American Civil War: What Caused It?

In 1861, a Civil War broke out in the United States when the South declared their independence from the Union. There is a great amount of reasons that people can argue how the Civil War was started. However, what most people don’t understand, is that most of the events leading up to the Civil War were related to slavery. Slavery was the core of the North and South’s conflict, which led to a very vicious feud.

Although it bought the North 10 more years to industrialize before the Civil War, the Compromise of 1850 overall did not work very well causing widespread unrest over its effects. California being admitted as a free state and D.C. stopping its slave trade worried the South for the fate of slavery. Popular sovereignty really only put gas into the fire that was the dispute

Another rising issue facing congress, California -- a territory that had grown tremendously with the gold rush of 1849, had recently petitioned Congress to enter the Union as a free state. Should this be allowed? Ever since the Missouri Compromise, the balance between slave states and free states had been maintained; any proposal that threatened this balance would almost certainly not win approval.

The Civil War is the deadliest war in American History. Between 1861 and 1865, over 600,000 brave souls lost their lives at nearly 10,500 battles. By the end of the war, there were nearly 200,000 African-Americans that fought on the side of the North, with 80 percent recruited from slave states (Half Slave and Half Free, 240). Wars are fought over irreconcilable differences. There may not be one specific cause. Directly or indirectly, slavery was intertwined in many of these differences and the physical conflicts that arose between the North and South. The moral versus practical issue of slavery evoked the passion necessary to unify the people to persevere through the great hardships that were to come.

The Civil War was the war that divided the young American nation into two opposing sides. One side being the North, also called the Union, and the second side being the South, also called the Confederacy. The root cause of why the South seceded from the Union has been debated and argued since the beginning of the war in 1861. Most people argue that the argument, between the North and the South, over slavery was the main reason why the South left the Union. However, the issue has to be more complex than just the issue with slavery. The root cause of the of the South secession from the Union was a combination of the South’s aggravation and fear over their dependence on the North for their economic prosperity and their dependence on slavery for a highly profitable economy.

The popular sovereignty used in New Mexico territories, the compromise of 1850 and the Kansas and Nebraska Acts were Victories of the south politically, however these acts were still seemed as "compromises" because both the north and the south were dissatisfied with these acts, that they could only be compromises but not victories. For the south the expansion of slavery was needed because the slavery was the foundation of southern society and economy, they had enjoyed less benefits from the fast developing northern industrial economy, if, without more lands and slaves moving to the new land, the expansion of production could not be achieved while their way of living could be challenged. For the northerners the process of industrial revolution went slowly in the south and with slavery the free labor could never come true. The Bleeding Kansas, Dred Scott Affair and John Brown created a sense that the movement of northern abolitionists had come to a climax, while the south itself, during the National Convention of Democratic Party, divided

The Civil War happened due to the many differences between the North and the South. For example economic, social, cultural and political differences. These all helped lead America to a Civil War. But to an extent, the most important cause was the fact there were many disagreements with states' rights versus federal rights.

The causes of the Civil War were complex and have been controversial since the country began. Some causes include; states’ rights, economics, and slavery. The most recognizable and popular cause is slavery. The freeing of the slaves was an important moral issue at the time and one of the greatest causes of the civil war. "It was only by carefully avoiding the moral issue involved in slavery that Northerners and Southerners could meet on any common ground." (Goldston, 79). The time came in which our great country would finally address the moral issue of slavery. Although there are many different causes to the American Civil War, the main cause was slavery because other causes are rooted in the issue of slavery.

As the idea of Manifest Destiny spread the country westward and new states joined the union, the disagreement over slavery became more and more heated. With each new state, came new congressman, new lawmakers. Northern states, free states, wanted the new states to have no slavery. The Southern states, pro-slavery states, wanted to extend slavery into the new states.

During the early 1800s, the United States was a new county and constantly expanded westward. Each time the borders of the country changed, the issue of slavery occurred because the north and the south disputed over whether the territory was a free state or a slave state. (Background) Henry Clay, a Kentucky congressman, created the Missouri Compromise addressed the issue of admitting states into the country as either a free or a slave state. However, this dilemma still persisted, therefore, the Compromise of 1850, involving congressmen Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Stephen A. Douglass, and John C. Calhoun, replaced the Missouri Compromise. This issue incited fear, conflict, and danger into the minds of southerners and northerners. In the 1800s, slavery economically effected everyone’s lives and hence, the northerners feared the expansion of slavery threatened their economic well-being, whereas, the southerners feared the termination of slavery endangered their economic status.

In 1820, Congress passed the Missouri Compromise into law which not only banned slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the 36°30' latitude line but admitted Missouri into the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free one. This shows how much Northerners and Southerners were divided over the issue of slavery in the western territories considering a law had to be implemented merely for Missouri to receive statehood. The reason why this was such a huge deal was because the North didn’t want there to be more slave states than free states since that would mean the South would possess more representation in Congress and thus more control over legislation. Even though the slavery issue seemed to be resolved by this compromise, tensions between the North and South regarding this practice came about once more under the presidency of James K. Polk. He was president during the Mexican-American War, a conflict which arose after the annexation of Texas that resulted in the United States acquiring the Mexican Cession under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (1848). Sectionalism was present in the nation again considering the North and the South were at each other’s throats because the two couldn’t agree on whether to allow slavery in the lands the country received from Mexico. After the Wilmot Proviso failed which was an attempt to ban

Although Northerns opposed the concept of slavery, they viewed blacks as inferior to whites. One main concern of the North was that freed or escaped slaves would overrun the North. This would lead to fewer jobs for whites as they competed against the freed slaves for the limited number of jobs. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (Avalon Project) was passed through Congress as a result of a compromise that allowed southern slaveholders to recapture their escaped slaves that fled across the Mason Dixon to Northern states.

In 1860, the world 's greatest nation was locked in Civil War. The war divided the country between the North and South. There were many factors that caused this war, but the main ones were the different interpretations of the Constitution by the North and South, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the arrival of

Generally, it is thought to be the South’s fault for causing the Civil War. Contrary to popular belief, the Civil War was mainly provoked by the North; through using the federal government to overtake the South, removing slavery which would destroy Southern economy, and creating the moral issue of slavery. The North was the primary reason for the start of a war that ripped our country apart.

The Civil War was the deadliest war in American history. In total almost 800,000 Americans were killed, more than the number killed in the American Revolution, World War 1, World War 2, and Vietnam combined. But what led to Americans fighting other Americans. They Civil War was fought over a topic that had been in controversy for years, slavery. Many decisions were made about slavery before the civil war, many of them controversial. The Missouri Compromise and Kansas-Nebraska act were the main events that tore the nation apart and caused the Civil War.