Cival War :: essays research papers

Abraham Lincoln and the Beginnings of ReconstructionSince the beginning of the nineteenth century, the rapidly growing white population and the equally increasing buckle down population had been heightening the conflict between slave-free Northern states and the slave-holding cotton beltSouth. Hopelessly divided over the issue of slavery, thirty-one million American citizens were in 1860 called upon toelect the sixteenth President of the United States of America. When the anti-slavery Republican Abraham Lincoln waselected on November 6, 1860, no fellow American could have even imagined what great magnetic core would lay upon thehighest office in the years to come.1 Lincolns election was the ultimate trigger for eleven Southern states to withdrawfrom the Union and begin a desperate civil war that lasted for four years. Once it became clear the South could not winthe war, the president was confronted with the question of Reconstruction, that is, to restore Federal authority and arran ge loyal free state governments in the occupied areas of the rebellious South. In the early phase of the war,Lincoln had favored a simple and rapid refurbishment of all areas conquered by Union armies. However, when Lincolnfailed to restore the states old allegiances, he shifted his plan towards a much more radical proposal. By 1864, after theflaming(a) campaigns of Gettysburg and Vicksburg have sacrificed the lives of tens of thousands men, Lincoln resolvedthat he would only allow slave states to reenter the Union if they supported both the abolishment of slavery and theestablishment of gloomy suffrage.In the months following Lincolns election, the country fell to pieces, beginning with South Carolina inDecember, 1860. Within four months, the states of Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas,North Carolina, Virginia and Tennessee had all seceded and formed the impertinent Confederated State of America.2Was the secession of these states legal? Even more , was their secession constitutional? While thesecessionists thought themselves to be fully within their constitutional rights, Lincoln persistently believed that the