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Have Historians over Emphasised the Slavery Issue as a Cause of the Civil War?

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The American Civil War has caused many debates amongst a wide range of historians resulting in many different views being formed on all aspects of the War. The argument whether slavery has been overemphasised is one of great debate. Some historians like Michael F. Holt concur that the slavery issue was nearly the only reason and cause of the American civil war. Others disagree, Joel H. Silbey agrees that this is a reason but not the only one other ideas to need to be looked at to the cause of the outbreak of war in America. I will look at this issue and others which caused the beginning of the civil war.
The civil war dominates American history from the Jackson age and up to the end of the civil war in 1861. Many scholars have tried to …show more content…

By the 1850's these ideas were generally accepted and widely popularised. This ideology bounded these slave states together. It sought the modernisation of slavery, so it could compete more effectively with free labour. The binding together of the southern states lead to some sort of an inevitability factor to the start of the civil war and a sense of confrontation was sharpened by the rise of the Republican Party after 1854 although its origins did not have strong links with the slavery issue. This sectional friction was permitted to develop into a needless war by the inexcusable failure of political leadership in the fifties. This is shown by the fact that they were able to compromise to gain a national coalition of senators over expansion issues. The same congress also dealt with matters of rail road land grants easily. Silbey comments "In a way that eschewed sectional biases " Holt though rejects the more traditional view that the civil war resulted from the "intensifying sectional disagreements over slavery" He points to more revisionist theories
The inevitability factor, to the violence that pursued the beginning of the American Civil War, is one put forward as a cause by leading historians. Historians point to the ‘irresistible conflict.' It was inevitable those in a country like the United States of America, that some conflict would be come apparent in the near future. This subject was up for much discussion within the political framework along with a lot

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