To begin with, immediately after the election and inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, the newly-established Republican Party’s presidential nominee, eleven states of the South seceded from the Union. These events marked the beginning of the Civil War and the war was a result of many political tensions that had emerged between the North and the South in the prior decades, all of which were associated with the institution of slavery installed in the Southern United States. President Lincoln began the Civil War with the South in response to states’ secession from the Union, and therefore, the war was not solely concentrated over the issue of slavery in American society. The North fought to preserve the Union while the Confederacy fought to …show more content…

In May 1861, three slaves fled to the fort and claimed sanctuary because their masters were about to take them South to work on Confederate fortifications The U.S. Constitution said the slaves were 3/5ths of a person. The U.S. Supreme Court said they were property which could be bought and sold on the market. The slaves were not citizens, so they could neither vote nor sign contracts. Slaves had no rights whatsoever. The South wanted to maintain their cultural system which was based on slavery. In order to do that they would have to secede from the Union and form another nation. They seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. The Union said that was illegal and the states would be considered in a state of rebellion, and the United States would take action to see that they returned to the United States. The war was fought over the question of slavery, but the 4 million slaves had nothing to say about it. Ex-slaves in the army it was first unclear that the North was entirely serious about this regiment. The unit was supposed to be made up of volunteers, but the first soldiers were acquired by sending white troops on raiding parties into the refugee camps and hauling back any able-bodied black men they could find. They were, for example, the first known military unit to consistently return from battle with more