Recursion for pow(base, exponent) using negative exponents

Good Afternoon, I am trying to create a power(base, exponent) that can interpret positive exponents, negative exponents and zero. I have the program working for positive exponents and exponents that are 0, but when I try to enter a negative exponent. Codeblocks lets me, but the terminal tells me:

Segmentation fault (core dumped)

What must I fix? I have tried googling and searching forums, but the topics that I see look pretty much the same to me as my own function.

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

float power (float base, float exponent)
{
    if ( 0 == exponent)
    {
        return 1;
    }
    else if ( 1 != exponent)
    {
        base *= power(base, exponent - 1);  // don't forget power in power(base, exponent)
    }
    else if ( exponent < 0 )
    {
        return 1 / power(base, -exponent);
    }

    return base;
}


int main ()
{
    cout<<"Enter your base: ";
    float base;
    cin>>base;

    cout<<"Enter your exponent: ";
    float exponent;
    cin>>exponent;

    cout<<"The answer is "<<power(base, exponent);

}

Thank you for your time.