Reasons for Secession:
1. States' Rights (voluntarily joined the Union; they can voluntarily leave the Union) 2. Political Imbalance (free-to-slave states) -- 19-15 : See Map Below (Kansas is admitted as a free state in 1861) 3. Afraid of free-soilers 4. Northern Abolitionists (such as the Underground RR; John Brown's Raid) 5. Viewed themselves as independent "subnation" after the Panic of 1857 *** Assumed that the North WOULD NOT take up arms against the secession because taking up arms COULD cut the North's economic throats... a. cotton (needed for manufacturing) b. markets of the South (could lose Southern markets) c. Northern bankers could lose Southern debts |
Border States: Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri
- Together white population = ½ that of the entire Confederacy (important to the Union to not allow that white population to join Confederacy)
Maryland: borders the District of Columbia on 3 sides (strategic location)
- Washington’s telegraph & rail network traversed through Maryland
- loss of Maryland = moving Union capitol
- Lincoln issued martial law and suspended writ of herbs corpus to establish stronghold
- minerals, grains, livestock
- Ohio River to the North
- Mississippi River to the West
- buffer between Old Northwest Territory & Confederate Tennessee
- Access to Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers (heart of the Confederacy)
- Lincoln allowed them to remain "neutral" by not sending troops in
- protected western border of Mississippi River
- Union troops battled secessionists throughout the state to keep it in the Union
Lincoln’s Border Policy:
- preserve & establish loyal governments
- suppressed disloyal activity (suspended writ of habeas corpus)
- minimize military occupation of these states (use troops were needed)