1860

The secession declarations of South Carolina (December 24, 1860), Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas all explicitly named the preservation of slavery as the primary cause of secession. Mississippi's declared: 'Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery, the greatest material interest of the world.' Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens's Cornerstone Speech (March 1861) stated slavery, based on the assumed racial inferiority of Black people, was the cornerstone of the Confederacy.

The secession declarations of South Carolina (December 24, 1860), Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas all explicitly named the preservation of slavery as the primary cause of secession. South Carolina's declaration stated the Northern states had 'denounced as sinful the institution of slavery.' Mississippi's declared: 'Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world.' Georgia cited Lincoln's election as a threat to slavery. Texas's declaration explicitly defended slavery as a racial system. Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens's 'Cornerstone Speech' (March 1861) stated slavery, based on 'the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man,' was the cornerstone of the Confederacy.

In July 1860, the schooner Clotilda smuggled 110 Africans kidnapped from the Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin) to Mobile Bay, Alabama — the last known illegal slave landing in the United States. The ship's owner Timothy Meaher had bet he could successfully import Africans despite the 1820 law making the trade piracy. The Africans were distributed among several planters. After the Civil War, survivors were not assisted in returning to Africa. They founded Africatown, a community north of Mobile that survived into the 20th century. The Clotilda was burned and sunk by its captain to destroy evidence; it was located by archaeologists in 2019.

Lincoln's election triggers Southern secession over the future of slavery.