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If the South had called the North to break-up, it would've sounded something like this…

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"North, we need to talk. You want expansion, growth, city life, change, and opportunity."

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"We just want a simple, feudal-style life ruling over slave plantations and selling raw materials to British and French factories."

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"Also, you keep saying all these mean things about us…"

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"Like that our state government has been taken over by monsters…"

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"And that they want to impose their will over our mutual friends, the territories."

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"And now, you've elected a President who wants to cut off our

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influence on the territories, making us isolated and weak."

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"It's not us, it's you. We need to call it off."

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"Oh, also y'all talk funny…bye bye."

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And just like that, the South started to secede, or leave the Union.

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The first state to peace out, or war out, was South Carolina, on December 20, 1860.

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That was after Lincoln was elected, but before he was sworn into office.

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The possibility of a Free Soil president was so freaky that

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South Carolina decided to leave the Union before he'd even had a day in office.

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A bunch of other states followed South Carolina's lead.

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Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi had all joined South Carolina

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by the time Lincoln's butt hit the Oval Office desk chair.

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What a bummer. We hope he at least had a chair that spins.

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Other southern states stayed, hoping that Lincoln would back down on his Free Soil campaign promises.

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But he didn't.

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Lincoln's policies led to the secession of the rest of the South.

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On February 8, these states made their own government, called by the original name of the Confederate States of America.

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In April 1861, Virginia seceded and became the seat of power for the Confederacy.

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Seat of power? That sounds cooler than a spinny chair.

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Unfortunately for the South, the amount of power they had was suspect.

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On paper, they looked weaker than gas station coffee.

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The Confederacy had a much smaller population than the North, less tax revenue,

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less infrastructure, and almost no manufacturing capability.

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So why in the world would they think they could win a war against the North?

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Because the South did have one major resource up its sleeve: army officers.

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Highly skilled southern generals like Robert E. Lee were a serious threat, kinda Luke Skywalkery,

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and the South ran circles around bumbling northern generals in the early parts of the war.

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But it wasn't just southern military leadership that was a problem for the North.

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A century of paranoia about slave revolts had led to massive, trained militia units and army garrisons in the South.

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So even though the South started the war with a lot of handicaps,

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their military, much like the Sharknado, was terrifying to behold.

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