Primary Causes Of The Civil War Essay

“In time, other plantation crops, especially cotton, sugarcane, and sugar beets, were found to thrive in the South”. It also says “As a result of those and other factors, the North's economy came to depend more on trade than on agriculture”(Doc 3). This means that the North and the South had different views on how to live and how to make money . This also means that the South and the North had different opinions that could not be solved. Southern states left the Union because they had different ways of making money and living.

In this paper we would analyze the causes of the Civil War and advocate the thesis that slavery was the cause of the Civil War.

Who would have thought that a nation could split and turn on each other? The Civil war has main causes, key people, and battles. All of the people, events, and causes effected how the war came to be and how the Civil War was fought. The important people of the Civil war made important decisions that may have caused one side to a victory or a horrific lose. The battles of the war were bloody and devastating, and the causes of the Civil War show how different the North was from the South. Many people know the Civil War was extremely significant, but most people don't know what caused this major battle in history.

The civil war is an important event in the history of the United States. It began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate General opened fire on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and lasted until May 26,1865, when the last Confederate army surrendered . All aspects of the war have been a topic of concern to the academic community, especially in the United States. In my opinion, the civil war not only important for American, but also important for the world. Here I will show you the main causes of the Civil War.

The Civil War was caused by the idea of States’ rights, the hypocrisy of the United States in its celebration of ‘Independence Day’ while slavery existed, and the election of President Abraham Lincoln.

The causes of most wars are often very complex, but in the America civil war it came down to two major issues, slavery and the protection of the Union. In the North, they were growing richer all the time as industry developed fast. The workers were mostly immigrants with low wages. The South didn’t have these resources, and the slaves were essential for them. The Northern politicians insisted that the Slavery should be abolished and that this was an evil system that should be stamped out. Only the rich wool farmers and other wealthy

Correspondingly, there was the quarrel over state versus federal rights. States felt they didn’t have any say if they disliked a federal law. So when all these compromises came about concerning slavery in the West, people wanted to be able to nullify federal laws. To nullify is to cancel, and in this case to cancel a federal law. People like John C. Calhoun fought for this right along with many others. However, the federal government felt this was not necessary, therefore, some states threatened to secede.

The causes of the Civil War were complex and have been controversial since the country began. Some causes include; states’ rights, economics, and slavery. The most recognizable and popular cause is slavery. The freeing of the slaves was an important moral issue at the time and one of the greatest causes of the civil war. "It was only by carefully avoiding the moral issue involved in slavery that Northerners and Southerners could meet on any common ground." (Goldston, 79). The time came in which our great country would finally address the moral issue of slavery. Although there are many different causes to the American Civil War, the main cause was slavery because other causes are rooted in the issue of slavery.

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.

During the early nineteenth century the United States began to split, but at the middle of the century people views started to become more concrete and so separation in the Union became more drastic. From 1850 to 1861 it was apparent that the union was separating into the North and the South. The Constitution played a major role in the separation that was occurring. Through sectional favoritism of bits and pieces of the Constitution and through ideas that were left out of it, the Constitution led to sectional discord and nearly the failure of the union.

After some evaluation on whether or not to stay in the Union, which would only turn out negative for both parts of the country, the South would have to choose between taking away slavery, or breaking off from the Union. Splitting off from the country for both the South and North would come to a negative result. For the South, it would mean no longer paying excessive taxes to the North and being able to keep their crops and harvest them themselves, but would also result in no protection from what the North could possibly bring onto them, such as a war, or any other nation. For the North, though, if they were to disengage the South from the Union, the Union would be seen as not inhibiting the love that was publicly displayed and not having love for the second half of the country-the South. The two proposals that were discussed in full was either separating and parting in peace, or to merely try and get along with each other. The second decision was inhabited, but later on, in 1861, the Civil War took place and lasted for approximately four years.

The North didn't care about slavery as long as it stayed in the South. South Carolina seceded, because Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, was voted into office. The Republican party threatened the South's expansion and so Southerners felt that they had no other choice.

South Carolina and the other southern states to follow, announced their intentions to leave the Union. They believed that since they voluntarily joined the Union, they could voluntarily withdraw as well.[7] During Lincoln’s attempt to stop the secession, more southern states joined the Confederates, and thus due to, but not only to these political factors, the civil war was slowly induced.

The main cause of the American Civil War was a discrepancy in the institution of slavery. People in the North had been deliberating over the Constitutionality and morality of slavery for years, and they had finally decided that slavery was immoral and should be terminated. Conversely, Southerners argued that their entire way of life revolved around the institution of slavery. Southerners viewed African Americans as lesser being and did not believe that all the rights guaranteed in the Constitution applied to them. These disagreements also influenced how the United States would continue its westward expansion. Anti-slavery Northerners advocated for new states to be “free states” while Southerners wanted the institution of slavery to spread into the newly forming states.

Most historians would like us to believe that the Civil War was fought to free the slaves. However, during that period – slaves were mere property and there was no moral concern for the blacks. With that said, there were several causes of the Civil War. Some were both short and long-term causes. These causes included the Mexican War, the Fugitive Slave Act, the publishing of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Dred Schott Case, the Kansas Nebraska Act (this repealed the Missouri Compromise, and caused the Bleeding Kansas situation). Additional causes included Constitutional principles, rights of the states vs national government, and the election of Abraham Lincoln, slavery in the territories, the Compromise of 1850, and the Wilmot Proviso (this is where the “land would be open to slavery if the line drawn by the Missouri Compromise were extended all the way to the Pacific).” – (Lecture).