AMSCO 5.7 Election of 1860 and Secession

Overview

AMSCO Topic 5.7, "Election of 1860 and Secession," covers the final collapse of the Union: John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, the four-way presidential election of 1860, the secession of eleven Southern states, and the attack on Fort Sumter that started the Civil War. Lincoln won the presidency on a free-soil platform without a single Southern electoral vote, and within months the Deep South had left the Union. This topic sits at the climax of Period 5 (1844-1877), connecting the failure of compromise in the 1850s to the military conflict of the Civil War.

The big idea for the exam: Lincoln's victory proved the free states could elect a president on their own, and that political reality, not any actual move against slavery in the South, triggered secession.

John Brown's Raid at Harpers Ferry

In October 1859, John Brown (the same man who had massacred five farmers in Kansas in 1856) led a small band, including his four sons and some formerly enslaved people, in an attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His plan was to seize the arsenal's guns, arm Virginia's enslaved population, and spark a mass uprising.

The plan was impractical and failed fast:

• Federal troops under Robert E. Lee captured Brown after a two-day siege.
• Brown and six followers were tried for treason by the state of Virginia.
• At his trial, Brown spoke eloquently about his humanitarian motives, then was convicted and hanged.

The raid's real impact was how each section reacted:

• The North split. Moderates condemned Brown's violence, but abolitionists hailed him as a martyr.
• The South saw proof. Southern whites read the raid, and Northern praise for it, as final evidence that the North intended to use slave revolts to destroy the South.

Brown's own words from December 1859 capture the mood: "the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood."

The Election of 1860

The election of 1860 was a four-way race that the divided opposition handed to the Republicans. Southerners were already alarmed by Republican gains in the 1858 congressional elections, fearing both the party's antislavery stance and its economic program of higher tariffs, which would help Northern industry but hurt the cotton-exporting South.

The Democratic Party breaks apart

The Democrats were the last national party, the last hope for compromise, and they split in two:

• At the Charleston, South Carolina convention, Stephen Douglas was the frontrunner, but angry Southerners and Buchanan supporters blocked his nomination. The convention deadlocked.
• At a second convention in Baltimore, slave-state delegates walked out, and the remaining delegates nominated Douglas on a platform of popular sovereignty and enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law.
• Southern Democrats held their own Baltimore convention and nominated Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, calling for unrestricted extension of slavery into the territories and annexation of Cuba (a Spanish colony that still practiced slavery).

Republicans nominate Lincoln

Meeting in Chicago, Republicans built a platform around Northern and Western economic self-interest:

• Exclusion of slavery from the territories
• A protective tariff for industry
• Free land for homesteaders
• Internal improvements, including a railroad to the Pacific

To appeal to moderates, they passed over the well-known antislavery senator William Seward of New York and picked Abraham Lincoln, a little-known Illinois lawyer and strong debater who could carry Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. Southern radicals warned that a Lincoln win meant their states would leave the Union.

The Constitutional Union Party

Former Whigs, Know-Nothings, and moderate Democrats formed a fourth party, the Constitutional Union Party, nominating John Bell of Tennessee. Their whole pitch: enforce the laws, follow the Constitution, and above all, preserve the Union.

Election results

While Douglas campaigned across the country, Lincoln stayed home in Springfield, Illinois. The results:

• Lincoln carried every free state in the North, winning 59 percent of the electoral vote.
• Breckinridge carried the Deep South.
• Douglas and Bell picked up only a few electoral votes in the border states.

Lincoln won only 39.8 percent of the popular vote, making him a minority president. The lesson the South took away was the new political math: the populous free states could now elect a president with zero Southern electoral votes. Southern fears of permanent Northern control of the federal government appeared to be coming true.

Secession of the Deep South

Lincoln's election alone, before he took any action, triggered secession. Republicans controlled neither the Senate nor the Supreme Court, but secessionists didn't wait.

• December 1860: A special convention in South Carolina voted unanimously to secede, explicitly to protect slavery.
• Within six weeks: Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas followed. In Georgia and Alabama, many people opposed or doubted secession, but large slaveowners arguing for a state's right to defend slavery prevailed.
• February 1861: The seven Deep South states met in Montgomery, Alabama, and created the Confederate States of America, with a constitution like the U.S. Constitution except for limits on the government's power to impose tariffs and restrict slavery. Jefferson Davis of Mississippi became president and Alexander Stephens of Georgia vice president.

The Crittenden Compromise

Buchanan, now a lame-duck president (a leader finishing a term after a successor has been elected), did nothing to stop secession during his final five months. Congress tried harder. Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky proposed a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to hold slaves in all territories south of the old Missouri Compromise line, 36°30'. Lincoln rejected it because it violated the core Republican position against extending slavery into the territories. That refusal killed the last serious compromise effort, picking up where the collapse of earlier compromises left off.

Secessionists claimed they were acting in the tradition of the Revolution of 1776, dissolving a constitutional compact that no longer protected them from the "tyranny" of Northern rule. Many also assumed Lincoln, like Buchanan, would let secession happen without a fight. They miscalculated badly.

Fort Sumter and the Secession of the Upper South

Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, was where the war actually began on April 12, 1861. When Lincoln took office in March 1861, his inaugural address tried conciliation: he promised not to interfere with slavery where it existed, but warned that no state had the right to break up the Union. He told the South, "You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors."

The Fort Sumter decision

Fort Sumter was cut off by Southern control of Charleston harbor. Lincoln's move was shrewd. Instead of surrendering the fort or reinforcing it militarily, he announced he was sending provisions of food to the small federal garrison. That put the choice on South Carolina: let the fort hold out, or fire first. Carolina's guns opened fire, and after two days of bombardment the fort fell. The attack united most Northerners behind a patriotic fight to save the Union.

Four more states secede

Once it was clear Lincoln would use troops to defend the Union, four Upper South states joined the Confederacy: Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. The Confederate capital moved to Richmond, Virginia. Western Virginia stayed loyal to the Union and became the separate state of West Virginia in 1863.

Keeping the border states

Four slaveholding states never left: Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky. Holding them was a major military and political goal for Lincoln, since losing them would have increased the Confederate population by 50 percent and weakened the North's strategic position.

• Maryland: After pro-secessionists attacked Union troops and threatened the railroad to Washington, the Union army imposed martial law.
• Missouri: U.S. troops blocked pro-South elements from taking control, though Confederate guerrillas stayed active throughout the war.
• Kentucky: The legislature declared neutrality. Lincoln respected it and waited for the South to violate it first before sending in federal troops.

To avoid alienating border-state Unionists, Lincoln initially rejected calls to emancipate enslaved people. That decision matters later when you study government policies during the Civil War.

Historical Perspectives: What Caused the Civil War?

AMSCO closes the chapter with how historians' answers have shifted over time. This is great material for historiography-style thinking:

• Post-war Northern historians blamed a conspiracy of slave owners, a small minority who wanted to expand slavery.
• Southern historians framed it as a constitutional dispute. The North violated the original compact by attacking property rights, so secession was self-defense against majority tyranny.
• Progressive-era scholars (1900-1917) saw economics underneath everything: industrial North versus agricultural South, with slavery downplayed.
• 1920s-1930s historians, disillusioned by World War I, argued the war wasn't inevitable. Blundering politicians and fanatics on both sides caused it. They admired compromisers like Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas and criticized Lincoln's "house-divided" speech.
• 1950s-1960s historians, influenced by the civil rights movement, returned to slavery as the chief cause. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. argued that a society defending an evil institution creates moral differences "far too profound to be solved by compromise," making the conflict truly irrepressible.

Key Terms to Know

Practice and Next Steps

Pair these chapter notes with Fiveable's Topic 5.7 Election of 1860 and Secession study guide for the course-aligned version of this content, and browse the full APUSH AMSCO notes collection to keep moving through Unit 5.

To check your understanding:

• Quiz yourself with APUSH guided practice questions on the causes of secession and the election of 1860.
• Try writing about Civil War causation with FRQ practice and instant scoring. The historiography section above is perfect raw material for an essay on changing interpretations.
• When you're further along in review, take a full-length APUSH practice exam to see how Period 5 questions show up on the real thing.

Next up: AMSCO 5.8 Military Conflict in the Civil War.