide funding, and maintain popular support for a long and bloody military
By the year of 1860, the North and the South was developed into extremely different sections. There was opposing social, economic, and political points of view, starting back into colonial periods, and it slowly drove the two regions farther in separate directions. The two sections tried to force its point of view on the nation as a whole. Even though negotiations had kept the Union together for many years, in 1860 the condition was unstable. The presidential election of Abraham Lincoln was observed by the South as a risk to slavery and many believe it initiated the war.