![]() The convention produced a vote of 61 to 39 in favor of secession, but this result cannot be taken as an easy and exact method of gauging either the citizenry’s support for, or resistance to, the Union. Those present understood that soon Alabama would add its star to a new confederacy of states, three of which had already seceded from the United States. Guns blared and Montgomery women presented to the secession convention a flag bearing a single star, thus announcing that Alabama had withdrawn its star from the U.S. Assembling on January 7, 1861, the delegates four days later voted to declare Alabama’s immediate independence from the United States. Moore called a December 24 election for delegates to a constitutional convention. In Mobile, citizens passed a series of resolutions calling Lincoln’s election “a virtual overthrow of the Constitution and the equal rights of the States” and demanding that Alabama “withdraw from the Federal Union without any further delay.” Residents in small towns followed suit by passing their own resolutions. Across the state came cries for unity in the face of this challenge. Many politically powerful Alabamians viewed the election as an opening wedge that threatened to destroy slavery and begin a race war. ![]() Tensions had been building for years when Abraham Lincoln was elected to the presidency in November 1860.
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