Origins of the American Civil War - SpeedyLook encyclopedia

The origins of American Civil War are a complex whole of historical, social and economic elements.

Economy

Different grounds

The the United States of America extended in the beginning on two radically different climatic areas. From there came can be a difference in mentality at the origin of cleavages having led to confrontation.

North

On Latitude S comparable with those of the Europe average and even Mediterranean, the North-East of the United States is not heated by a hot current comparable with the Gulf Stream. On the contrary, it receives a cold current come from the Greenland, which is added to the strong continental influence to produce cold and snow-covered winters. The summer, heat and rainy, allows good harvests on the other hand. In the absence of estival dryness, the river flow remains important all the year, economic factor important: the Moulin with paddles remains the first energy source until worms 1870. Moreover, North is equipped with mining richnesses, especially in Charbon.

South

Starting from the Virginia, the climate becomes hotter, to see subtropical in the lowlands of Louisiana and Florida. According to the design of the time, that predisposes with a Agriculture of Plantation, where work is made by a Labor of African origin: Tobacco or Hemp of Virginia to the Missouri, Cane with sugar in the extreme south, and especially the Cotton in ten States. It is the Dixieland . Rivers, especially immense the the Mississippi and its affluents, and the railways, less dense than in North, ensure the export of harvests.

Marshes supplied with the risings of the large rivers. They are used sometimes as refuges to the outlaws, like the Indians Séminoles of Florida and the fugitive slaves. During the war, the endemic Malaria and other diseases will make a tomb for the armies of it.

However, with the variation of the transportation routes, the hills of the the Appalachian Mountains and the Ozarks are populated white farmers, who do not have or few slaves and feel forsaken by the aristocracy of the rich person growers. They are divided between the resentment towards the elites and fear to be lowered on the level of the Blacks.

Industrial backwardness of the South

In the Years 1850, the South became aware of its economic subordination towards North. The census of 1850 worried about many Southerners. During the previous decade, the Population growth had been of 20% higher in the States of North than in the States of the South. The lack of economic outlets seemed to bring an explanation to this reality. Three times more individuals of the South, had gone to settle in North that the opposite. Seven eighth of the Immigrating S elected residence in North. In 1850, only 14% of the channels passed by the States of the South. In 1840, the South had 44% of railway mileages of the union but in 1850, the faster rate/rhythm of construction of North made fall this percentage to 26%. The data concerning the industrial production were also worrying.

With 42% of the population, the States of the South held only 20% of the capacity of manufacture, knowing that this proportion is in fall between 1840 and 1850. Of which about half of this industrial capital gathered in the 4 frontier States (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland and Delaware). The sector of the economy really flourishing Southerner was the Agriculture. In 1850, the price of the Coton had gone up to almost reach the double of the courses of 1840. But, the States cotton producers did not even preserve 5% of their production on their territories, for the manufacture of their Textile S. They exported 70% abroad and the remainder was found in the factories of North. The south was then to thus import two thirds of these Vêtement S and other manufactured goods coming from North or abroad. Moreover, 15 to 20% of the price of the raw cotton went to “agents” which organized for the growers the Crédit, the Assurance, the Transport and the Stockage of cotton. However, the majority of these agents were representatives of northerner or British firms. The expenses which accompanied the price by the imported goods were all the more important as generally these products from Europe was discharged in the ports from North for then being forwarded to the South by coastal traffic or overland route.

Eminent living Alabama declared in 1847: “our entire trade, except for a small fraction, is with the hands of the men of North” . This self-criticism became a litany in the South, as the town of Mobile shows it where the seven eighth of the banking values belong to people of North.

The leaders of the South, in front of this inferiority launched out in the Industrialization. The Textile seemed a road very traced for the industrialization of the South. Just after industry, the principal instrument of hello of the South was to be the Railroad. The South made, indeed, of important progress in the Années 1850. The States of the South multiplied their railway mileages by four. The capital increased by 77% exceeding the population growth, so that investment rate per capita increased by 39%. Even if the share of the States of the South in the national railway network, had passed to 37%, it represented always less than in 1840. In 1860, North remained all the same twice better equipped on the level with the number of kilometers of railways. Even if the industrial investment per capita did not increase more quickly in North than in the South, the population of the free States increased more quickly, 40% in North compared with only 27% in the South. The effort tried by the leaders of the South, in textile industry failed. In 1850, the value of cotton fabric produced in the South accounted for only 10% of the American total. The banks, the commercial firms, the agents, the brokers, the northerner transport companies continued to monopolize the displacement of the goods in the South. The contemporaries and the historians have advanced several explanations to this failure: “the control of the man does not allow the development of a competitive industry, which can open out only in the fertile compost which is the free worker! ”

The industry of North

The period which follows the Compromis of 1850 is for the the United States of America a true economic birth. And the ten years of 1850 with 1860 are ten years out of the commun run.

With the américano-Mexican War, the the United States complete their territorial expansion. In 1850, the United States is a State-continent. The population knows a great growth rate, from one census to another the statistics make jumps. In 1790, one counted 4 million American citizens. In 1830, they are already 13 million citizens whom one counts, and in 1840, the population increased by 30%. The progression continued to accelerate with 23 million individuals in 1850, to reach 31 million in 1860. In twenty years, the population doubled. In this country in strong growth, mechanical progress causes a great activity and pleasing economic transformations. This State requires equipment, this million immigrants, must be nourished, equipped and employed.

It is the revolution of the Transport S which metamorphosed the face of the US economy. The Railroad and the steamers thus became the means of development and development of the territory. In 1850, the United States had fourteen thousand kilometers of railways, and could praise itself to have the vastest network of the world. And this network was supplemented by thirty thousand new kilometers of ways during the following decade.

The example of Chicago illustrates the economic explosion well that Indeed knew the cities of the United States thanks to the Train S., the population of the city increased by 37,5% during the decade 1840-1850. The voyage of New York in Chicago passed from three weeks to two days. It took nothing any more but five days between Cincinnati and New York for the transport of the goods. The railroad made it possible to nationalize the economy and to allow the establishment of fast and direct contacts between all the points of the country. From now on, it was necessary to produce more because one did not sell any more with his neighbors or in his city, but one sold at remote cities, and even in other states which could not produce what one made commonly. And this specialization of the cultures brought to be equipped in a new way, it was necessary from now on to have seeders, cultivators, mowers and reaping-machines. Industries of agricultural machinery were in full rise and the request was increasing. In the cities, contractors reorganized and standardized the production of a whole variety of goods intended for the sale in large quantities on regional markets and finally nationals. And this back in shape passed by various forms, but generally, a feature arises: the Factory. As soon as the production asked for a minimum of mechanization, one mechanized to the maximum and one gathered the activity on a site, by specializing the tasks as much as possible.

One of the factors which helped with this Mécanisation of accelerated industrialization is the permanent lack of labor. Constantly, the immigrants arrived, but very quickly they set out again towards the West, leaving the vacancies. These workmen were always not qualified, mechanization was thus necessary to this prosperous economy. Another reason comes to explain this industrialization: the abundance of energies (Wood, hydraulic power and coal).

The economic power of North also comes owing to the fact that it generated many innovations. The American Engineer S are at the origin of the Standardization parts in the Outillage and the Armement, it is them which developed the system Réfrigération. More than 96% of the adult population could read and to write, the three quarters of the children between 5 and 19 years were registered in the registers of schools and they attended it more than 6 months per annum. The South remained with the drag with 80% of the white population taught reading and writing and a child on three registered voter at the school, attending it at least 6 months per annum. The slaves were not taught reading and writing.

Different designs

NORTH-SOUTH, two Immigration S, two Population S

North, a permanent immigration

North is very different from the South in the field of the Immigration. The economy of North calls upon the abundant and inexpensive labor which the immigrants of fresh date constitute, obliged to rent itself by contract to refund their travelling expenses. After a phase of assimilation, often in contact with already established compatriots, the immigrants can claim with more qualified and better paid employment. They have also the hope to be put very quickly on their account, while benefitting from the grounds at a cheap rate of the West, or by trying their chance as gold diggers in California.

With each great crisis in Europe, the United States sees arriving on their territory in great number the populations persecuted for their ideas, like the revolutionists of 1848, or victims of natural disasters, like the Irish after the great famine of 1847. In 1855, Manor house Garden, one of the most prestigious theaters became the office of the Immigration of the state of New York and the hearth is arranged for the medical visits. The migrants spend approximately 6 hours to be registered at the office of immigration and to pass the medical visit. If all is in order they cross the runway then wood which leads to Manhattan where a crowd of people hastened awaits them to deal with them.

The integration of the immigrants does not go from oneself. In the years 1840-1850, North knows even a powerful movement of secret societies Xénophobe S, the Know-Nothing, and riots oppose the Anglo-Saxon workmen to the catholic Irishmen. But the Democratic party extends its patronage to these newcomers, who form an active electoral mass. The mediums of businesses take care to maintain the migratory flux, which ensures a labor at a cheap rate to them.

South, a “old immigration”

The South is very different in its identity design. The White of the South go down almost uniformly from the first waves migratory European, Anglo-Scottish and Irish Protestant, with a contribution of catholic English in Maryland, of French in Louisiana and Spaniards in Florida and with the Texas. They are regarded as the legitimate heirs to the Founding fathers . The Esclavage, inherited the colonial period, is integral part of their tradition cultural, which is not at all the case for people of North, resulting from free society.

While the population of the South increases only by her own population growth, that of North increases at the same time by the births, European immigration, and a strong interior migration of freed or fugitive Blacks, but also of poor Blancs of the South, which badly find their place in a hierarchical company. The variation of population between North and South thus evolves/moves with the detriment of the second.

The South does not incarnate the hope like North, it is the tradition, the respect of an aristocratic and preserving culture, where the respect of the traditions is the base of the company.

A State, two social structures

Flexibility of the company of North

The company of North, in first half of the 19th century, is in rural majority. It is distinguished already from the European companies, by its high rate of Alphabétisation and by the strong practice of the local Démocratie, but the economy remains mainly Autarcique: each village produces its food, its clothing, its tools. However, the growth of the industry and the railroad, the penetration of the urban models transform little by little the Man with the hoe into modern consumer. It is only in the middle of the 19th century that the big cities, large the Industrie, the Banque become really the dominant cultural models.

The richness which industrialization brings grows, but its distribution is uneven with the passing of years. At the beginning of the revolution the wages were good because of the relative weakness of the Immigration and the scarcity of the labor. But because of the wars and the European famines, of the thousands of Irishman arrive in North, and are offered to the industrialists. Little by little, the workmen seek to organize themselves to defend their interests. And when industry them with steps allowed to settle, they remain free to leave to conquer the West.

But, one should not see in this company of North, a paradise for the poor one and an ideal of Démocratie and respect of the human condition. Many white scorn the blacks as much that people of the South and in the West the Indians are massacred without remord.

Aristocrat and farmers of the South

Dasns the South, nearly the three quarters of the white population did not have a Esclave S and were not directly interested by the Esclavage. A census of 1860 gives a report on: 400000 owners of Slaves on a free population of 8 million and half of individuals. The difference between the number of owners and the share of the population concerned, is explained by the fact why there are whole families, and that the juniors, the nonmarried or widowed girls, the managers, the white foremen or craftsmen live and depend on the Servage.

However to be owner of Esclave S inevitably does not mean to be a grower. Some (majority) had only one or two slaves, whereas others counted some until: 2000. It is the case of Hairston in Virginia which was constrained to establish a new plantation every year to occupy and exploit the surplus of this true population. In 1860, the population in serfdom was of 4 million slaves. At the head, comes a restricted group growers (300) who have on average 200 slaves. But for this aristocracy of plantation, it is necessary to add those which have 50 to 200 slaves and who are entitled to the title of grower or are about to obtain it. In 1860, one counts: 10500 growers.

Below this aristocracy of the growers, a class comes from farmers who have 10 to 50 slaves. Semi-peasants semi-growers, one counts some: 98000, and it is them which form the framework of the South. The life, the traditions, the civilization of the South, the Cotton and the Tobacco, slavery and the plantation represent for them the only ideal to be reached. Remain them: 275000 small holders, of which each one has less than 10 slaves. All these farmers, owners of slaves are not only attached to slavery, because the slave is the only labor available, but it is also because the Esclave S represent the only means which can make it possible to the farmer to rise on the social scale.

There also exists, a great part of the white population which does not have a slave and who cultivates, their own hands, their ground. These small farmers are more than 3 million and are in the High-south. They hope to acquire one or more slaves, but this dream is destroyed little by little by the federal laws which limit little by little the importation of slaves, to lead to the suppression of this trade coming from Africa. All these peasants are definitely slave, even if they feel scorned. The “white poor”, of which the number reaches 1 million, will appear during the war of excellent troops.

The citizens of the South have lifestyles completely different from those of North, the South does not may find it beneficial to see changing the things.

The religious schism before the Secession of the States

As of 1844, the Churches make Sécession. In the first third of the 19th century, the United States is touched by a formidable protesting movement of religious revival: the Second Large Alarm clock . The first Alarm clock took place at the 18th century and contributed to mobilize the pioneers of America for a walk towards independence. At this beginning of 19th century, four great groups occupy the American religious landscape: the Presbytériens (and their close relations cousins congregationalists), the épiscopaliens, the Méthodiste S and the Baptists. All take share with the alarm clock (Revival off religion), but with various degrees and in various forms. The revivalists represent two distinct races: formal , including/understanding the Presbytériens, the reformed Churches of English language and Low Church épiscopalienne; the populist antireformists or, evangelic organizations with prevalence Méthodiste and Baptist.

The preachers left the New England, want not only to awake in the believer a weakened and routine faith, but to still lead it to become aware of the evils of the company in which he lives. They stress the order, the discipline and the role of the family. Their other priority is the evangelization of the slaves. In parallel, the Churches conduct campaign for the voluntary return of the Blacks émancipés in Africa. However, little voice protests against the Esclavage itself. Even if in North enthusiasm leads to anti-slavery political campaigns, one observes in the South certain evangelists who go until seeking in the Bible a justification with slavery that they consider permitted by God for degraded races the “and lower”. The pastors of the south affirm that slavery is a burden for the white man but who it is necessary to support it to preserve the company of anarchy, the insurrection and the moral decline. Whereas north within its churches clamp which slavery is a sin and calls with its abolition or at least with a progressive emancipation of the Blacks. However, North and the South are found on the same point: the return of the Blacks émancipés in Africa.

In fact the presbytériens groups are the first to condemn in an official and open way slavery. He is declared during an assembly in 1818: “We regard the voluntary control of part of the human race by another as a violation of more crowned and more invaluable right of the human nature. ” The only recommendations of actions made by the assembly are the active support of the companies of colonization and religious instruction of the populations put in slavery. The presbytériens, for doctrinal questions, separate in two families, one in North, the other in the South.

The scenario followed by the methodists is the same one, with that close division is for them much more serious. Nevertheless, during the alarm clock, the methodists adopt a more moderate attitude with respect to the owners of slaves fearing a conflict between the Churches and a brake with the development of their own institutions. The Church methodist is characterized by his diffusion and its national character. The Southerners were determined so much so that the secession no opposition in the two camps met. Massively, each Church methodist in the South confirmed and approved the rupture with the national Church. The Baptists knew, them-also a secession in their rows. Admittedly, contrary to the other Churches they did not have central authority, but they knew same division between North and the South.

Already, the American Civil War was profiled.

A conflict before the War

Taken care of weapons

The fight of Free Soilers

The Free Soilers , in favor of the free ground , are a movement much broader than the abolitionists itself. They do not aim at a fast abolition of slavery, but they want to prevent any expansion of this one. They regard the growers of the South as an aristocracy which threatens American freedoms. They propose the distribution of the federal grounds by small pieces, free or at weak price, to support a family agriculture of white farmers, whereas the South claims a sale by great pieces, being appropriate for an agriculture of plantations. The movement Free Soiler will be one of the sources of the Republican party.

The offensive of the South

The South does not intend to remain passive and to put up with one evolution to the advantage of North. Its politicians claim the legalization of slavery in the territories of the Union, the strict application of the laws against the fugitive slaves, the conquest of a tropical empire in Cuba and in Central America which would enable him to extend its fields of plantation. Little before the war, certain contractors almost openly takes again the importation of slaves of Africa, however prohibited by the American and international laws.

The battle of Kansas

The Kansas, opened with the white settlement in 1854, becomes a ground of competition between partisans and adversaries of slavery. The colonists come from the South, minority, but made in first and supported by armed groups come from the close States, impose their law to the northerner colonists of sympathy free soiler . The Congress and president Buchanan end up accepting a constitution of Kansas, voted under doubtful conditions, and which legalizes slavery. This retreat vis-a-vis the pressure Southerner revolts the opinion of North.

Two parties, two visions of the United States of America

Republicans

Sometimes it one of the two political principal parties of the United States, is called Grand Old Party , the “old man great party”. The Republican party was formed in 1854, of an agglomerate made up former members of the parties Whig, Free-Soil and Know Nothing, to which some democrats of North were added, dissatisfied with the attitude of their party on the question of slavery. It is the refusal of the extension of slavery to the territories of the West which brought these militants and these politicians to be gathered. At the end of the Years 1850, the republican became the second party of the United States, thus acquiring a balance with the democratic . Their rise is supported by the increasing concern which causes, in North, the influence of the States of the South with Washington. In 1860, the republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, is elected with the presidency. The States of the South react to this election by making secession of the Union, which plunges the country in the civil war.

At the end of the 19th century, the industrial revolution starts to influence the republicans. Since its beginnings, the Republican party incarnates a certain image of America, nationalist, Protestant woman and Anglo-Saxon, and decides in favor of a strong federal government. During the American Civil War, it tends to replace gradually the Democratic party like privileged representative of industrial employers. The public orders of weapons and weaponry, the massive purchase of bills the treasury, whose output depends on the final victory, contribute to inflect this orientation. In spite of the reserves of certain republican leaders, the political orientations of the party reflect the industrial values more and more, and the actions of the republican governments encourage the emergence of a centralized industrial economy. In same time, the republicans often express a hostility with regard to the waves of immigrants of Ireland and Eastern Europe. The republican programs of countryside preach, very often, the intervention of the State to prohibit or limit the consumption of alcohol and to reform the school programs, in order to promote certain Protestant and American values vis-a-vis the threats caused by the new arrivals, which approach the Democratic party.

The Democratic party had been the hegemonic force of the American policy until 1860, the Republican party succeeds to him starting from this date. For the northerner war veterans, in majority rural, it represents the force of the Union and the American identity, whereas the Democratic party suffers to be associated with the memory from the Confederation and foreign immigration.

Democrats

The origins of the Democratic party go up with the coalition formed around Thomas Jefferson in the Années 1790 to be opposed to the policy followed by the government of George Washington. This coalition, called in the democratic beginning Republican party , is divided into two factions during the presidential campaign of 1828. One of them, the republican national Party, is absorbed in 1834 by the Party whig, while the other becomes the Democratic party. In the Years 1830, under the presidencies of Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) and of Martin Van Buren (1837-1841), the Democratic party formulates the positions which characterize it until the end of the century. The democrats wish the recourse to the national power in the foreign affairs when the American interests are seen threatened, while they insist on the careful role, even non-existent, that must play the State as regards economic policy and social. The democratic voters share a common mistrust with regard to the interventions of the government in the private life. The adversaries of the democrats, Whigs, believe, for their part, with the use of the central capacity to follow a policy of promotion, regulation and reform of the company. Between 1828 and 1856, the democrats gain six presidential elections out of eight and generally control the Congress. In the middle of the years 1850, its policy does not inspire any more confidence on the files of immigration, slavery, the settlement of the West, and it is weakened by several corruption scandals.

The question of slavery brings the scission of the Democratic party. To presidential of 1860, it introduces two rival candidates, Douglas in North and Beckinridge in the South. This division contributes to the victory of Lincoln. The problems of the Democratic party worsen during the American Civil War (1861-1865). Whereas the Democrats of the South, around Jefferson Davis, form the political reinforcement of the Confédération, those of North are divided between an attachment of principle to the Union and an opposition to the policy of war of Lincoln. With the elections of 1862 and 1864, the Democrats Copperheads , in favor of a negotiated peace, reach raised scores, but they cannot put in failure the Republican majority and her policy of total victory against the South.

Compromises, very to avoid the Secession

The Compromise of Missouri (1820)

The Compromise of 1850

The combat of North

The example of Uncle Tom's cabin

It is not possible to measure with exactitude the political influence of the novel Uncle Tom's cabin . One can quote the sales figures, but not those of the voices which it made rock towards the anti-slave system nor of the laws that it inspired. However, none the contemporaries doubted the capacity that he exerted. “ One forever considering a similar literary knack ”, ensured an American poet . During the summer 1862, whereas it was with the catches with the problem of slavery, Abraham Lincoln borrowed it from the library of the Congress. To include/understand Uncle Tom's cabin, it was made present the documentation on which the author had based his novel. When Lincoln became acquainted with the author a little later this year, he greeted it, says one , by these words: “ Thus, here is the small woman which wrote the book to which we let us owe this Great War ”. The Southerners were piqués with sharp. In spite them efforts made to prohibit the book in the Slave states, the specimens were torn off so that the booksellers were unable to satisfy the request.

The business Dred Scott, a legal battle

Dred Scott was born slave around 1800 in Virginia. There had been slave of a medical officer of the army which had left the Missouri (State) between 1830 and 1840, to remain several years in the north of the areas belonging to the purchase of Louisiana and had taken along it with him. He marries a slave, pertaining to the same doctor. It is on a territory declared free that it put at the world a girl by regaining the Missouri (State) where their Master returned them. After the death of her Master, his Irene widow inherited her slaves. In 1846, white friends of Dred Scott, to St Louis, advised to him to bring a lawsuit to claim its release by making the point that it had resided a long time in a free territory. Scott followed this opinion. Initially, its complaint was rejected because he was not regarded as a citizen. In 1850, it is released and reduces again to the Esclavage in 1852. The business started to take a political character. The Supreme court of the State yielded to slave pressures in spite of the preceding examples of released black slaves being in the same situation as Scott. The business passed before the Federal court of the United States. The Southerners were in majority with the Supreme court. Three great questions arose at the Court:

As a black, was Scott a citizen enjoying the right to bring continuations in front of the federal courts?
Its residence prolonged in a free State and a territory (two years in each one) it had émancipé it? was
the territory of its residence (Strong Snelling), in fact, a free territory - in other terms, the Congress it had had the right, in 1820, to prohibit slavery in the territories located at north 36° 30 ' of latitude?

Once, the Supreme court of the United States had already refused a call interjeté against the Supreme court of Kentucky, which had decided that the slaves of the Kentucky, taken along temporarily in Ohio remained slaves in accordance with the law in force in Kentucky.

The February 14th 1857, a majority of judges voted, reaffirming the Strader principle, and remained about it there, but a few days later, this same majority solved to put forth a judgment detailed to cover all the aspects of the business. Two democratic judges not intended to affirm that Scott was free and that the blacks were full citizens. The stop is the March 6th 1857, it recognizes that Dred Scott as all the slaves who were born in a Slave state, could not obtain his emancipation by the fact of having resided in a free State. It is thus the State of birth which makes that a person is free or not.

After this business, the “networks” functioned with full output and the slave question becomes public.

“Networks”, a clandestine fight

The inhabitants of North, who in a vast majority defended the anti-slavery idea, refused to offer their services and their assistance to the marshals. These federal agents, which under the terms of the new laws launched out to the continuation of the fugitive slaves. The abolitionists organized the clandestine Railroad . This way made it possible to help and hide the fugitive ones to make them convoy towards the Canada. Others, but a minority, were taken along clandestinely by boats towards Canada protecting itself thus from the action of the federal agents.

It is this same law which inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe to write Uncle Tom's cabin . In 1854, the question of the slave territories reappeared. In front of this enveniment, a new generation of political leaders went up to the head of the one and other political party. The radicals were given to be demolished of this compromise which they considered unjust and which closed to them all the higher valley of the Missouri. When they started to pass to the acts, North was drawn up against. The South had the obligation to be organized to fight against the escapes because the totality of the States of the South had a border with free North and the escape wants to be seldom temporary and local: it is a question well of gaining by all the means the Promised land.

It is difficult to estimate with precision the width of this escape. The number would be of: 50000 with: 100000 slaves for all the period which precedes the American Civil War. North helped the slaves in escape by the means of the Underground railroad , or subway. It was set up during the years 1850. The escaped prisoners move of station in station, name given to the various refuges, led in that by chiefs of Train, i.e. people who help them and guide them. In the years which precede the civil war, the escape towards north and the operation of the subway are the autobiographical account object: the abolitionists make publish many testimonys in the form of articles of newspapers and books. The slaves in escape are mainly men alone, but during the war they will be whole families which will leave towards North.

The election of Lincoln, the beginning of the Secession

The presidential election of 1860 one of is disputed American history, with four important candidates: Abraham Lincoln (Republican of North), Douglas (Democrat of North), Beckinridge (Democratic of the South) and Beautiful (constitutional Union, South). It is the only American election where the regional votes were also opposite: Lincoln does not have almost any voice in the South, nor Beckinridge, the champion of slave, in North.

Poor wire of peasants of the Kentucky, lawyer with Springfield in the Illinois, Lincoln seems the champion of the popular classes of North, the enemy at the same time of the large growers of the South and the corrupted business men who dominate the Democratic party. Its regional origin attracts to him the vote of the area of the Big lakes, up to that point acquired with the Democrats. The majority of its voters vote for him by rejection of the old elites more than by sympathy reasoned to the black cause.

Lincoln and slavery: a conviction of long time

The victory of Lincoln is lived like an imminent threat by the South, because, in spite of its careful declarations, it is supported by the leagues abolitionists. It hidden forever its aversion for the particular Institution : “The purchase and the sale of human beings, declare it, are a shame for the country, a curse weighing on the American experiment. ” Like representative of Illinois, it deposited a private bill to abolish slavery in the district of Columbia - which shelters Washington. The Southerners, hostile with his project, see there an attack Yankee , which prepares the way with a national law of abolition.

Struck by the spectacle of the clashes which it causes between deputies, Lincoln announces that “slavery is a total violation of the right crowned of the man to control itself; the question of slavery can poison any reason and push the white Americans until the margins of violence”.

The suppression of the Compromis of Missouri in 1857 causes a large agitation in the worldwide and increases the ditch which separates in favor and adversaries of slavery.

In a new speech, made in front of a full house, it launches an solemn appeal with all the good wills. To conduct its campaign with effectiveness, he aspires to being elected with the senate of the United States. In February 1855, it misses little the victory, having preferred to desist in favor of a candidate placed better to bar the road with a democratic adversary. However, the months pass and agitation does nothing but grow. In certain territories, like that of the Kansas, partisans and adversaries of abolition are about to start an armed struggle.

The February 20th 1856, Lincoln takes the initiative to convene a convention which will meet a few weeks later with Bloomington and will take the official name of Republican party . The determination of Lincoln and its capacity of persuasion rejoin many partisans to him, including among the democrats who give up their old party for the new one. The presidential election having to take place the following year, Lincoln redoubles activity, multiplying the speeches, in which it shows the inconsistancy of slavery. At the time of the presidential election, it is Buchanan, a democrat all the same, who carries it, but in the whole of the States, the Republican party arrives just behind the democratic party, which is an encouraging sign for a new political training. During one year, Lincoln will be devoted to its law firm, but since 1858, he is in shift for the elections: the State of the Illinois must renew part of its deputies to the Chambre of the representatives, those then having to choose two members of Parliament who will sit at the Senate in Washington. The climate of violence between slave and free trade is in recrudescence. Lincoln does not manage to reverse the democratic majority with the Room of the representatives of Illinois.

Limits of a conviction

However, Abraham Lincoln does not escape the prejudices completely from her time. He does not believe the fully assimilable Blacks in the american company, and if it is ready to agree to them of the economic rights and social, it refuses the idea to make of them full citizens, voters and members of jurys. It wishes the extinction of slavery, but it considers it like a slow evolution, with perhaps a massive return of the Blacks released towards Africa. For him, American freedom is indissociable of its European cultural bottom.

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