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Did Slavery Cause The Civil War Essay

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I believe that slavery was not the core cause of the Civil War but rather the core cause was the vastly different belief systems and life styles of the North and South. Slavery was a symptom to the overall problem, so it received credit for the start of the Civil War. If Slavery had been the root cause, the south would not have seceded when Abraham Lincoln was elected. Lincoln made it very clear in his campaign and his presidency that his only concern was to preserve the Union and if slavery could preserve the union then so be it. Slavery was not threatened by Lincoln being in office but it also would not expand. The south seceded when the opposite party, who had different beliefs in how the government and nation should be ran, was elected …show more content…

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

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