Positions hardened as Republicans asserted the sanctity of majority rule, slaveholders saw a growing threat to their way of life, and everything that they had built off this system of slavery. Abraham Lincoln's election to the Presidency in 1860 on a platform of preventing the continuation slavery to the States propelled them of the Deep South to secede from the Union and form a new confederacy for the defense of slavery. And way of …show more content…
But all similarities ended there because both sides wanted a different way of life preserved. Confederacy had a goal in mind that was to secure independence from the North and “to establish independent nations free from Northern political oppression and the repression of slavery” (Olson-Raymer). The War from beginning to end became an icon for everyone during this period, either they moved forward with life as a whole together with freedom for everyone or they retained their old ways and kept freedom as a privilege for those who have it. This was firmly believed that the Constitution protected slavery, but the Union had seen a better way for this to work, a way without the need for slavery and for a way for everyone to live together. Southerners, therefore, had the right to do what they believed as it was the only way to defend their right to own slaves and their belief in states' rights to do what they believe. Their actions, therefore, were defense as they felt like they had no choice but fight back because of the “oppressive” politics of the North Union - Its initial goal was to reconcile the Union, while it’s mid-war goal became to reunite states under a Union in which slavery was not