In the years preceding the Civil War, there was great conflict throughout the United States. The North and the South had arrived at a crossroads from which there was no turning back. The secession crisis is what ultimately led to the Civil War. The North and South disagreed about slavery and which states would be free. The South despised Lincoln's election and rebelled, forming the Confederate States of America. Both the North and the South were responsible for the crisis, but Lincoln's election had the greatest impact. All of these factors are what started the war where brother fought brother. In the years 1830 to 1860 there was a breakdown in unity between the North and South of the United States. Contrary to what today's society believes about Lincoln, he was not a popular man in the South during this time period. The South wanted to expand westward but Lincoln created a rule of geographic containment by maintaining slavery in the states where he currently resided. Despite his attempts to rationalize with the South, Lincoln actually believed something different." Lincoln stated that he, like the Founding Fathers, saw slavery in the Old South as a deplorable reality whose expansion could and should be stopped, thus placing it on the long and gradual road to “final extinction” (216). He deemed it “evil,” “thus suggesting that free Southerners were evil in defending it” (275). Lincoln wanted to eliminate slavery once and for all, and the South could sense his secret motives. Trying to deceive them, the South rebelled as soon as Lincoln became president and launched what is now known as the Civil War. The Secession of the United States was the cause of the Civil War. Southern Confederates were furious with the Northern Union for attempting to abolish slavery. When Lincoln was elected president, he sought to abolish slavery in the North and West once and for all. He tried to contain slavery in his geographic area to prevent it from spreading further north, but the South broke out in rebellion and eventually went to war against the North in Civil War.