1860 - The results of the 1860 census show a total population of 31,183,582 including 3,950,528 slaves or 13% of the population. Slaves equal 2% of the population in what would be Northern Aligned States and 39% in Southern Aligned States. The total population for Northern Aligned States was 22,080,250 and for Southern Aligned States was 9,103,332. In the Northern Aligned States 8% of the families owned slaves and 31% in the Southern Aligned States. 57% of the population in South Carolina were slaves and 49% of the families in Mississippi owned slaves. Click for full 1860 Census detail.
November 1860 - Abraham Lincoln is elected president. Lincoln received 40% of the popular vote and won 59% of the Electoral votes. He was not even on the ballot in the deep south.
December 1860 - On December 20th South Carolina convention passes ordinance of secession thus seceding from the Union. The Declaration of Secession for South Carolina states, "We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection."
December 26, 1860 - U.S. Major-General Robert Anderson moves his troops from Ft. Moultrie, in Charleston, South Carolina, to Ft. Sumter.
Fort Moultrie, as it stands today, on Sullivan Island, S.C. billeted the troops that would later occupy Fort Sumter: Above. photo by Stan Deatherage
January 1861 - On January 9th an unarmed merchant ship, Star of the West, arrives in Charleston Harbor with troops and supplies to reinforce Ft. Sumter. The ship is fired upon and retreats. Also on this day Mississippi secedes from the Union. The Declaration of Secession for Mississippi states, "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth."
Fort Sumter as it stands today in Charleston Harbor: Above. Over 150 years ago, this fort was under siege from Confederate militia under Brigadier General P.G.T. Beauregard, Louisiana. Mortars, like the ones shown below along the shoreline of Charleston's battery, and rifled howitzers, bombarded the Federal fort into submission: Below photos by Stan Deatherage
January 10, 1861 - Florida secedes from the Union.
January 11, 1861 - Alabama secedes from the Union.
January 16, 1861 - The Senate refuses to consider the The Crittenden Compromise, one of several failed attempts to ease tension between the North and South. The compromise contained six proposals for constitutional amendments, and four proposals for Congressional resolution including the re-application of the north/south boundary from the Missouri Compromise, stated that the federal government could not interfere with slavery where it already existed and could not interfere with the recovery of slaves from any part of the Union.
January 19, 1861 - Georgia secedes from the Union. On January 29th Georgia's Declaration of Secession is approved stating, "For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic."
January 26, 1861 - Louisiana secedes from the Union.
January 29, 1861 - Kansas becomes the thirty fourth state and enters the Union as a free state in 1861.
February 1, 1861 - The Texas Legislature votes to secede from the Union. In a general election, held on February 23, 1861, voters ratified secession by a better than three to one margin. In the Texas Declaration of Secession it states, "In all the non-slaveholding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color - a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States."
February 8, 1861 - Provisional Constitution of the Confederacy adopted in Montgomery, Alabama.
February 9, 1861 - Jefferson Davis unanimously elected President of the Confederacy by delegates to the Montgomery convention.
February 11, 1861 - President elect Abraham Lincoln leaves Springfield, Illinois, on his trip to Washington, D.C., arriving on Saturday, February 23. Lincoln addresses a crowd, many of them friends - view Lincoln's Farewell Address.
February 18, 1861 - Jefferson Davis inaugurated as President of the Confederacy.
March 4, 1861 - Abraham Lincoln inaugurated as sixteenth president of the United States - view Lincoln's First Inaugural Address.
March 6, 1861 - The Confederate Congress authorizes an army of volunteers.
April 12th, 1861 - (4:30 am) South Carolina's Fort Sumter is fired upon by the Confederates - The War Begins.
April 13, 1861 - U.S. Major-General Anderson surrenders Ft. Sumter.
April 15, 1861 - In Washington, President Lincoln issues a proclamation announcing an "insurrection," and calls for 75,000 troops to be raised from the militia of the several States of the Union.
April 17, 1861 - Virginia secedes from the Union.
May 6, 1861 - Arkansas secedes from the Union.
May 20, 1861 - North Carolina secedes from the Union.
June 8, 1861 - Tennessee secedes from the Union.
Publisher's Note: In her full text, Diane included every Southern state's resolution for secession, but I have exhibited just thre: South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia.
The purpose of just the three, rather than the taking of the time to format them all:
1) South Carolina - First state to seceed, the first battle that help spark the over 4 year conflict - The siege of Fort Sumpter.
2) North Carolina - Sent more men and boys to fight in this war than any other state. More NC natives died or were maimed than any other state. Also had the dubious distintion of having more NC natives desert than any other state.
3) Virginia - More battles fought on Virginia soil than any other state. The best generals to serve the Southern cause were from Virginia. Richmond, Va was the last capital of the South.
SOUTH CAROLINA DECLARATION OF SECESSION
Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D. 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time, these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
And now the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself, to the remaining United States of America, and to the nations of the world, that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.
In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, "that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do."
They further solemnly declared that whenever any "form of government becomes destructive of the ends for which it was established, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government." Deeming the Government of Great Britain to have become destructive of these ends, they declared that the Colonies "are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."
In pursuance of this Declaration of Independence, each of the thirteen States proceeded to exercise its separate sovereignty; adopted for itself a Constitution, and appointed officers for the administration of government in all its departments - Legislative, Executive and Judicial. For purposes of defense, they united their arms and their counsels; and, in 1778, they entered into a League known as the Articles of Confederation, whereby they agreed to entrust the administration of their external relations to a common agent, known as the Congress of the United States, expressly declaring, in the first Article "that each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not, by this Confederation, expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled."
Under this Confederation the war of the Revolution was carried on, and on the 3rd of September, 1783, the contest ended, and a definite Treaty was signed by Great Britain, in which she acknowledged the independence of the Colonies in the following terms:
