Election of 1860
Although the Democratic Party survived the events of the
1850s, in 1860 it failed to agree on a presidential
candidate. The result was that Stephen Douglas ran in
the North and John Breckinridge of Kentucky in the
South. Remnants of the Whig Party in the South formed
the Constitutional Union Party and nominated John Bell of
Tennessee. The Republicans who had carried 11 free
states in 1856 needed only to pick up Pennsylvania,
Illinois, and Indiana to win the presidency. The Illinois
lawyer Abraham Lincoln won the nomination. Lincoln's
name failed to appear on the ballot in 10 southern states,
but he won the election. Look at this map of the election.
The victory of the Republican Lincoln inflamed the
secessionist passions of the South and especially of
South Carolina. Just over a month after Lincoln's election,
South Carolina voted to secede. Other states soon
followed. It mattered not that Lincoln never called for the
abolition of slavery in the South but only for preventing
its expansion. To southerners, Lincoln's election meant
northern domination and therefore secession became the
only choice to preserve the South.
1860 Presidential Election
From The National Atlas of the United States of America.
Ed. Arch C. Gerlach. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Dept. of the
Interior, Geological Survey, 1970. Image provided by
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, University of
Texas Libraries (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/)
WSBCTC
1
The War Begins
Lincoln was not inaugurated until March 1861 (the 20th
Amendment in 1933 moved inauguration to January). By
then 7 states in the Deep South had seceded, formed the
Confederate States of America, and elected Jefferson
Davis as their president. Fort Sumter sat on an island at
the entrance to the Charleston (S.C.) harbor. By April,
the federal forces at the fort needed to be resupplied.
President Lincoln notified the governor of South Carolina
that he was sending a relief force with food but no
military supplies. President Davis ordered that Fort
Sumter surrender or be attacked. Before Lincoln's relief
force reached Charleston harbor, Confederates had
attacked the fort and forced its surrender. States in the
Upper South most notably Virginia joined the
Confederacy and the North and South mobilized for war.
WSBCTC
2
Secession of Confederate States of America and
Readmission to Union (1860 to 1870)
Here again is the animated map from the Maps folder
that shows the secession of states to form the
Confederate States of America.
To view the map, please click here.
Map created by User: Golbez in 2007 and licensed under Creative Commons
Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CSA_states_evolution.gif).
The song that played when you opened the lecture is
"Dixie." It was a popular song of the 1850s performed in
minstrel shows. Written by a northerner, the song was
heard in both North and South. Lincoln requested that it
be played at his inauguration in 1861. Though both North
and South added lyrics during the war, "Dixie" became
familiar to later generations as a rallying song for
Confederates and an ode to the Old South.
DIXIE
Daniel Decatur Emmett
I wish I was in the land of cotton,
Old times there are not forgotten;
Look away! Look away! Look away, Dixie's Land!
In Dixie's Land, where I was born in,
Early on one frosty morning,
Look away! Look away! Look away, Dixie's Land!
CHORUS:
WSBCTC
3
Then I wish I was in Dixie. Hooray! Hooray!
In Dixie's Land I'll take my stand,
To live and die in Dixie.
Away! Away! Away down South in Dixie!
Away! Away! Away down South in Dixie!
Old missus married Will the Weaver.
William was a gay deceiver!
Look away! Look away! Look away, Dixie's Land!
But when he put his arm around her,
Smiled as fierce as a forty-pounder!
Look away! Look away! Look away, Dixie's Land!
His face was as sharp as a butcher's cleaver,
But that did not seem to grieve her!
Look away! Look away! Look away, Dixie's Land!
Old missus acted the foolish part,
And died for the man that broke her heart.
Look away! Look away! Look away, Dixie's Land!
Now here's a health to the next old missus,
And all the gals that want to kiss us!
Look away! Look away! Look away, Dixie's Land!
But if you want to drive away sorrow.
Come and hear this song tomorrow.
Look away! Look away! Look away, Dixie's Land!
There's buckwheat cakes and injun batter,
Makes you fat or a little fatter!
Look away! Look away! Look away, Dixie's Land!
Then hoe it down and scratch your gravel,
To Dixie's Land I'm bound to travel.
Look away! Look away! Look away, Dixie's Land!
Until the 1850s, the United States had avoided the
slavery question with indirect references in the
Constitution, with the Missouri Compromise, with "gag
rules" that prevented debates in Congress, and in the
WSBCTC
4
1850s with popular sovereignty that resolved nothing but
inflamed sectional rivalries. Think about the war's
beginning from the perspective of a southerner and a
northerner.
©2008, rev. 2011 Susan Vetter
WSBCTC
5