And even before the new U.S. president could be sworn in on March 4, 1861, all seven Deep South states had held conventions, voted overwhelmingly for secession, and together formed a new “Confederate States of America.” This Southern reaction to Lincoln’s election, not the election itself, was the catalyst of a new Crisis era, which was fated to unfold with terrifying speed. Had the South not seceded, ironically, it could have hoped to maintain its peculiar institution for perhaps decades to come:
