Graphic material below the break (Photo of dead men at the Battle of Gettysburg)
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected as the first Republican candidate to run for president on a platform pledging to limit the spread of slavery. As a response, seven slave states in the deep south seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. Lincoln and the majority of the citizens in Northern states, refused to recognize this secession for fear that it would fracture the United States in multiple squabbling countries.