ABSTRACT
The inauguration of Abraham Lincoln was scheduled to take place on 4 March 1861. This transfer of power from the until-recently Southerndominated Democratic Party to the Northern-dominated Republican Party meant diff erent things for the various states of the Union. Endogenous forces within the states of the South made the diff erence between seceding and not seceding. The more thoroughly slaveholding interests dominated a state, the more likely that state would secede from the Union (see Tables 3.4, 3.5, 3.6, and 3.7). Where slaveholding interests were less dominant and where slavery was less established, secession was either more difficult to accomplish, accomplished for diff erent reasons, or not accomplished at all.
