Читать книгу The American Civil War: History in an Hour - Kat Smutz, Kat Smutz - Страница 8

The Leaders

Negro slavery shall be recognized and protected.

Constitution of the Confederate States of America

When Abraham Lincoln was elected as the sixteenth president of the United States, he had been active as a politician for some years and had been elected to office several times before the Republican Party chose him as their candidate. Lincoln had been involved in the formation of the party itself, and became the first Republican to hold the office of president. Lincoln had always been open about his opposition to slavery, and with an antislavery president, the South feared that slavery would be abolished entirely.

When Lincoln was announced as the Republican candidate for president, Southern politicians declared that they would not stand for it if he was elected. They were certain that his first act as president would be to outlaw slavery. They threatened secession, separating them from the newly formed nation. Lincoln was duly voted into office on 6 November 1860, and the State of South Carolina voted to secede from the Union less than two months later, on 20 December, leading the way for ten more states that would join them to form the Confederate States of America.

With martial law in place, Kentucky was unable to join the South and instead declared neutrality in May, while a portion of Virginia that disagreed with the secessionist decision opted to form the State of West Virginia and remain with the Union while the rest of the state became part of the Confederacy.

On 4 February 1861, the states that had seceded came together to form a provisional government and adopt a constitution that was very similar to the United States Constitution, but that clearly protected slavery and the rights of slaveholders. They also elected a president for their new confederacy.

Jefferson Finis Davis was a West Point graduate and a Mississippi planter. When war came, he was serving as a United States Senator and announced to the US Senate that Mississippi would be withdrawing from the Union. He was in attendance at the convention in Montgomery, Alabama, hoping to be given a command in the Confederate States army. Instead, he was elected provisional president of the Confederate States of America. Following a general election, the citizens of the South opted to keep Davis in office. Elected for a six-year term, he would be the first, last and only president of the Confederacy.