Antebellum Southern Exceptionalism Analysis

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The American Civil War was the result of the divergence between the North and South to the extent where they appeared to be strangers to one another. However, decades after the Revolutionary War and creation and ratification of the Constitution, the states were no longer able to agree on the principles the United States of America would want to live by. These few decades took both regions on vastly different paths. In the North, immigration and industrialization began a new era of progress, while the South maintained its agrarian culture. American Civil War historian James McPherson, in his essay, “Antebellum Southern Exceptionalism,” argues that that the different cultures, values, and economic interests held by the North and South were the

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