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Frederick Douglass : The Cause Of The American Civil War

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In April 1861, the Un-united States of America went to war against each other leading to the death of 600,000 Americans. This tragic period is known as the American Civil War. Although slavery was an overarching issue in American politics, the cause of the Civil War was rooted in social, political and economic disagreements. One of the contributing factors which led to the Civil War were the social disputes between the North and the South. The morality of the issue of slavery was one which was highly debated. The North found that slavery was immoral and should be abolished. Frederick Douglass, a former slave, in his speech on “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro,” holds little back and criticizes the happening of the white man in …show more content…

Most of the disputes came from the struggle to balance the political powers of the North and the South. As the Union grew, both the North and the South struggled to maintain legislative representation and power. One example of the struggle for political power can be seen in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 (Doc. 7).The Kansas-Nebraska Act gave the settlers of these territories popular sovereignty, the power to make the decision through voting. As Nebraska and Kansas came into the Union, the dilemma of an unequal division between slave and free states came about. A decision had to be made whether the territories in question enter the Union as a slave or free state; tensions grew between the North and South as a bitter debate over the bill followed. In Harry T Peters’ political cartoon “America on Stone”, we are given a glimpse into the debate in which it shows the physical altercation between pro-slavery representative, Butler and anti-slavery Senator Charles Sumner. The intent of the illustration by Henry T. Peters is to show the severe political split between the North and the South. It is perceptible that the Kansas-Nebraska Act worsened an already tenuous relationship between the North and South .
The final addition to the cause of the Civil War is the economic disagreements. The difference in how free and slave states regulated labor had a major effect

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