Civil War in the United States

738 Words2 Pages

In 1861, a lawyer from Illinois was the new President and states were seceding quickly in the belief that this new president would support the abolishment of slavery and, therefore, the disestablishment of southern states’ rights. A war fought between brothers, fathers, sons, and cousins destroyed the American union at a pivotal time in American history. With the shots fired at Fort Sumter, a war would begin that would not only change the course of history but would reconstruct the nation into an almost unrecognizable form. Differences were vast in the economies of the two regions. The North was based predominantly on industry and production of goods while the South was based predominantly on cash crops such as cotton and tobacco, which were then sent to the North for processing. The South depended upon slave labor for their plantations while the North was supporting the Women’s Rights movement by employing young women in factories. Many Northern employers were afraid that the expansion of slavery into the new Western territories would mean a sharp decrease in the mobility of free workers and strengthen the slave-holding south’s hold on the government, especially with the newly established Three-Fifths Rule, where each slave in an owner’s “family” was counted as three-fifths of a person. There was a movement at this time by the Women’s Rights Movement to elucidate the horrors of slavery to the non-slave-holding Americans.”Our Family Black and White” gave slave owners the justification they needed to bring justice to the disobedient slave because they were seen as the owner’s child, and a father has the right to punish his child. An important catalyst for the Civil War was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a nove... ... middle of paper ... ...t in Appomatix Courthouse for General Lee to sign over his surrender, thus ending a brutal war between the states. The Civil War was fought, not only to protect the establishment of slavery and its inevitable expansion of that institution, but to protect all states’ rights. The South’s southern drawl was no longer being heard in the hallowed halls of Congress and they retaliated with everything they held dear, splitting families along loyalty lines that last to this day. Brothers killed one another to prove their side of the argument to the other. Fathers and sons met each other with bayonet points held at their hearts, all to impress upon one another the sanctity of either the Union or “rights”. Where the moral line really stood is up to historians to ultimately decide: stay a collective Union, or stand for rights as they had done in the Revolutionary War. 2006

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