What Caused the Civil War? From 1861 to 1865, civil war broke loose and resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of American lives; forever changing the history of the United States. The causes of the Civil War are plenty, but the three main causes of the bloodshed in America can be classified into economic, political, and moral reasons. The South’s economic strengths were largely agricultural; specifically the growing of tobacco, wheat, and cotton. Between 1790 and 1861, the year in which the Civil War began, plantation agriculture expanded, therefore, the demand for slaves increased.
Slavery: “The Peculiar Institution” Slaves were brought to the colonies first as indentured servants then slave traders started capturing slaves from Africa and bring them to the Caribbean. The colonist found slave labor cheap compared to indentured slaves who eventually ended their service. Slavery began in the United States about the 1630’s. During this time the colonial courts and legislatures made Africans property and enslaved to their masters for a life time. The legislature also ruled that slave status would be inherited by their children.
Slavery in America’s South : Implications and Effects The institution of slavery in America’s southern states was based primarily in economics rather than some inherent adoration of the practice itself. When the Mason-Dixon line was created in the 1760s, Eli Whitney’s revolutionary cotton gin (which would eventually solidify slavery in the South) has not yet been created. Still, despite this fact, there were lines being drawn between the more industrial-based economy of the North and the agricultural economy of the South. Slavery formed the backbone of the South economically and as it became more widespread after Whitney’s invention, it became just as much the political and social basis of Southern identity as well. Although there are cases
Cotton is the next thing plantation owners turn to after the failure of indigo and tobacco. The plantation owners strike a goldmine after Eli Whitney introduces the cotton gin to the South region. The cotton era is born and with it comes the explosion and need to have even more slaves. Slaves are now needed to clear the land, work the cotton crop in the fields and to harvest the cotton once it has completed full growth. Mississippi was admitted as a slave state to the union because of the intense profitability of cotton and the use of slaves.
November 13, 2013 Before America was her own country, the white settlers owned slaves and when American became her own nation, her citizens still owned and kept slaves. America became divided on the issue of slavery between the North and the South. Slavery affected the United States politically, morally, and economically. Politically, America was affected by dividing the government and citizens. Morally, America was affected by the citizens’ personal feelings on slavery on slavery and how the citizens handled those emotions.
The cotton gin did not only change the output of cotton in the south it also changed the whole entire country. It expanded slavery, created sectional conflict, fueled the American Industrial Revolution, and it also led to the America’s bloodiest war: The American Civil War. By Early 19th century cotton became King in United States, and slave labor was in critical demand. By 1790 slavery was a declining institution, in 1790 there are only about seven hundred thousands of slaves in United States, but in 1860 right before the out break of the American Civil War there are approximate four million slaves in United States. (Boyer et al.
What Lead to the Civil War. From the beginning of the United States, war was inevitable between the North and the South, over the issues of slavery. Ever since Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gins in 1790, the South has been on a completely different economic path from the North. In the 1850’s political developments, the Fugitive slave act, the Dread Scott decision, and the John Brown raid, eventually all drove the regions further and further apart. Even though the North and South tried to reconcile their differences on the issue of slavery by implementing compromises in the 1820’s and 1850’s, both attempts failed, leading up to the Civil War.
In the beginning slavery was used to have the ability to have more workers for a project or projects, such as building or farming. Warfare was the start to slavery, as warring bands fought the loser was enslaved and used in the fields and erecting buildings. This way of acquiring slaves was used till the middle ages, as warfare that could supply slavery slowed the invention of indentured servant came about. Indentured servitude is just another form of slavery with nicer word; this was the start of modern slavery, and the slave trade. Slavery has been used for financial status, the more slaves you had the more wealth you had.
Sadly it is here where things went wrong, and the ugly side of human nature reared its face. The residents of the colonies came to the realization that these Africans were a “great” source of cheap labor, thus constituting the institution of slavery. With this by the end of the seventeenth century, the colonies began to establish laws that stated these people that were originally indentured servants were to be slaves for life as well as their children. And this is how slavery got its start in what was to become the “great” country, The United States of America. Not too
Years of frustration is what caused the eventual succession. Since the American Revolution, the topic of slavery was present in the minds of important men in both northern and southern states. The institution of slavery was allowed to continue in the United States, but it was when the Union started to expand that much of the frustration began. The government had passed regulations banning the spread of slavery into these new territories, and many southern states were outraged to the point where South Carolina threatened to succeed from the Union in 1821. Southern states believed that their way of life was being infringed, meaning that slavery was an important institution for their mainly agricultural based economy.