After Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860, leaders in several Southern states described the outcome as a serious threat to their political and social systems. They argued that a sectional party controlled the federal government. They thought this change put their interests at risk, especially slavery.
South Carolina responded first. On December 20, 1860, state leaders held a convention. They voted unanimously to break their union with the United States. Many in South Carolina had long argued that the balance between the North and South had been destroyed. These ideas dated back to earlier conflicts, including the Nullification Crisis of the 1830s, when South Carolina challenged federal authority over tariffs. After the election, similar debates emerged. They focused on states' rights and federal power
Other Deep South states soon followed South Carolina’s lead. Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia,Louisiana, and Texas all voted to secede in the winter of 1860 to 1861. In their official statements explaining secession, these states repeatedly identified slavery as the primary reason for leaving the Union. They described slavery as essential to their economy and way of life and argued that it must be protected. Several states specifically criticized Northern states for refusing to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, which they saw as a direct attack on slaveholding rights. The Vice President of the newly formed Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, explicitly tied the secession's cause with slavery when he said in a 1861 speech, known as the Cornerstone Speech:
"The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the storm came and the wind blew.
Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."
Several states saw Lincoln’s election as proof that their power in the national government had decreased. They said the Republican Party was hostile to slavery and argued that federal policies would increasingly hurt them. By early 1861, seven states had left the Union and met to form a new government called the Confederate States of America, which selected Jefferson Davis as its president, marking a turning point in the nation’s history.