In this election, there were four candidates running to to the divisions in the Democratic party. Lincoln ran against Stephen Douglas, John Breckinridge, and John Bell, and although he did not gain many popular votes, he won the electoral vote by a landslide. Those voting results made the general public of the South skeptical of him, before his presidency even began, because of his intent with hindering slavery. During his campaign, Lincoln was moderate with his views on slavery. He did not want immediate abolition, but rather to stop the spread of slavery, allowing the states that already had slavery to keep it. The southern states were pushed to secede because of the result of this election. Southerners were already wary of Lincoln, warning that if he was elected, they would leave the Union. When he was elected in November, there were more states in the Union than there were when he was inaugurated in January of the following year. The pro-slavery people of the South viewed Lincoln’s views on popular sovereignty and the spread of slavery too opposing of their own. They believed that he would take away their rights to own slaves and limit the expansion of the practice. As a result of these feelings, the southerners seceded to keep these rights in tact so they would not have to follow any laws that Lincoln enacted restricting …show more content…
These consequences led to many social and economical changes in that area. Socially, the Confederate States created their own way of life based off of their belief of slavery. They were very disconnected from the North during this time, which prohibited communication and travel between the two regions. Subsequently, the population was about to take a huge toll due to the secession and the following war. Many men had to leave their families to fight in the war, which flipped the status quo about women being caretakers and instead made them the head of the farm or business. Furthermore, transformations in the South from the secession and war came economically. When the South separated themselves from the North, they cut off almost all of their trading. The South could not sell their cotton to be manufactured in the North. They also could not buy uniforms, weapons, or ammunition to supply themselves with for the war, leaving them at an enormous disadvantage. In addition, the south had to turn to foreign sources for aid because they lacked the industrialization and factories to produce those goods for themselves. The secession created a huge discord between the two regions, with extreme differences in beliefs and fundamentals. The secession led to the South having to deal with many ramifications that developed them as