An Election Without the South
A victory with no Southern electoral votes
- Abraham Lincoln's victory on the Republicans' free-soil platform in the presidential election of 1860 was accomplished without any Southern electoral votes.
- That single fact is what 5.6's sectional parties made possible: a national office won by one region alone.
- On the Republicans' free-soil platform matters — 5.5 established that free soil opposed slavery's expansion, not its existence.
Lincoln's 1860 victory was accomplished...
What 5.6's sectional parties made possible.
Debate, then secession
- After a series of contested debates about secession, most slave states voted to secede from the Union, precipitating the Civil War.
- Contested debates and voted are both important: secession was argued and decided, not automatic.
- Most slave states, not all — the CED is precise, and the exceptions matter to the war's geography.
The free-soil platform opposed slavery's...
5.5 established the distinction.
Why an election could precipitate a war
- An election result is only a crisis if losing it means losing something that cannot be recovered at the next one.
- A party with no Southern votes had no reason to bargain for Southern support in future, which changed what a defeat meant.
- So the crisis is structural, and 5.6's collapse of national parties is its direct cause.
The election, the response, or the underlying reason?
Sort each element of the 1860 crisis.
Select both things the CED says preceded and constituted secession.
Argued and decided, not automatic.
"Precipitating" brings on something already forming. The election supplied the moment; 5.1 to 5.6 supplied the formation — so treating 1860 as the cause mistakes a trigger for an explanation.
The CED says ____ slave states voted to secede — not all of them.
The exceptions matter to the war's geography.
'Precipitating' is a careful verb
- To precipitate is to bring on something already forming — it does not mean to cause from nothing.
- 5.1 to 5.6 supplied the formation; the election supplied the moment.
- So an answer that treats 1860 as the cause has mistaken a trigger for an explanation, which 5.4's CED language already warned against.
'Precipitating' means the election...
5.1 to 5.6 supplied the formation.
Describing effects
- The objective's verb is describe, not explain — so the answer is what followed, stated accurately.
- Effects: contested debates, votes to secede in most slave states, and the outbreak of war.
- Adding why an election could have those effects is what raises the answer above the minimum.
A result becomes intolerable when the losing side can see that the winning side will never need its votes. At that point an election is no longer a turn in a game; it is the last turn.
Abraham Lincoln's victory on the Republicans' free-soil platform in the presidential election of 1860 was accomplished without any Southern electoral votes. After a series of contested debates about secession, most slave states voted to secede from the Union, precipitating the Civil War. The victory was possible because 5.6's national parties had broken into sectional ones — and precipitating means the election supplied the moment, not the formation.