Civil War (jan 1, 1861 – jan 1, 1865)

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Lincoln considered secession to be illegal and against the Constitution (destruction of the Union) -> civil war broke out.

Fought between northern states loyal to the Union and Southern states that had seceded to form the Confederate States of America. The principal cause of the war was wether the enslavement of black people in the southern states should continue.

After Abraham Lincoln won the November 1860 presidential election on an anti-slavery platform, an initial seven slave states declared their secession from the country to form the Confederacy. War broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina, just over a month after Lincoln's inauguration.

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