Essay Question: "Southerners maintained that secession was the ultimate expression of democracy, while Lincoln claimed it was rejection of democracy. How .
did they explain and justify their principles.".
On December 20, 1860, the Confederacy was born when South Carolina.
seceded from the federal Union. The Union and the Confederacy severely clashed in.
their views on the Constitution; the South felt that individual states should have the right.
to nullify laws, while Abraham Lincoln believed the federal government should appoint.
representatives for individual states. The South and Abraham Lincoln contrasted.
sharply on the idea of secession because the Constitution was ambiguous regarding.
states's rights.
Immediately following the election of Lincoln, the southern secessionists wanted.
to separate from the Union. Southerners feared that the Republican victory in 1860.
would "interfere in their domestic concerns-particularly their right to property and slaves.
as guaranteed by the fifth amendment of the Bill of Rights" (Jones 24). As a result, the.
state of South Carolina held a convention and voted to secede from the Union.
Following South Carolina's lead, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and.
Texas also seceded. "Their growing minority status had left them vulnerable to northern.
oppression; their right to withdraw from the governing pact remained a fundamental.
precept of the Declaration of Independence" (24). Representatives from each state.
convened on February 1860, to create the Confederate States of America. Although.
this document was roughly based on the Constitution, it assigned limits on the.
government's power to impose tariffs and restrictions on slavery. The southerners felt.
that they needed to create a new constitution because "the preamble to the Constitution.
. . does not propose to make the old Union more perfect, but to "form a more perfect.
Union;" that is, to create a new and better one" (6).