d not just white men. He wanted to halt the spread of slavery but not destroy it immediately. To the Republicans Lincoln was a moderator but to the southerners he was an evil figure that became a sign that the union was to become radicalized. Just after the election of Lincoln South Carolina, followed by six other Southern states, took steps to secede from the Union. Although secession was illegal the union had no power to oppose it and all alternative compromises failed and so in February 1861 a new southern government was inaugurated as the, ”Confederate States of America.” This new government drafted its own constitution and elected its own president, General Jefferson Davis who was a Kentuckian like Lincoln. An as Lincoln so wisely said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand”, which meant America divided in two couldn’t carry on. So that April morning in 1861 when the confederate army opened free fire on Fort Sumter a fort being held by the union on southern soil, it would be the final act that all these causes and tensions that I’ve mentioned would finally have built up to. Which would have set off one of the most horrific wars of all time.And as most Americans describe it, “It was a war that defined America’s character.” ...
