What Role Did States Rights Play in Starting the Us Civil War

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States rights were the major cause of starting the U.S civil war. However, contributing factors such as slavery, national unity, sectionalism and the election of Lincoln had a minor hand in causing the 1861 U.S Civil War. Nevertheless the North and South differences were the motive to the start of the war. States rights were the major principal contributing to the North and South’s differences. By 1830 the South tended to champion, states rights doctrines as a defensive against the North. As the South recognized that control of the government was slipping away, it turned to a states' rights argument to protect slavery. Southerners stated that the federal government was not permitted to interfere with slavery in those states where it already existed. They felt that this interpretation of the Constitution associated with nullification, or perhaps secession would protect their way of life. Slavery contributed to the start of the Civil War as its proposed abolition was seen as a threat to the sovereignty of many Southern states. Biter tensions were created between the North and South over whether slavery should be allowed to expand more. In the North slavery had almost disappeared, while in the South slaves were sold in auctions to work on cotton fields. These differences caused division in the states, which eventually lead to the Nation dividing into two sections, the Confederate states and the Union states. National Unity was seen, as the primary reason the Northern states were willing to confront the South. Most people in the North were willing to go to war to keep the nation as one. They wanted the United States of America to be united as one. However, the Southern states wanted to part from the North to create their own “country”. This fueled much of then North’s reasoning to go to war against the South. Sectionalism, bought about by
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