Description The scenario is below. It is late March, 1861. You are a member of newly inaugurated President Abraham Lincoln's staff. Before your president took office on March 5, much of the Lower South seceded out of fear that a Republican administr

The 1861 Secession Case Study Background Information After Lincoln's victory in the presidency of the United States, all slave states began considering secession. President James Buchanan was still in office, and Lincoln has just taken over the office. Buchanan has been favorable to southern states until this time. He declared secession as illegal while at the same time denying government resistance to it. During that time, Lincoln had not yet received the power to act as the crisis escalated. Many people barraged him, advising him to give the southern state's assurances that their interests were still safe. However, Lincoln chose to remain silent on the subject after realizing that giving in to the slave-holders demands would alienate his party, the Republican Party 1 . After a few days, he thought that the southerners would soon bring their states back into the fold without overt actions, which has not yet happened.