Apush Dbq Research Paper

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Why did Southern states secede from the Union between December 1860 and June 1861? The following essay will explain why in 1860 and 1861, eleven states seceded from the Union in America. There is still much debate about the primary cause of such an action, but the issue of slavery can be seen to have great importance. The secession of the Southern states signifies the beginning of the American civil war as Supreme Court found their seceding as unconstitutional, and the Unionists fought to keep the union. Secession is the ‘the formal withdrawal of a constituent unit from an established, internationally recognized state and the creation of a new state.’ Between 1860 and 1861, 11 states seceded; South Carolina Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. It is claimed that if South Carolina had not acted as the leader, seceding first, possibly none of the states would have gone through with the action. South Carolina, possibly the most radical state at this time, needed to initiate the secession in order to push those less radical states to follow suit. Texas, South…show more content…
Sebok, Judging the Fugitive Slave Acts, Vol. 100, No. 6 (New Haven, 1991) pp. 1835-1854 Hudson Meadwell and Lawrence M. Anderson, Sequence and Strategy in the Secession of the American South (2008) p.200 Jon L. Wakelyn, Southern Pamphlets on Secession, November 1860-April 1861 (North Carolina, 1996) pp. xiii-xxvii Kenneth Stampp, The Causes of the Civil War: Revised Edition, (New York, 1991) p. 15-150 Lawrence M. Anderson, The Institutional Basis of Secessionist Politics: Federalism and Secession in the United States (London, 2004) pp.12-16 Nicole Etcheson, Bleeding Kansas: Contested Liberty in the Civil War Era (Kansas, 2006) Stanley W. Campbell, Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850-1860: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850-1860 (Chapel Hill,

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