During the 1850s, the United States was a "divided nation" between the northern states and the southern states. Although there were some concordances and similarities between the sides regarding US imperialist policy, there was also a huge dissent about of the model of society with which the new territories would be populated.
The North was characterized by the development of a strong industry, advocate of free wage labor and composed of a strong urban middle class. The South, on the other hand, had a basically agricultural economy, focused on the production of cotton in the plantation system, with extensive use of slave labor. This North-South dispute related to the use of slave labor intensified from the occupation of Nebraska and Kansas. American President Franklin Pierce was in favor of the extension of slavery to Kansas, and this generated great dissatisfaction in the abolitionist wing. The dispute in Kansas even led to minor armed conflicts between militias of abolitionists and slaveholders in the late 1850s.
The rivalry between the abolitionist wing and the enslaved wing reached the presidential debate in the 1860 elections. The main representative of the Democrats was Stephen Douglas, and the Republicans were represented by Abraham Lincoln. The victory of Abraham Lincoln in the elections of 1860 generated great dissatisfaction in the South.
President Abraham Lincoln maintained an ambiguous stance on slavery, since he was a supporter of the abolition of slavery, but he believed that the "white race" was naturally "superior." In addition, Lincoln asserted that he would not abolish slavery where it already existed and defended its maintenance exclusively in the South, that is, it was contrary to its expansion into the new territories, such as Kansas. Lincoln's position was criticized on both sides: the Northerners considered him very conservative, while the Southerners considered him a radical abolitionist, even Lincoln adopting conciliatory measures.
The Southern states' dissatisfaction with the presidency of Abraham Lincoln was related to the issue of slavery and motivated them to rebel against the American government. The Southerners began to defend a separatist discourse, and as a consequence, the South eventually declared their untying of the Union and formation of a new nation, known as Confederate States of America. The election of Lincoln and the separation of the southern states were, therefore, the fops for the beginning of the Secession in 1861.
The first southern state to separate from the Union was South Carolina, which was followed by Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, and Louisiana. The attack that marked the beginning of the civil war was also carried out by the Southerners against a Union fort (Fort Sumter), based in Charleston, South Carolina. Lincoln - which claimed that it would not accept any kind of separatism - called on the armies to fight against the separatists and reintegrate them into the nation.
The convocation of the Union armies by Lincoln led other Southern states to declare their secession and to bond with the Confederates: Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. Lincoln's response to the attack at Fort Sumter in Charleston came with the shipment of 80,000 troops. From this, the American Civil War spread throughout the nation.
