A republican from Illinois called Abraham Lincoln is elected president.
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November, 1860
Lincoln was the first president to come from the North.
Southern states were not amused.
3 to 4 million slaves were living in the South. And normally politicians (including the president) served their interests
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Lincoln promised his voters that no more slave states were to be added.
At that moment there were 19 free states and 15 slave states.
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But there were more states to be formed. So the Southern states sent their senators to Washington to plead for more slave states. In order to maintain their political power.
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So immediately after Lincoln was elected, 7 states seperated themselves from the U.S.
They did so quite peacefully. Not looking for a full scale war at all.
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The seperated states just wanted to leave the U.S. and begin a new nation. But there was one problem...
The Northern states had several forts scattered all over the South. And, being quite important strategically, the North didn't want to pull out their soldiers.
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One of those forts was Fort Sumter in Charleston.
This fort became a symbol for the first (and only) southern president Jefferson Davis. He wanted to show the world the South was to be taken serious.
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When food supplies in the fort were running low. Lincoln sent a ship with food to the fort.
Davis couldn't sit back and in April 1861 he opened fire upon the fort.
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As an answer, Lincoln drafted 75,000 volunteers to fight the seven deserted states.
And in turn four slave states that didn't seperate yet, chose sides with the South.
One of the bloodiest wars in the history of the U.S. had begun...
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This was the start of the American Civil War. From 1861 to 1865 nearly 620,000 men were killed (that's a whopping 25% of all the soldiers) and another 500,000 were injured.
VS
A start of a war. But also the beginning of the end of slavery.
Lesson duration is: 30 min
