Why was Lincoln a sectional candidate and why did his election lead to the secession of the south?

Answer 1

There were not many abolitionists outside of Boston with any real political power.

Answer 2

Very simply - Lincoln's election was considered a threat to the Southern way of life which was dependent on slavery. People will get after this response and deny that slavery caused the Civil War, but we just spent an entire semester of grad school in history - in a Southern University - reviewing much of the literature, and the evidence is quite clear. The South - or at least the politically powerful who were also slave owners - would not give up slavery. Lincoln had campaigned against the westward expansion of slavery. Even though he would have left slavery alone to keep the Union intact, the South felt they had to secede to keep their "property." Four million slaves were worth $3-4 billion in "livestock" to the rich men of the South. Why did the majority of non slave owning Southern people support the rich minority? Simple. They did not want all of these African Americans released into society. In many areas of the South, African Americans outnumbered "whites." Whites were afraid what a freed population of African Americans would do once they were released from enforced slavery. It really is fairly simple if the history is viewed objectively.
Added Note - I'm a "white" person whose family came to America after 1800. Nearly all African Americans came here earlier than that since the slave trade was outlawed in the U.S. by 1807. African Americans are more American than I am.

Extra added note in response to the lengthy discourse below.
I actually agree with much of the argument below.
It is accurately and professionally stated.
I believe the South did have a constitutional right to slavery and they had a right to secede also. My point is that the right of "whites" to own "black" human beings granted by the U.S. constitution was WRONG. The 13th amendment settled that in 1865 after 600,000 young men were dead.
It is simply impossible to defend human bondage based simply on skin color.
The arguments below suggest that slavery was OK.
Was slavery OK?
I know the bible says slavery was OK in biblical times.
I won't open up that can of worms.
Many soldiers who fought for the North were not really interested in freeing the slaves. Lincoln didn't greatly care one way or the other as long as the Union did not dissolve on his watch.
This whole thing becomes stranger looking back at it. White humans could not be enslaved, but people who were - say -
3/4 white and 1/4 "colored" could be enslaved. What sense does that make? What percentage of "blackness" makes enslavement OK? 10%? 1%?
I've lived in the South most of my life, but I won't defend a wrong cause.

Answer 3

Because he had virtually no support in and was elected without the support of a major part of the country, i.e. the South. As he was seen as adamantly opposed to the extension westward of slavery this was seen as fatal to the long term interests of the South. Only by succession would they retain their "peculiar institution"

Answer 4

~Simply put, as a matter of historical fact, the election of Lincoln did not lead to secession by the Confederate states. The South did not secede over the election of Lincoln any more than did slavery have anything whatsoever to do with secession or the start of the war.

Lincoln's defeat of John Breckenridge was the excuse South Carolina had been looking for to pass its Ordinance of Succession on December 20, 1860. The 12 other states that followed suit over the next 11 months had been ready to do so, in varying degrees, as well, but the battle over states rights was already old news by 1860.

The Southerners remembered well that the constitution was intended to create a weak central government and to retain and protect the substantial autonomy of the several states. As southern power waned with the growth of the north and the expansion of the west, that state autonomy was becoming a forgotten dream. By 1860, Southern interests had long been suffering at the hands of a Congress dominated by the North and West and that trend was increasingly onerous to the South with the convening of each new Congress.

There is no constitutional provision which precludes secession. The New England states had threatened to secede in the early 1800's, largely due to the policies of President James Madison, the Virginian. Through no small effort on the part of the southern states, the New Englanders were prevailed upon to remain in the union, but the issue of the legality of secession was unresolved. The framers of the Constitution dealt with allowing an independent republic or a territory to opt into the union. It never occurred to them that a state would want to opt out and they never dealt with it. On the other hand, one significant difference between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution is that the sovereign independence of each of the several states was guaranteed under the Articles and largely not addressed by the Constitution, other than by the ambiguity of Article IV and Amendments IX and X. Of course, those amendments were ratified due to concerns over the continuing sovereignty of the individual states.

Over the decades leading to 1860, the question over the legality of secession remained open. With each passing year, southern power and influence deteriorated and the country moved in directions more and more adverse to southern interests. Now it was the South's turn to threated to secede. They, unlike New England, carried through on the threats. Had Breckenridge been elected, most southern states likely would have seceded in any case, maybe in 1860, maybe later. A Northern Democrat was not a much better choice for the South than was a Northern or Western Republican.

All national political candidates by 1860 were sectional candidates. The issues involved guaranteed this would happen. The Republican party had just come into being and was the most 'national' of the parties, but had it had little support or membership in the south. The Democrats had split into northern and southern factions. The Whigs and No-Nothings had consolidated into the Constitutional Union Party. Lincoln won the election by carrying the north, the west (today's mid-west) and California and Oregon. Breckenridge carried the south (except Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee, which went to Lincoln) plus Maryland and Delaware. To say Virginian, Kentucky or Tennessee seceded because of Lincoln's election goes beyond stupidity: those states helped elect him.

The country was so fractured by regional differences by 1860 that only war was going to resolve the disputes, either by the coerced continuation of the union by force of arms, or by the creation of a new commonwealth of 13 independent states in the South through democratic means (the South was trying to preserve a "government of the people, by the people and for the people" and the only way to do so was to secede and free the southern people from the tyranny of the northern and western majority. The nation was created by the unification of 13 diverse independent states and the southern states had tried in vain to retain their individual identities and ideologies. The north was far more cohesive. This was a direct result of the nature of the economies of the respective regions. The western territories were going to align with the north out of economic necessity. The spirit of independence once touted in the south by the likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, James Madison, James Monroe and their compatriots was not something that much interested the north by 1860. Secession and war had been on the horizon for decades, and was looming larger with the admission of each new state and the with each federal election.

Slavery was a protected right under the Constitution. Lincoln knew that. Lincoln was NOT an abolitionist and he made no attempt to hide that simple fact. That is why he said throughout his campaign, and in his first inaugural speech

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

During the campaign, he said repeatedly:

"I acknowledge the constitutional rights of the States — not grudgingly, but fairly and fully, and I will give them any legislation for reclaiming their fugitive slaves."

As late as August, 1862, more than a year into the war, he was still saying:

"My paramount object, is to save the Union, and not either destroy or save slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing the slaves, I would do it. If I could save the Union by freeing some and leaving others in slavery, I would do it. If I could save it by freeing all, I would do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because it helps save the Union." [He made no bones about his preference, either publicly or privately - he desired the second option.]

Read Article II, section 2 and Article IV, section 2 of the constitution. Ownership of slaves was a constitutional right and only constitutional amendment could abolish slavery (as Amendment XIII did when ratified in December, 1865). There was not enough support in the north, forget the south, to attempt to push an amendment through in 1860, and there would not have been for at least another generation or two. The southerners knew that. The much maligned Dred Scott case was constitutionally correct, insofar as its holding on slavery is concerned. (The dicta about citizenship is properly criticized, but that dicta had no precedential import.)

The southern slaveholders knew that their right to own their slaves was constitutionally protected. They knew that their property could not be taken from them, as a matter of constitutional law, without full, fair and just compensation. History proved to them they would be compensated. As each northern state had abolished slavery, the masters were compensated. The last two northern states to do abolish slavery were New York and New Jersey. The acts of abolition were drafted such that no slave owner lost the services of a single slave of productive age, and none lost financially.

There was no way the country, in 1860, could absorb millions of homeless and unemployed newly freed slaves with no job skills into society or into the economy. The southerner knew this, too. Secession and war to protect a right that was not in jeopardy would have been more than a fool's mission, it would have been insanity. Anyone who believes the south seceded because of slavery simply knows nothing of history, of constitution law or of the state of society in antebellum America. Abolition was not going to happen during the lifetime of the plantation lords, and it was unlikely to occur during the lifetimes of their children. Anyone with half a brain at the time realized that, although some did try to con the masses on both sides by making the slavery question the focal point of the state's right issue.

Secession and war were not necessary to preclude abolition and, given the constitutional issues already discussed, neither Lincoln nor congress could have abolished slavery. The war, as an unintended consequence not considered by either side at the beginning, expedited the process and through the coercion exerted during the readmission process (the confederate states were forced to ratify Amendments XIII, XIV and XV as a condition of re-entry) abolition came about at least a generation sooner than it would have otherwise done.

The issues extant in 1860 were far too involved, far to complex and far to long standing for the result of a mere presidential election to bring them to a head, other than by those who were going to take the action regardless and wanted or needed some (legitimate or bogus) incident to point to as the final provocation. One wonders what the outcome of the war would have been if Breckenridge, a citizen of a seceding state (Kentucky) had been elected, but make no mistake, some incident would have sparked passage of the ordinances of secession that had already been prepared and discussed by southern legislatures on more than one occasion before the 1860 elections.


Edit to Spreedog:

On what basis do you conclude that the foregoing suggests slavery was "right"? What does 'right' or 'wrong' have to do with the question? What does 'right' or 'wrong' have to do with history or historical fact? What does 'right' or 'wrong' have to do the legality of slavery? My comments did not purport to address issues of morality - they speak to the facts and the situation and circumstances of the times, as did the question to which the response is directed. The answer addresses itself to the fallacy of the myth that the Civil War, at least for the first year and a half after the South Carolina passage of the Ordinance of Secession, or for at least a year following the firing on Fort Sumter, had anything whatsoever to do with slavery or abolition. I do suggest that what you were taught in your history class was dead wrong and that slavery, right, wrong or indifferent, was legal, constitutionally protected, supported by a majority of the populace in the North and South in 1860, and simply did not play a role as a causative factor of the Civil War. But thank you for your comments.