Even these people, however, do not dispute the moral illegitimacy of forming a country for the express purpose of brutalizing, subjugating, and exploiting other people. The governments attempts to crush what Abraham Lincoln termed a rebellion note Rebel sympathizers dispute that term to this day on the grounds that the constitution of the USA in its form at the time did not outlaw secession (though it didnt explicitly permit it either). As often happens with civil wars, the "official" dates are somewhat questionable, as the fighting didn't begin in earnest until First Bull Run/Manassas on July 21, 1861, and isolated skirmishes between Union and Confederate units continued well after Lee's surrender, notably including the major battle of Columbus, Georgia, where a confederate soldier named John Pemberton suffered a wound that led to him experimenting with various pain killers, ultimately resulting in the invention of Coca-Cola. note The "official" start of the war, the Rebel attack on Fort Sumter, occurred on the night of ApLee surrendered at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. From there, events took on a life of their own and the situation devolved into a full-blown war which lasted a little shy of four years. When President Lincoln called for 75,000 troops after the attack on Fort Sumter, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and North Carolina left the Union in response and joined the Confederacy. Texas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana followed in early 1861, with these seven states forming the Confederate States of America.
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After Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election on an anti-slavery platform, South Carolina seceded from the United States in response a month later in December. The central cause of the war was the status of slavery. The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States fought between northern states ("the Union" or "the North") and southern states that voted to secede and form the Confederate States of America ("the Confederacy" or "the South").