popular vote figures exclude South Carolina where the Electors were chosen by the state legislature rather than by popular vote. Geography of results Cartographic gallery Results by state Source: Data from Walter Dean Burnham, Presidential ballots, 1836–1892 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1955) pp 247–57. Close states States where the margin of victory was under 1%: Virginia 0.09% (156 votes) Missouri 0.26% (429 votes) California 0.61% (734 votes) Maryland 0.79% (722 votes) States where the margin of victory was under 5%: Oregon 1.83% (270 votes) Tennessee 3.17% (4,631 votes) Illinois 3.52% (11,956 votes) North Carolina 3.85% (3,717 votes) New Jersey 3.74% (4,523 votes) Louisiana 4.90% (2,477 votes) States where the margin of victory was under 10%: New York 7.42% (50,136 votes) (tipping point state for Lincoln's victory) Ohio 7.94% (34,388 votes) Georgia 8.63% (9,216 votes) Indiana 8.65% (23,524 votes) Kentucky 8.83% (12,915 votes) Trigger for the Civil War Lincoln's victory and imminent inauguration as president was the immediate cause for declarations of secession by seven Southern states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas) from 20 December 1860 to 1 February 1861. They then formed the Confederate States of America. Several other states also considered declaring secession at the time: Missouri convened a secession convention, which voted against secession and adjourned permanently. Arkansas convened a secession convention, which voted against secession and adjourned temporarily. Virginia convened a secession convention, which voted against secession but remained in session. Tennessee held a referendum on having a secession convention, which failed. North Carolina held a referendum on having a secession convention, which failed. All of the secessionist activity was motivated by fear for the institution of slavery in the South. If the President (and, by extension, the appointed federal officials in the South, such as district attorneys, marshals, postmasters, and judges) opposed slavery, it might collapse. There were fears that abolitionist agents would infiltrate the South and foment slave insurrections. (The noted secessionist William Lowndes Yancey, speaking at New York's Cooper Institute in October 1860, asserted that with abolitionists in power, "Emissaries will percolate between master [and] slave as water between the crevices of rocks underground. They will be found everywhere, with strychnine to put in our wells.") Less radical Southerners thought that with Northern antislavery dominance of the federal government, slavery would eventually be abolished, regardless of present constitutional limits. Bertram Wyatt-Brown argues that secessionists desired independence as necessary for their