States Rights
The different ideals between the North and the South caused even more sectionalism. They both had different ideas on who was supposed to have more power in America. The South had more Anti-federalist ideals, meaning they believed that America should be run by a loose, decentralized system of government, while the North had more Federalist ideals, wanting a strong central government. The South feared the day when the government would tell them that they couldn't have slavery. So the South started to look at these ideals more closely. They realized that under their Anti-federalist ideals the government shouldn't have the power to tell them if they should be pro-slavery, or anti-slavery. Also all new territories should have the right to choose pro-slavery or anti-slavery without help from the government. So when Abraham Lincoln was elected, the South knew that he would stop the expansion of slavery and the only way to stop that was to secede.