What the World Was Like When Your Grandparents Were Born

1860

By 1860, the United States was a country that could no longer sidestep a reckoning over the question of slavery. It was an open wound that had been festering since Congress punted on the issue with the Missouri Compromise two generations earlier in 1820.

With the election in 1860 of anti-slavery presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln, South Carolina seceded from the Union. It was the point of no return. War between the North and South was now inevitable.