The Two Sides
Because of disagreement over issues, the United States was divided into two sections; one was the North, 23 Northern and Western states that supported the federal government, and the other was the South, 11 Southern states that had seceded from the Union to start their own government, the Confederate States of America.
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall— but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new--North as well as South. . . " -Abraham Lincoln, beginning his "House Divided" speech |
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The conflict and disagreement built up to the Battle of Fort Sumter in April of 1861. With the Confederates victorious, it started the four-year Civil War between the North and the South.
"I worked night and day for twelve years to prevent the war, but I could not. The North was mad and blind, would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came." -Jefferson Davis |