When the Northern politicians tried to compromise, the South chose civil war. National leaders attempted to compromise before Lincoln took office but their inability to compromise led to a Civil War. A radical abolitionists group was formed, Northern politicians like, President, Abraham Lincoln, gave Southerners no choice but to secede. Lincoln was a Republican. And the Republican Party opposed slavery. When he took office several months later, he faced the most severe crisis in American history, A civil war. But its slavery and the refusal of Southern slaveholders to compromise on slavery, that launched the Civil War.