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A contentious issue between North and South was the expansion of slavery into western territories. Southern slave owners held that restricting slavery would violate the principle of states’ rights, whereas many Northerners believed popular sovereignty should serve as a barometer for the expansion of slavery, and some even believed slavery should be abolished completely
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Abraham Lincoln was nominated as a candidate for president on an anti-slavery platform. He won the presidential election.
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Seven Southern states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) carried out their threat and seceded, organizing as the Confederate States of America.
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The Northerners did not want war and Lincoln in his opening speech as President declared that he would not interfere with slavery in the Southern States, but merely affirmed the constitutional right of the Union to determine the status of the new states.
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Rebels opened fire on Fort Sumter, at the entrance to the harbour of Charleston, South Carolina.
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It decided that the United States was one nation, whose parts could not be separated.
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It put an end to slavery with the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.
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The Civil War caused terrible destruction at home. All over the South cities and farms lay in ruins. And more Americans died in this war than in any other, before or since. The death toll totaled 635,000.
