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The Causes And Consequences Of The American Civil War

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The Civil War is known to be one of the bloodiest wars in American history due to the amount of men lost, which happens to be the most deaths to ever occur out of any other war. To make sense of why the Civil War started, you have to understand the events that took place years before. These conflicts led to what we now know as the Civil War. The first big conflict was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. This act enforced the return of runaway slaves to their masters. This slave act was enforced throughout the United States, which meant no matter where a runaway slave was, whether it be in the North or the South, they would be returned to their plantation. This act was a big problem because it also caused many slave catchers to come to the North, capture free African Americans, take them to court, and judge would rule them a slave because they would get ten dollars if they ruled them a slave. Of course the judge wanted money, so they would rule them slaves and the freed African Americans would be put to work as a slave, since African Americans couldn’t testify in court. People were not allowed to interfere with a slave catch, or help and hide runaway slaves. Usually abolitionists were the ones to help, and if they were caught they would be faced with cruel punishments. Since people were scared of the consequences of helping an African American, many people from the North were furious seeing a free African American taken into slavery, and not being able to do anything about it due

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