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The American Civil War Essay examples

Decent Essays

There were several primary causes that would eventually lead to one of America’s bloodiest war and now I will explain each one in further detail. One of the main issues that would spark tensions between the northern and southern states was their differing views on slavery. In the North the most prominent idea in peoples mind during the period before the war was the idea of free labor. (Perret 10) They believed that it emphasized economic opportunity in the northern states. (Perret 14) Many anti-slavery movements would soon begin in the northern states and gain great momentum within the 1830’s and 1840’s. What these movements aimed at doing was to change the way people worked and lived which would help the working class adapt to new …show more content…

In Lincolns second inaugural he coined a famous phrase saying "Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other." (Perret 48)Other problems would arise concerning slavery such as which states would be admitted as free or slave states. Several compromises were made in order to avoid tensions rising such as the “Missouri Compromise”. Yet again we see later on by the repeal of this act by the “Kansas Nebraska” act that things remain unstable. Tensions would rise again when we acquired the new territories from Mexico. For several years it caused tensions with the South wanting slavery and the North opposed to it. Eventually the Compromise of 1850 would quell the tensions. A second issue that would spark tensions between the states that eventually would lead to war was the argument of states’ rights. The South would vigorously argue throughout the years before the war that the federal government’s authority was not above that of each individual state. (Mcpherson 25) This would mean the federal government was in violation of what the founding fathers created it to do. Many historians believe that this response was elicited by the fact that the Northern population was growing so quickly that it would soon have control of the federal government. Before 1860 many of the presidents that had been elected were pro-south or they were indeed from the south. (Mcpherson 35) With the north

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