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The United States of 1776, has just won its independence form the British after a long brutal war

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The United States of 1776, has just won its independence form the British after a long brutal war where thousands upon thousands of men died. A new country, fresh to the world, now had to protect itself from destruction within its own borders. The Civil War, would eventually address the threat to this new democracy. What would drive such a young nation, recovering from a long and expensive war, to enter into a Civil War?
From 1776 to 1861 the weak but established government of the United States was trying to solve several issues politically between two distinct ideals within its new boarders. These issues would eventually separate the United States into two distinct regions. The two regions or sides are commonly known as the North and …show more content…

The South demonstrated this decision on 12 April of 1861 by firing upon Fort Sumter (Mauser, 2011, 1-20). The North had successfully expanded to the west with the backing of the United States government. So naturally, the North was in favor of the current government and its ideals. Majority of Northerners were openly opposed to slavery. The North did not attempt to force the South to give up its rights to slavery but tried restrict it to the current southern states which allowed slavery. The North attempted to address this difference, politically, but was unsuccessful and received much opposition. This put a major wedge between the North and South. Eventually, the South would fire onto Fort Sumter forcing the North to act and declare war (Mauser, 2011, 1-20). The action against Fort Sumter would be the beginning to a war that would last from 1861 to 1865. At the beginning of the war slavery was not considered the number one reason for the war. By the wars end the politics on both side needed to justify the war to their respected public. The fight against slavery would become the North’s selling point to the public. The South would remain steadfast on the position of fighting for their overall rights as citizens of the United States and that included defending the right for slavery. The face of this war was now slavery (Mauser, 2011, 11). After the war ended on 9 April 1865, both sides had lost hundreds of thousands of men to some of the bloodiest battles in

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