History of South America

How did the secession of South Carolina lead to civil war?

The secession crisis did not begin until after the election of Abraham Lincoln. Before that, most Southern politicians were simply threatening secession, but they had no intention of actually carrying it out. They believed that the North would not be willing to fight to keep the South in the Union, and that they would eventually be able to get what they wanted through negotiation.

When Lincoln was elected, however, it became clear that the North was not going to back down. The Southern states began to secede in earnest, and the Civil War began in 1861.