The Civil War was a great deal about slavery. Slavery was overwhelmingly the cause for example, the "states' right" always mentioned seems to have been the right to have slaves. IMHO. If you wanted to stop the war you needed to stop slavery. Back to the beginning of the nation, slavery was everywhere. The northern states were beginning to end it as the Revolution was fought, and many believed all the states would gradually end it when the Constitution was being debated. But as things developed, they didn't. By 1804, all of the states above the Mason-Dixon Line had voted to end slavery. Things went a different way in the South. There were usually more slaves there, and the rise of cotton after the invention of the Cotton Gin created huge demand …show more content…
By the 1850s the radicals in the South essentially the Fire-Eaters want all limitations on slavery removed; they want to impose and intervene in the North to enforce what they consider their rights. They want to roll back the Compromise of 1850 and the Missouri Compromise. The radicals in the North essentially, the Abolitionists, want to restrict slavery; they want to end slavery. The real outer fringe on both sides resorted to violence. The middle ground was torn asunder. People North and South were forced to pick sides as year after year of intense political conflict continued. The extremists on both sides purposefully started this conflict. The major difference between the sections on that is the extremists in the North never achieved the power and influence the extremists in the South did. Both were influential; the extremists in the South simply were more influential in their section than the Abolitionists in the North were. What is needed to resolve this without war is compromise. What we see in the 1850s is a failure to compromise, a hardening of positions, and a deliberate inflamation of differences. I agree with Shelby Foote that compromise is the true genius of America, and the Civil War came about because of the total failure of the politicians of that day to work out a
The abolitionist movements were all based in the north. People were not allowed to have slaves in the North, but the Northerners still had to return run-away slaves. After Butler’s declare that the slaves were contraband of war, everything changed (Goodheart 5). The slaves now had some sense of legal security in the North now that the people were not obligated to turn in runaway slaves. Slaves throughout the south fled to the Union and they finally had hope of freedom. The success and usefulness along with the seemingly never ending war spurred the writing of the Emancipation Proclamation. This was the most significant change in slavery that occurred during the war. The proclamation freed all the slaves in the Confederate states and was the start of social equality. This brings me back to the point that slavery was not the core cause of the Civil War. It was only after war that slavery in the south was truly threatened. Before the war started, slavery was no longer spreading but it was not shrinking either. The slave states also had protection against slaves running away to free states, but lost this protection during the war. The war was the beginning of the end for slavery but slavery was not the beginning of the Civil
The Abolitionist movement during the Antebellum period, was a critical time in American history. The goal of this movement was to emancipate all slaves immediately, and end discrimination, as well as segregation. The brave men and women involved in this movement were called abolitionists and antislavery advocates. The antislavery advocates stood for freeing slaves gradually, and abolitionists wanted slavery gone immediately. No matter how fast, these people all wanted to spread opposition against slavery across the United States. Northern churches started liking this whole idea of abolishing slavery, which started conflict between the North and South. These arguments led up to the Civil War.
During the 19th century the South and the North began to debate within each other as slavery was starting to become a national issue. The South was unified following the institution of slavery as it was vital to their economic success and the North was anti-slavery. The Civil War was inevitable becoming the climax to a growing tension between both the South and North in the act of failed Compromises and differences. The Missouri Compromise, The Act of 1850, and The Kansas-Nebraska Act hold large responsibility as causes for the Civil War considering none completely stopped the war and were merely postponed it.
The constant debate over whether America was going to be free or slave led to the inevitability of a civil war. The political tension within the nation surrounding the issue of slavery was ongoing even after a series of compromises. The country was either going to be free or slave and it was evident that the only way to decide this was through a civil war. Through several cases and debates between the views of the North and South, an agreement was still unable to be obtained. The divisions within the nation were growing and no compromise was powerful enough to hold the nation together.
The challenge would be to decide whether the new territories would be slavery areas or not. Tensions were high over the expansion of slavery. Politicians did not deal impartially with the tensions, and the decisions were made based on the interests of the political parties. Aftermath, the decisions led to conflicts, inflame debates, political divisions, and the emergence of new political parties. In this conflictual moment lived between the Northerners (abolitionists) and the Southerners (pro-slavery), a fact in 1857 disheartened the abolitionists by the end of the
In 1861, a Civil War broke out between the Union States and Confederate States of America. Many influences led to this battle, but there were 3 main disagreements that initiated the Civil War. The debate in the North and South about slavery’s cruelty and ethicality was a primary cause of the war. Another main cause was the fairness of the decision of the state’s rights and the fairness of the rights that the states had. In addition to the other 2 controversies, the allowing and wanting for states to disjoin the Union was another cause.
During the years of 1820-1860, the United States split into Northern and Southern factions. Each side held completely opposing viewpoints on issues affecting the nation. Compromise was made almost impossible by 1860 due to disagreement over states rights. Eventually, a breakdown of trust between both parties on each side that led to a collapse of compromise due to one of an important main issue, slavery. American citizens, despite constant thoughts of compromise, could not resolve their political disputes. Through conflicts towards the issue of slavery to saving the Union itself, their disputes refused any intention of compromise and would eventually lead to the start of the Civil War.
The Civil War was the bloody climax of the fight over slavery between the North and the South. Three crucial things that led to the Civil War were the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska act, and “Bloody Kansas.”
Both regions believed their ideals were proper therefore causing this type of leadership as inconceivable at the time. Northern candidate, Abraham Lincoln was a strong proponent towards the unification of America whether it appeased the northern abolitionists or the southern plantation owner (Doc 4). Similarly Stephen Douglas proposed the idea of popular sovereignty as a means to unify the nation (Doc 5) . His ideals were more similar to the great compromisers-Clay, Webster, and Calhoun- who were deceased. All five of these men had one goal, to unify America, but the conflicting perspectives between Lincoln and Douglas lead to a stalemate, in which no decision was made to save the country. Thus the American Civil War became not an “if” but “when?’
The American Civil War was one of the bloodiest American wars fought; about two percent of the American population died. If two percent of all Americans were killed in a war today, about six million Americans would be dead. Why couldn’t the presidents of the Confederate and United States of America just come to an agreement and avoid so much bloodshed? From 1820 to 1858, United States Politics transformed from making Compromises between the pro-slavery economy of the South and the Free economy of the North to most southern states agreeing that they should secede from our supposedly corrupt and biased government. However, by 1860, compromise was beyond consideration
Broadly speaking, the Civil War arose because of the fact that northerners and southerners became divided over various political, economic and social issues during the early nineteenth century. This phenomenon, known as “sectionalism,” came about mainly because of the differences in the economic structures of the north and the south. As Klein says in this regard, the conflict between the two sections of the country were increased “as the northern states moved increasingly into commerce and manufacturing while the southern states expanded their agricultural economy into a plantation system based on slave labor” (36). Because of the differences in these two economic systems, northerners generally took one side on important political issues while southerners generally took the opposing side, creating animosity between the two. This sectionalism that eventually led to full-on secession and the Civil War between the north and south quickly escalated due to many issues, including economics and politics, but much of the divide lied on the issue of slavery.
During the early 1800s the United States was a nation divided amongst two groups; Abolitionists were against anti-slavery and were typically in the northern region, while their opponents who were proslavery were in the southern region. Following the ratification of the Constitution, many issues were left unresolved. The predominant argument amongst the two was slavery, and the latter was whether the nation would be a dissolvable confederation of sovereign states or an indivisible nation with a sovereign national government. Slavery during this time period was very controversial and in the early years after the constitution was ratified, disagreements were always settled without violence. The result usually ended with
As far back as 84 years before the war, legal changes to slavery were already beginning to occur in the Northern states. From 1777 to 1804, majority of the north adapted one of three lawful ways of freeing slaves. Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts chose to abolish slavery all together. While New York, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey opted for the gradual emancipation, the states on the south of their borders chose something else. In Maryland, Virginia, and Delaware, where slaves were still a vital part of their workforce, only individual cases of emancipation were granted to some. (Roark et al., p. 259) At around the same time in 1793, the Southern states were introduced to a new invention that successfully altered their whole economy. The creation of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin made production of cotton easier and faster. This in turn, enabled the owners of the machine the ability to cater to the high demands of cotton worldwide. Unfortunately for the slaves in the South, cotton gins still required operation by an actual person, and the cotton gins was only used for one step (although separating the seeds from the cotton was the most difficult) out of the many steps
The civil war is a dark time in the history of America. We fought and bleed until we had lost many. But, there were many reasons to such hatred brewing in a nation. One of these was slavery. Until the antebellum, the inevitable issue was just being hidden behind many compromises and acts put in place to... hide it. Abolitionist and Pro-slavery settlers attacked each other. Bleeding Kansas was an example. John Brown had attacked 5 Pro slavery settlers and many Pro slavery settlers attacked Lawrence.
Political leaders made it less likely to settle disputes. Leaders such as President Lincoln were anti-slavery and fought to abolish it. He was the first Republican to be elected president. Southerners feeling as they did, did not recognize his