On December 20, 1860, South Carolina seceded. By Febrary 1, 1861, six more states -- Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas -- had split from the Union. The seceded states ...

So long as there was no party in the Southern States prepared to avow its devotion to the Union, it certainly did seem worse than idle to discuss terms of compromise and conciliation. But the ...

The year: 1861. The problem: Pro-slavery states had broken away from the Union, rising up in armed revolt as the treasonous Confederate States of America, and so far were able to fight the Union Army.

1861, in his first State of the Union message. After discussing the war’s effect on foreign commerce, Lincoln floated the idea that freed slaves might be encouraged to emigrate from the United ...