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Cause Of The American Civil War

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There has been several debates on the causes of the American Civil War. Many have stated that slavery was the primary cause for the Civil War. Some historians have argued that there were other causes of the Civil War. The one thing that all historians agreed upon was the division between the North (known as the Union) and the South (known as the Confederacy) that escalated on the soil of the United States of America (In Stampp, 1965). The battle between the two states is what created the “American Civil War.” The American Civil War started as a result of many years of differences and debates between the Union and the Confederacy. The Southern states, which included the eleven (11) states that were formed by the Confederacy, …show more content…

Some plantation owners were also slave owners and those who could not afford to own slaves, had to maintain their farmlands on their own. The Northerners, or what was called the free states, had more immigrants settling in its areas, where labor was needed, but not the labor of slaves. There was a more industrialized society where most people worked in factories and did not follow a class system. The Northers opposed to slavery as an institution in the South, whereas the Confederate States were the only region in the world who still legalized the ownership of slaves. When this happened, it angered the Southerners and threatened their way of life. The U.S. Presidential election of Abraham Lincoln opposed a threat to slavery in the South.
Furthermore, the economic differences were developed between the two regions. The Southern states were agricultural states and depended on agriculture rather than industrialization (Egnal, 2009). After the invention of the cotton, this increased the need for slaves and made cotton the chief crop for the South. The South was able to produce about 90% of the world 's supply of cotton. This increase of the cotton was the cause for the South 's dependence on the plantation system and its vital component, slavery. As a result, the North was prospering industrially. The fear was that the South 's slave-based economy might affect their economy. The North was highly dependent

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