The nation had been divided throughout the 1850s on the issues surrounding the expansion of slavery and the rights of slave owners. In 1860, these issues finally came to the fore.
With the victory of Abraham Lincoln, a notorious participant in the struggle for the abolition of slavery, the United States faced, in the following year (1961), a conflict between the northern and southern states, which had radically different society projects. The southern states, mostly agrarian and in favor of the use of slave labor, influenced the 1960 election in that they voted for candidates who were moderate or even in favor of maintaining slavery, such as John Bell and Stephen Douglas, while Lincoln obtained massive votes from the North and West Coast states.