Essay Question: "Southerners maintained that secession was the ultimate expression of democracy, while Lincoln claimed it was rejection of democracy. How
             did they explain and justify their principles."
            
            
             On December 20, 1860, the Confederacy was born when South Carolina
             seceded from the federal Union. The Union and the Confederacy severely clashed in
             their views on the Constitution; the South felt that individual states should have the right
             to nullify laws, while Abraham Lincoln believed the federal government should appoint
             representatives for individual states. The South and Abraham Lincoln contrasted
             sharply on the idea of secession because the Constitution was ambiguous regarding
             states's rights.
             Immediately following the election of Lincoln, the southern secessionists wanted
             to separate from the Union. Southerners feared that the Republican victory in 1860
             would "interfere in their domestic concerns–particularly their right to property and slaves
             as guaranteed by the fifth amendment of the Bill of Rights" (Jones 24). As a result, the
             state of South Carolina held a convention and voted to secede from the Union.
             Following South Carolina's lead, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and
             Texas also seceded. "Their growing minority status had left them vulnerable to northern
             oppression; their right to withdraw from the governing pact remained a fundamental
             precept of the Declaration of Independence" (24). Representatives from each state
             convened on February 1860, to create the Confederate States of America. Although
             this document was roughly based on the Constitution, it assigned limits on the
             government's power to impose tariffs and restrictions on slavery. The southerners felt
             that they needed to create a new constitution because "the preamble to the Constitution
             . . . does not propose to make the old Union more perfect, but to &apo...