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Civil War DBQ

Decent Essays

The question “What is the root cause of Civil War?” is easily answered in a simple word: slavery. The enslavement of thousands of men and women is one of the main reasons as to why the Union broke apart and went against itself. Slavery influenced many factors such as geographical expansion, political endeavors, industrialization, and economic structure. The issue of slavery caused problems concerning new territories, political disorder, and economic stress. With slavery at the very root of these oppositions, it ultimately led to the division of the nation; North against the South.
Slavery was at the head of the Civil War, and it caused problems concerning classification over new territories. It concerned the new territories specifically gained …show more content…

The government promptly attempted to settle these problems by enacting several compromises and acts. For example, the Compromise of 1850 was enacted to apply to both sides, containing five key elements. Even so, the most explosive of the elements introduced in the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law, caused even more tension than before. The Fugitive Slave Law required that any runaway slave caught was to be returned to the master, and in turn produced widespread outrage in the North, because they were then forced to participate in slavery (Doc O). In addition, another compromise that was passed regarding slavery was the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri Compromise was passed to help balance the number of slave states and free states, concluding in a legitimate border line, in which the lower half allowed slavery while the top half prohibited it. This compromise distinctly divided the nation in regards to slavery, providing additional tension between the North and South. Therefore, political disorder, heavily influenced by slavery, caused enough tension to divide the Union into the North and …show more content…

This caused even more tension between the two boundaries, considering they had established completely different economies. The Northern economy relied heavily on industrialization, such as railroads and new inventions. Railroads were a main source of transportation for goods, people, and the spread of information. In the North, railroads were everywhere while in the South there were a lot less and more spread out (Doc A). In contrast, the South’s economy relied heavily on slaves to work on their plantations. They used slavery to expand their economy, but fell short of the North’s more prosperous and industrialized developments. This caused a deeper strain on the relationship between the two sides, because “the North [became], in one way or another, the proprietor and dispenser of all [the South’s] floating wealth” (Doc D). The economic stress put on the Union, conclusively provided reasoning for the division of the

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