Causes and Effects of the American Civil War

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Did you know that in the Civil War, America lost the most men ever? After four years and over 600,000 American lives, the Union (North) prevailed in wearing down and forcing the Confederacy (South) to surrender. Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, the Missouri Compromise, and the Dred Scott case contributed greatly to the Civil War. After the Civil War, the Southern economy was devastated with millions of homeless, while the northern economy boomed.

Eli Whitney created one of the first causes of the Civil. In 1793 Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin greatly increased the amount of cotton produced. The cotton gin cleaned the cotton by extracting the cottonseeds efficiently. In the 1800’s, 36,000 bales of cotton were exported, but after the invention of the cotton gin, 4,600,000 bales of cotton were produced. This could not be done with out the help of slave labor. Slave labor allowed the production of cotton to be profitable and the southern farms relied on slaves because they couldn’t plant and harvest more cotton without them. The southern economy grew dependent on slave labor and some areas of the south consisted of over 50% slaves.

As the tensions grew, the battle for free or slave states intensified. The Missouri Comprise decided whether Missouri would be admitted into the union as a state that would allow or prohibit slavery. This issue is due to the fact that Missouri doesn’t lie on either side of the Ohio River. As of 1819 any states south of the Ohio R...

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