The peaceful seizure of Alabama forts preceded by three months the bombing and capture of the Union's Fort Sumter ( SC) on April 12, 1861.Īlabama was politically divided, voting to secede 61–39%, with most opposition by Unionists in northern Alabama. Įven before secession, the governor of Alabama defied the United States government by seizing the two federal forts at the Gulf Coast ( forts Morgan and Gaines) and the arsenal at Mount Vernon in January 1861 to distribute weapons to Alabama towns. Congress voted to protect the institution of slavery by passing the Corwin Amendment on March 4, 1861, but it was never ratified. The secession convention invited all slaveholding states to secede, but only 7 Cotton States of the Lower South formed the Confederacy with Alabama, while the majority of slave states were in the Union. residents, but prohibited import duties (tariffs) on foreign goods, limited a standing military, and as a final issue, opposed emancipation by any nation, but urged protection of African slaves, with trial by jury, and reserved the power to regulate or prohibit the African slave trade. The 1861 Alabama Constitution granted citizenship to current U.S. Alabama was central to the Civil War, with the secession convention at Montgomery, birthplace of the Confederacy, inviting other states to form a Southern Republic, during January–March 1861, and develop constitutions to legally run their own affairs.
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