The Election of 1860 can be seen as one of the final and main causes of the Civil War, as the South felt they no longer had any representation in government. Lincoln’s victory was a turning point as he was the first Republican to be elected President, and his plan to halt the expansion of slavery in the west, came across to the Southerners as the final act of disregard by the federal government towards them. The election also came as a culmination of all past tensions between the two regions, as events such as Nat Turner’s Rebellion and Harper’s Ferry, made the Southerners fearful of total abolition. As an immediate reaction to the election, South Carolina became the first slave state to secede from the Union.