Bedrock
In geology, bedrock is the lithified rock that lies under a loose softer material called regolith within the surface of the crust of the Earth or other terrestrial planets. Bedrock refers to the substructure composed of hard rock exposed or buried at the earths surface, an exposed portion of bedrock is called an outcrop. Bedrock may have various chemical and mineralogical compositions and can be igneous, metamorphic or sedimentary in origin; the bedrock may be overlain by weathered regolith which includes soil and the subsoil. The surface of the bedrock beneath the soil cover is known as rockhead in engineering geology, its identification by digging, drilling or geophysical methods is an important task in most civil engineering projects. Superficial deposits can be thick, such that the bedrock lies hundreds of meters below the surface. Bedrock when exposed or within the subsurface may experience weathering and erosion by external factors. Weathering may be physical or chemical and alters the structure of the rock and may cause it to erode and or alter over time based on the interactions between the mineralogy and its interactions.
Bedrock may experience subsurface weathering at its upper boundary, forming saprolite. A geologic map of an area will show the distribution of differing bedrock types, rock that would be exposed at the surface if all soil or other superficial deposits were removed. Geology – The study of the composition, physical properties, history of Earth's components, the processes by which they are shaped. Outcrop Regolith – A layer of loose, heterogeneous superficial deposits covering solid rock Soil – mixture of organic matter, gases and organisms that together support life Weathering – Breaking down of rocks and minerals as well as artificial materials through contact with the Earth's atmosphere and waters Rafferty, John P. "Bedrock GEOLOGY". Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 1 April 2019. Harris, The Gale Encyclopedia of Science. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. Vol. 1. 5th ed. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2014. P515-516. Media related to Bedrock at Wikimedia Commons
California water wars
The California water wars were a series of political conflicts between the city of Los Angeles and farmers and ranchers in the Owens Valley of Eastern California over water rights. As Los Angeles expanded during the late 19th century, it began outgrowing its water supply. Fred Eaton, mayor of Los Angeles, realized that water could flow from Owens Valley to Los Angeles via an aqueduct; the aqueduct construction was overseen by William Mulholland and was finished in 1913. The water rights were acquired through political fighting and, as described by one author, "chicanery, subterfuge... and a strategy of lies". Since 1913, the Owens River had been diverted to Los Angeles, causing the ruin of the valley's economy. By the 1920s, so much water was diverted from the Owens Valley; this led to the farmers trying to destroy the aqueduct in 1924. Los Angeles kept the water flowing. By 1926, Owens Lake at the bottom of Owens Valley was dry due to water diversion; the water needs of Los Angeles kept growing.
In 1941, Los Angeles diverted water that fed Mono Lake, north of Owens Valley, into the aqueduct. Mono Lake's ecosystem for migrating birds was threatened by dropping water levels. Between 1979 and 1994, David Gaines and the Mono Lake Committee engaged in litigation with Los Angeles; the litigation forced Los Angeles to stop diverting water from around Mono Lake, which has started to rise back to a level that can support its ecosystem. The Paiute natives were the original inhabitants living in the valley, used irrigation to grow crops. In 1833, Joseph Reddeford Walker led the first known expedition into the central California area that would be called the Owens Valley. Walker saw that the valley’s soil conditions were inferior to those on the other side of the Sierra Nevada range, that runoff from the mountains was absorbed into the arid desert ground. After the United States gained control of California in 1848, the first public land survey conducted by A. W. von Schmidt from 1855 to 1856 was an initial step in securing government control of the valley.
Von Schmidt reported that the valley’s soil was not good for agriculture except for the land near streams, incorrectly stated that the "Owens Valley worthless to the White Man."In 1861, Samuel Bishop and other ranchers started to raise cattle on the luxuriant grasses that grew in the Owens Valley. The ranchers came into conflict with the Paiutes over land and water use, most of the Paiutes were driven away from the valley by the U. S. Army in 1863 during the Owens Valley Indian War. Many settlers came to the area for the promise of riches from mining; the availability of water from the Owens River made raising livestock attractive. The Homestead Act of 1862 gave pioneers five years to claim and take title of their land for a small filing fee and a charge of $1.25 per acre. The Homestead Act limited the land an individual could own to 160 acres in order to create small farms; the amount of public land settled by the late 1870s and early 1880s was still small. The Desert Land Act of 1877 allowed individuals to acquire more area, up to 640 acres, in hopes of drawing more settlers by giving them enough land to make their settlement and land expenses worthwhile, but "included no residency requirements".
By 1866, rapid acquisition of land had begun and by the mid-1890s, most of the land in the Owens Valley had been claimed. The large number of claims made by land speculators hindered the region’s development because speculators would not participate in developing canals and ditches. Before the Los Angeles Aqueduct, most of the 200 miles of canals and ditches that constituted the irrigation system in the Owens Valley were in the north, while the southern region of the valley was inhabited by people raising livestock; the irrigation systems created by the ditch companies did not have adequate drainage and as a result oversaturated the soil to the point where crops could not be raised. The irrigation systems significantly lowered the water level in the Owens Lake, a process, intensified by the diversion of water through the Los Angeles Aqueduct. At the start of the 20th century, the northern part of the Owens Valley turned to raising fruit and dairy. Frederick Eaton and William Mulholland were two of the more visible principals in the California water wars.
They were friends. In 1886, Eaton became City Mulholland became superintendent of the Water Company. In 1898, Eaton was elected mayor of Los Angeles, was instrumental in converting the Water Company to city control in 1902; when the company became the Los Angeles Water Department, Mulholland continued to be superintendent, due to his vast knowledge of the water system. Eaton and Mulholland had a vision of a Los Angeles that would become far larger than the Los Angeles of the start of the 20th century; the limiting factor of Los Angeles's growth was water supply. "If you don't get the water, you won't need it," Mulholland famously remarked. Eaton and Mulholland realized that the Owens Valley had a large amount of runoff from the Sierra Nevada, a gravity-fed aqueduct could deliver the Owens water to Los Angeles. At the start of the 20th century, the United States Bureau of Reclamation, at the time known as the United States Reclamation Service, was planning on building an irrigation system to help the farmers of the Owens Valley, which would block Los Angeles from diverting the water.
From 1902 to 1905, Eaton and Mulholland used underhanded methods to obtain water rights and block the Bureau of Reclamation. The regional engineer of the Bureau, Joseph Lippincott, was a close associate of Eaton, Eaton was a nominal agent for the Bu
Reservoir
A reservoir is, most an enlarged natural or artificial lake, pond or impoundment created using a dam or lock to store water. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of water, interrupting a watercourse to form an embayment within it, through excavation, or building any number of retaining walls or levees. Defined as a storage space for fluids, reservoirs may hold gasses, including hydrocarbons. Tank reservoirs elevated, or buried tanks. Tank reservoirs for water are called cisterns. Most underground reservoirs are used to store liquids, principally either water or petroleum, below ground. Reservoir is most an enlarged natural or artificial lake. A dam constructed in a valley relies on the natural topography to provide most of the basin of the reservoir. Dams are located at a narrow part of a valley downstream of a natural basin; the valley sides act as natural walls, with the dam located at the narrowest practical point to provide strength and the lowest cost of construction.
In many reservoir construction projects, people have to be moved and re-housed, historical artifacts moved or rare environments relocated. Examples include the temples of Abu Simbel, the relocation of the village of Capel Celyn during the construction of Llyn Celyn, the relocation of Borgo San Pietro of Petrella Salto during the construction of Lake Salto. Construction of a reservoir in a valley will need the river to be diverted during part of the build through a temporary tunnel or by-pass channel. In hilly regions, reservoirs are constructed by enlarging existing lakes. Sometimes in such reservoirs, the new top water level exceeds the watershed height on one or more of the feeder streams such as at Llyn Clywedog in Mid Wales. In such cases additional side dams are required to contain the reservoir. Where the topography is poorly suited to a single large reservoir, a number of smaller reservoirs may be constructed in a chain, as in the River Taff valley where the Llwyn-on, Cantref and Beacons Reservoirs form a chain up the valley.
Coastal reservoirs are fresh water storage reservoirs located on the sea coast near the river mouth to store the flood water of a river. As the land based reservoir construction is fraught with substantial land submergence, coastal reservoir is preferred economically and technically since it does not use scarce land area. Many coastal reservoirs were constructed in Europe. Saemanguem in South Korea, Marina Barrage in Singapore and Plover Cove in China, etc are few existing coastal reservoirs. Where water is pumped or siphoned from a river of variable quality or size, bank-side reservoirs may be built to store the water; such reservoirs are formed by excavation and by building a complete encircling bund or embankment, which may exceed 6 km in circumference. Both the floor of the reservoir and the bund must have an impermeable lining or core: these were made of puddled clay, but this has been superseded by the modern use of rolled clay; the water stored in such reservoirs may stay there for several months, during which time normal biological processes may reduce many contaminants and eliminate any turbidity.
The use of bank-side reservoirs allows water abstraction to be stopped for some time, when the river is unacceptably polluted or when flow conditions are low due to drought. The London water supply system is one example of the use of bank-side storage: the water is taken from the River Thames and River Lee. Service reservoirs store treated potable water close to the point of distribution. Many service reservoirs are constructed as water towers as elevated structures on concrete pillars where the landscape is flat. Other service reservoirs can be entirely underground in more hilly or mountainous country. In the United Kingdom, Thames Water has many underground reservoirs, sometimes called cisterns, built in the 1800s, most of which are lined with brick. A good example is the Honor Oak Reservoir in London, constructed between 1901 and 1909; when it was completed it was said to be the largest brick built underground reservoir in the world and it is still one of the largest in Europe. This reservoir now forms part of the southern extension of the Thames Water Ring Main.
The top of the reservoir is now used by the Aquarius Golf Club. Service reservoirs perform several functions, including ensuring sufficient head of water in the water distribution system and providing water capacity to out peak demand from consumers, enabling the treatment plant to run at optimum efficiency. Large service reservoirs can be managed to reduce the cost of pumping, by refilling the reservoir at times of day when energy costs are low. Circa 3 000 BC, the craters of extinct volcanoes in Arabia were used as reservoirs by farmers for their irrigation water. Dry climate and water scarcity in India led to early development of stepwells and water resource management techniques, including the building of a reservoir at Girnar in 3000 BC. Artificial lakes dating to the 5th century BC have been found in ancient Greece; the artificial Bhojsagar lake in present-day Madhya Pradesh state of India, constructed in the 11th century, covered 650 square kilometres. In Sri Lanka large reservoirs were created by ancient Sinhalese kings in order to save the water for irrigation.
The famous Sri Lankan king Pa
Meredith P. Snyder
Meredith Pinxton Snyder was a California property owner and businessman, mayor of Los Angeles on three separate occasions from 1901 through 1921 and was on the California Industrial Accident Commission. Snyder was born on October 22, 1859, in or near Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the son of Kehlin D. Snyder and Elizabeth Hire, he went to public schools and to Bethany and Schylo Academy and Yadkin College, all in North Carolina. Snyder arrived in California in 1880 at age 22, he was married to May Ross of Washington, D. C. on February 14, 1888, in San Diego, California. They had one child, Ross Snyder, killed in World War I at the Battle of Chateau-Thierry in France. In 1923, Ross Snyder’s body was returned to Los Angeles, lay in state for a day in Pershing Square before burial at Hollywood Cemetery. Snyder was a Mason and an Elk and a member of the Jonathan Club, the Los Angeles Country Club, the Lomita Gun Club, the Knights of Pythias and the Knights Templar, he was a Democrat. His nickname was Pinky, "because of the color of his flaming red "side-burns."He died at the Jonathan Club on April 7, 1937, at the age of 78, his body lay in state in the City Hall, with interment at Hollywood Cemetery.
In 1990, the city of Hermosa Beach, included Pinxton's "extensively remodeled home" at No. 2020 The Strand on a map guide to home of notable people in that city. Snyder established the M. P. Snyder Shoe Company in 1892, in 1904 he organized the California Savings Bank, he served as its president for 14 years. At various times he was president of the Home Telephone Company in San Diego, owner of the Meredith office building and president of California Guaranty Corporation and an officer or director in the Gardena Bank and Trust Company, the American Druggist Syndicate and the Lomita Land and Water Company, he owned property in the San Joaquin Valley, which at first famed and subdivided. This was the "old Dallas ranch, not far from the quaint little town of Hickman and the Dunkard settlement of Waterford." In 1905 he invested in a rubbish-disposal company. Snyder was a candidate for mayor on a "reform" ticket in 1896, he was a police commissioner in 1901–04, a member of the City Council in 1904–07, mayor of Los Angeles in 1897–99, he was reelected in 1902 for another term and again in 1919, serving until June 1921.
He lost to George E. Cryer, he was a Los Angeles City public service commissioner beginning in 1913 and serving until 1917 or 1918. His last appointment was Governor James Rolph's naming him to the State Industrial Accident Commission, from 1931 to 1935, he was active in the successful movement to open Los Angeles Harbor and to connect it by a shoestring strip between Los Angeles and San Pedro and Wilmington. During his mayoralty, the Third Street Tunnel was bored through Bunker Hill, Los Angeles, in 1901, the water system became municipally owned, he appointed the city's first Water Commission, which made plans to bring water to the city from the Owens Valley. Of him, historians Leonard Pitt and Dale Pitt said: A Democrat in a period of Republican ascendancy, he was elected the first time because he favored municipal ownership of the waterworks. In 1904 he opposed a corrupt printing contract between the city and the Republican Los Angeles Times.... His terms spanned a dynamic period in the city's history....
Snyder was arrested and taken to the police station in May 1907 when his car, driven by a chauffeur, was pulled over on Broadway. "Meredith P. Snyder Elected Mayor for the Second Time," Los Angeles in the 1900s
Santa Clara River (California)
The Santa Clara River is 83 miles long, is one of the most dynamic river systems in Southern California. The river drains parts of four ranges in the Transverse Ranges System north and northwest of Los Angeles flows west onto the Oxnard Plain and into the Santa Barbara Channel of the Pacific Ocean; the watershed has provided habitat for a wide array of native plants and animals and has supplied humans with water and fertile farmland. The northern portion of the watershed was home to the Tataviam people while the southern portion was occupied by the Chumash people. Much of the Santa Clara River Valley is used for agriculture which has limited the use of structural levees to separate the natural floodplain from the river. Although it is one of the least altered rivers in Southern California, some levees exist where the river flows through areas of significant urban development; the Santa Clara River was named the Rio de Santa Clara on August 9, 1769 by the Portolá expedition on the march north from San Diego to found a mission at Monterey, to honor Saint Clare of Assisi who died on August 11, 1253.
The Santa Clara River Valley was known as the Cañada de Santa Clara. The Santa Clara-Mojave River Ranger District of the Angeles National Forest is named after the Santa Clara River; the failure and near complete collapse of the St. Francis Dam took place in the middle of the night on March 12, 1928; the dam was holding a full reservoir of 12.4 billion gallons of water that surged down San Francisquito Canyon and emptied into the river. The Santa Clara River's headwaters take drainage from the northern slopes of the San Gabriel Mountains near the Angeles Forest Highway, inside the western part of the Angeles National Forest, its largest fork, Aliso Canyon, forms the primary headstream. These branches combine into the broad wash of the main stem near the town of Acton which flows west through Soledad Canyon, crossing under California State Route 14 near the town of Canyon Country; the Sierra Pelona Mountains on the north provide additional seasonal tributaries. The river receives Bouquet Creek, Placerita Creek, San Francisquito Creek within the City of Santa Clarita.
The riverbed surface remains dry most of the year here, except on extreme occasions of heavier than average rainfall. The river crosses west under Interstate 5 and receives Castaic Creek from the right. After the Castaic Creek confluence, the river starts to flow southwest through the Santa Clarita Valley. Near the county line between Los Angeles County and Ventura County, the river enters the Santa Clara River Valley flowing past Buckhorn and Fillmore, incorporating additional flow from Piru Creek and Sespe Creek, both from the right, Santa Paula Creek at the town of Santa Paula, where it passes the large South Mountain Oil Field on the south bank; the Santa Clara River bends southwest, passing the Saticoy Oil Field on the north bank where South Mountain marks its entrance onto the broad Oxnard Plain. The river ends at the Pacific Ocean after flowing across the north side of this plain made fertile with the silt deposited by the river. A sand bar stands across the mouth at the Santa Clara Estuary Natural Preserve that lies within McGrath State Beach in Oxnard and bounded on the north by the city of Ventura.
Although located just north of the populated Los Angeles Basin, the 1,600-square-mile Santa Clara River watershed remains one of the most natural on the South Coast. It is separated from the Los Angeles Basin by the low Santa Susana Mountains, along the north side of which the Santa Clara River runs. On the east are the San Gabriel Mountains, on the north are the Santa Ynez Mountains, Sespe Mountains, San Cayetano Mountains, Tehachapi Mountains. Piru and Sespe Creeks, each over 50 miles long, are the primary tributaries of the Santa Clara River. While Piru and Castaic Creeks form reservoirs for the California State Water Project, Sespe Creek is designated a National Wild and Scenic River, unique among Southern California streams. There are 12 historical landmarks in the watershed; the Santa Clara River watershed borders on the Ventura River/Matilija Creek watershed on the west. On the northwest, lies the Santa Ynez River watershed. On the north is the interior drainage basin of Tulare Lake in the Central Valley.
To the east is the Mojave River and to the south is the Los Angeles River. The Santa Clara River is the second largest river in Southern California; the estuary has been modified by human activities at least since 1855. By the late 1920s roads and agricultural fields had become established. In the late 1950s the former delta area was occupied by the Ventura Water Reclamation Facility and agricultural fields with levees constraining the river from these areas and directing the flow to the Harbor Boulevard bridge. McGrath State Beach was established in 1948; the estuary has been designated a Natural Preserve within McGrath State Beach on the south bank of the river mouth. From the north bank of the river, the city of Ventura releases some 9,000,000 US gallons of treated effluent daily that flows into the Santa Clara Estuary Natural Preserve from their water reclamation facility. A sand berm separates the river from the ocean most of the year. In years with adequate rainfall, the river breaks the berm, slowly rebuilt by ocean action through the rest of the year.
When the river watershed has an exceptionally dry year, the berm acts as a dam, allowing the water level to rise with the
Los Angeles
Los Angeles the City of Los Angeles and known by its initials L. A. is the most populous city in California, the second most populous city in the United States, after New York City, the third most populous city in North America. With an estimated population of four million, Los Angeles is the cultural and commercial center of Southern California; the city is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity and the entertainment industry, its sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles is the largest city on the West Coast of North America. Los Angeles is in a large basin bounded by the Pacific Ocean on one side and by mountains as high as 10,000 feet on the other; the city proper, which covers about 469 square miles, is the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the country. Los Angeles is the principal city of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second largest in the United States after that of New York City, with a population of 13.1 million. It is part of the Los Angeles-Long Beach combined statistical area the nation's second most populous area with a 2015 estimated population of 18.7 million.
Los Angeles is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States, with a diverse economy in a broad range of professional and cultural fields. Los Angeles is famous as the home of Hollywood, a major center of the world entertainment industry. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index and 9th in the Global Economic Power Index; the Los Angeles metropolitan area has a gross metropolitan product of $1.044 trillion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. Los Angeles hosted the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics and will host the event for a third time in 2028; the city hosted the Miss Universe pageant twice, in 1990 and 2006, was one of 9 American cities to host the 1994 FIFA men's soccer World Cup and one of 8 to host the 1999 FIFA women's soccer World Cup, hosting the final match for both tournaments. Home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California.
The city was founded on September 4, 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood; the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California assured the city's continued rapid growth; the Los Angeles coastal area was settled by the Chumash tribes. A Gabrieleño settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning "poison oak place". Maritime explorer Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo claimed the area of southern California for the Spanish Empire in 1542 while on an official military exploring expedition moving north along the Pacific coast from earlier colonizing bases of New Spain in Central and South America.
Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2, 1769. In 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. On September 4, 1781, a group of forty-four settlers known as "Los Pobladores" founded the pueblo they called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles,'The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels'; the present-day city has the largest Roman Catholic Archdiocese in the United States. Two-thirds of the Mexican or settlers were mestizo or mulatto, a mixture of African and European ancestry; the settlement remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820, the population had increased to about 650 residents. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the historic district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street, the oldest part of Los Angeles. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, the pueblo continued as a part of Mexico.
During Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta California's regional capital. Mexican rule ended during the Mexican–American War: Americans took control from the Californios after a series of battles, culminating with the signing of the Treaty of Cahuenga on January 13, 1847. Railroads arrived with the completion of the transcontinental Southern Pacific line to Los Angeles in 1876 and the Santa Fe Railroad in 1885. Petroleum was discovered in the city and surrounding area in 1892, by 1923, the discoveries had helped California become the country's largest oil producer, accounting for about one-quarter of the world's petroleum output. By 1900, the population had grown to more than 102,000; the completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, under the supervision of William Mulholland, assured the continued growth of the city. Due to clauses in the city's charter that prevented the City of Los Angeles from selling or providing water from the aqueduct to any area outside its borders, many adjacent city and communities became compelled to annex themselves into Los Angeles.
Los Angeles created the first municipal zoning ordinance in the United States. On September 14, 1908, the Los Angeles City Council promulgated residential and industrial land use zones; the new ordinance established three residential zones of a single type, where industrial uses were
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a war fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865, between the North and the South. The Civil War is the most studied and written about episode in U. S. history. As a result of the long-standing controversy over the enslavement of black people, war broke out in April 1861 when secessionist forces attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina shortly after Abraham Lincoln had been inaugurated as the President of the United States; the loyalists of the Union in the North proclaimed support for the Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States in the South, who advocated for states' rights to uphold slavery. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, secessionist partisans in seven Southern slave states declared state secessions from the country and unveiled their defiant formation of a Confederate States of America in rebellion against the U. S. Constitutional government; the Confederacy grew to control over half the territory in eleven states, it claimed the additional states of Kentucky and Missouri by assertions from exiled native secessionists without territory or population.
These were given full representation in the Confederate Congress throughout the Civil War. The two remaining slave holding states of Delaware and Maryland were invited to join the Confederacy, but nothing substantial developed; the Confederate States was never diplomatically recognized by the government of the United States or by that of any foreign country. The states that remained loyal to the U. S. were known as the Union. The Union and the Confederacy raised volunteer and conscription armies that fought in the South over the course of four years. Intense combat left 620,000 to 750,000 people dead, more than the number of U. S. military deaths in all other wars combined. The war ended when General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at the Battle of Appomattox Court House. Confederate generals throughout the southern states followed suit. Much of the South's infrastructure was destroyed the transportation systems; the Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, four million black slaves were freed.
During the Reconstruction Era that followed the war, national unity was restored, the national government expanded its power, civil rights were granted to freed black slaves through amendments to the Constitution and federal legislation. In the 1860 presidential election, led by Abraham Lincoln, supported banning slavery in all the U. S. territories. The Southern states viewed this as a violation of their constitutional rights and as the first step in a grander Republican plan to abolish slavery; the three pro-Union candidates together received an overwhelming 82% majority of the votes cast nationally: Republican Lincoln's votes centered in the north, Democrat Stephen A. Douglas' votes were distributed nationally and Constitutional Unionist John Bell's votes centered in Tennessee and Virginia; the Republican Party, dominant in the North, secured a plurality of the popular votes and a majority of the electoral votes nationally. He was the first Republican Party candidate to win the presidency.
However, before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies declared secession and formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, with an average of 49 percent. Of those states whose legislatures resolved for secession, the first seven voted with split majorities for unionist candidates Douglas and Bell, or with sizable minorities for those unionists. Of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession. Outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincoln's March 4, 1861, inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war. Speaking directly to the "Southern States", he attempted to calm their fears of any threats to slavery, reaffirming, "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists.
I believe I have no lawful right to do so, I have no inclination to do so." After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed and both sides prepared for war. The Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on "King Cotton" that they would intervene, but none did, none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter. While in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive during 1861–1862. In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy much of its western armies, seized New Orleans; the successful 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lee's Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grant's command of all Union armies in 1864. Inflicting an ever-tightening naval blockade of Confederate ports, the Union marshaled the resources and manpower to attack the Confederacy from all directions, leading to the fall of Atlanta to William T. Sherman and his march to th
