1. Southern States Secede
LESSON 1
Southern States Secede

2. The Debate Over Secession
South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union.
Secessionists
Cooperationists
Unionists
How did each of these groups view secession?
Why do you think people celebrated the secession?
Secession meeting in Charleston

3. The Union Dissolved
Within a month of Lincoln’s election South Carolina ratified its Ordinance of Secession.
Four days later, state leaders drafted “The Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.”
What was the purpose of this document? How did it justify secession?
In February 1861 six southern states formed a new country— the Confederate States of America with Jefferson Davis as president.

4. The War Begins Fort Sumter was a Union fort in Confederate territory.
Lincoln sent a letter to the Confederacy announcing plans to send a supply ship to the fort.
Confederate leaders told Lincoln the ship would not be allowed to dock, but Lincoln sent it anyway.
The Confederates demanded that Fort Sumter surrender and when it did not, the Confederates opened fire on the fort, signaling the start of the Civil War.

5. Secession Expands
Virginia joins Confederacy within days of attack on Ft. Sumter.
Three more states join within two months, bringing total to 11 Confederate states versus 23 Union states.
Four slaveholding southern states (border states) remain in Union—Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri.

7. The Border States
Why do you think Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri decided against secession?
How might their decision not to secede affect the Union? How might it affect the Confederacy?

8. How did the two sides compare?
Which side do you think had more significant advantages? How so?

9. The Union’s Anaconda Plan
Military Strategies
The Union’s Anaconda Plan
Three-part plan to destroy the South
Blockade the entire southern coastline.
Gain control of the Mississippi River and split the Confederacy in two.
Capture the Confederate capital in Richmond, Virginia.
How would each of these three parts to the plan help the Union achieve its goal and win the war?

11. The South’s Defensive War
Military Strategies
The South’s Defensive War
Repel a Union invasion
Break the Union naval blockade
Win foreign support with “Cotton Diplomacy.”
Attack and possibly capture the Union capital at Washington, DC.
What was meant by “Cotton Diplomacy”? From which foreign countries did the Confederacy seek support?
Why did foreign intervention never materialize?