Southern states believed that their way of life was being infringed, meaning that slavery was an important institution for their mainly agricultural based economy. The infringement of their way of life was what really caused the succession of the Confederate states and the Civil War. It has been said that the Civil War is the second American Revolution. In many ways, this statement is accurate. The American Revolution was fought because colonists felt the tyrannical government of Great Britain was abusing their authority, and directly affecting their way of life and happiness.
Assess the factors that led to the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 The main factor that caused the American Civil War in 1861 was slavery as it was the underlying fundamental division between Northern and Southern societies that made living in harmony impossible. However, we must also examine the economic disparity between the North and South, political failure to manage the situation and the impact of the election of Lincoln in 1860. Although slavery is the underlying reason, the civil war would not have happened if it were not for the financial divide that developed because of slavery. These core factors were exacerbated by political mismanagement, a catalyst for the outbreak of the Civil War and Lincoln’s election in 1860, the trigger factor. Despite this, had it not been for slavery, there would have been no initial divide between North and South which created economic disparity and led to Southern paranoia over Northern expansionism which led to war, thus the most important factor.
Slavery in The Civil War The American civil war from 1861 to 1865 divided many people in the United States, even turning brother against brother. There were also great amounts of bloodshed and was one of the bloodiest wars in the US and left a heritage of brief and bitterness. And the basis of this war, slavery, slavery is usually very cruel and has been around since early man. Their were two sides to this war, the North and the south. The North consisted of 19 free states in which slavery was prohibited and in the South 15 slave states which could own slaves.
There were four basic issues that caused the Civil War in America; these issues included social and economic differences between the North and the South, states’ rights versus the federal government, the fight between supporters of slavery and abolitionists, and the growth of the abolition movement. Social and economic aspects were monumental in causing the Civil War. In Document E peaceable secession is discussed by Daniel Webster. Due to the social disagreements between the North and the South, secession became a major issue. The social aspects that caused the Civil War were that the North progressed towards being concentrated on urban life and the South was absorbed in the plantation structure of society.
Significance: Slavery brought Africans to America, challenged this country to look at all men as equals and made us leaders in the world for civil rights of mankind. Cause: The ability for ships to sail to America and the greed of slave ship captains made slavery in a new frontier, America, inevitable. Effect: The widespread supply and demand for slavery caused civil unrest within Africa and turned many groups against one another. Eventually these groups became part of the slave trade and provided slaves from their own tribes. Significance: This vicious cycle caused economic and political unrest, ultimately weakening Africa’s economic, political and social stability.
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.
Morally, America was affected by the citizens’ personal feelings on slavery on slavery and how the citizens handled those emotions. Economically, America was affected by the South losing slave labor, causing them to lose profit because of abolitionists and African Americans. Thus, America was affected by slavery politically, morally, and economically which helped cause the civil war. Slavery was a major issue in America in the 1800’s and
In the book Half Slave and Half Free, Bruce Levine introduces the various issues that arose during the antebellum era in America that fueled the onset of the Civil War. According to Levine, tension due to conflicting interests between the slave based economy of the South and the free labor economy of the North boiled up to a point that led the newly formed nation to war. Levine starts off by giving a brief history of slavery and then shifts to discussing the way in which it revolutionized the economy of America and the role that it played in the conflicts leading to the Civil War. Slavery was crucial to the southern states as they depended on it to run their plantations, whereas, the northern states abolished slavery as they adopted the idea that “each person works for himself” (46). “The distinctive ways in which North and South organized their labor systems left their mark on all aspects of regional life - including family, gender and leisure patterns and both religious and secular ideologies.
Territorial Issues Before the onset of the Great American Civil War, a huge debate was raging among the citizens, and politicians of the Untied States. Slavery was the main issue that separated the Northern and Southern states, but another, more complicated issue was at hand. As settlers began to talk about the “Manifest Destiny,” and expand westward, new territories were being given statehood. The formation of these new states rose to a new question: should these new states welcome slavery within their boundaries? Three distinct positions were taken on this issue.
Chapter 2 - Civil War Summary The Civil War was a very important event of the time and there were many causes and effects of the American event. One of the main catalysts of the Civil War was the topic of slavery. The feud between the North and the South with slavery was very large in sparking the whole main incident of the Civil War. Deriving from slavery, the Abolitionist movement was also a factor that caused the Civil War because such a big movement of people had never happened before trying to abolish slavery. The Underground Railroad was also a factor considering the fact that it helped out with the abolishment of slavery, and it helped slaves move north to get away from slavery and their plantations.