If I were Abraham Lincoln during the US Civil War, there would few things if any that I would change. I would try to do anything to avoid a war between our own country. I would try to settle the territory disputes and the slavery disputes with an orderly fashion. But if none of that works and we tried our absolute best, then I would say go to war to end the conflicts. After the war the slavery issue of the Emancipation Proclamation did not work as well as they hoped. They had no place to go after they were free and no one wanted to help them or even live with them or near them. Since there was nothing that Abraham Lincoln could do to settle the disputes in an orderly conduct, the only this was to go to war. I am not for that at all because some of the people were fighting against their friends and even against their family. Especially at the battle of Gettysburg where 53,000 Americans were killing there own people. Many people think that the whole reason for the Civil War was because of slavery. But later on in the years, the people would rather have “free soil” than to keep the slaves working for them. What that means is that the people in the South were more concentrated on the amount of territory they could get, the North as well, then to then to give up slavery. The cotton manufacturing and the manufacturing of other goods was also a key aspect to the war. The South had all the cotton but that was the only manufacturing good. Meanwhile, the...
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Show MoreThe American Civil War is known as one of the harshest battles to have ever taken place. The war took place from 1861-1865. This war divided the nation into two sides. The north, which was also known as the union, was run by President Abraham Lincoln. However, the south, also known as the rebels were run by President Jefferson Davis. It was a result of the decades of sectional tension between the north and the south involving slavery and state rights. Also, the growth of nationalism and in the United States was replaced by sectionalism which led to the start of the civil war.
The election of Lincoln, secession of the southern states and the Confederate States of America Constitution set the stage for the bloodiest and saddest war in American history. Before the Civil War even began the nation was divided into four very distinct regions; Northeast, Northwest, Upper south and the Southwest. With two fundamentally different labor systems, slavery in the south and wage labor in the North, the political, economic and social changes across the nation would show the views of the North and the South. The civil war was based on the abolitionists' ideas of emancipation and liberation of slavery the North wanted the war in order to create a society without slavery. The North's aggression to control the south lead to the where were it was no longer tolerable for the South. With the election of the anti-slavery Republican Abraham Lincoln, the southern states decided they had to take drastic action in order to protect their own interests. The south had been waiting for an excuse to secede form the union, the election of Lincoln by the North was their chance. The Northern abolitionists' states were mainly responsible for the Civil war in many political, social and economic aspects.
Approximately 400 women fought on the battlefront during the American Civil War. (History.com Staff) The Civil War was a war fought on American soil between the Union, the North, and the Confederacy, the South. As the War began, most people believed it would be won and over quickly. However, the Civil War was long, difficult, and the deadliest war in American History. Women, both in the North and South, played tremendously important roles in the American Civil War.
The Civil War was the worst war in American history. More Americans died in this war than World War 1 and 2. The events that lead up to the Civil War show that it was a conflict that was going to arise no matter what happened.
Horrific! The American Civil War, also known as the War Between States and the War Of Secession, was an extremely gruesome and bloody war (World Book 614). The war, which started on April 12, 1861, when the southern troops fired on Fort Sumter, and ended 4 years later, took more American lives than any other war in history (614). This war was between a divided union in whish the southern states were trying to preserve slavery while the northern states were dedicated to a more modern way of life and were trying to end slavery (614). This war was fought in the minds of great men like Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee and the end of the war was the beginning of a slavery free nation. The American Civil War was a horrible event in the history of the world which started from three main causes: slavery, disputes over states' rights, and because of the division which existed between the South and the North.
The Civil War was a very violent episode in America’s history. There were more casualties in this war than all of the American wars, (McPherson, 5). The war turned brother on brother, thus coining the name ‘the Brother War,” (McPherson, 15). Many people in today’s era often question why so many men willingly fought knowing death was always a high possibility. We will never know the exact answer but from many writings: letters, newsletters, journals, memoirs, we can get a glimpse at what the motivations were for them to enlist and then keep fighting. James M. McPherson attempts to do this in his book For Cause & Comrades. He gives many firsthand accounts as evidence for his explanations. His most important motivators are rage militarie, honor and brotherhood, ideals on slavery, and religion.
The name Civil War is misleading because the war was not a class struggle, but a sectional combat, having its roots in political, economic, social, and psychological elements. It has been characterized, in the words of William H. Seward, as the “irrepressible conflict.” In another judgment the Civil War was viewed as criminally stupid, an unnecessary bloodletting brought on by arrogant extremists and blundering politicians. Both views accept the fact that in 1861 there existed a situation that, rightly or wrongly, had come to be regarded as insoluble by peaceful means.
Although the two regions had always been divided, their intentions were never for war. Slavery proved to be an economic issue for the South, while Northerners viewed it as a moral dilemma. Failed compromises such as the Missouri Compromise, Wilmot Proviso, and the Compromise of 1850 demonstrated the desire for peace, but their inability to find compromise led to violence. The Civil War could’ve been avoided up to the Election of 1860 if any capable politician had provided reasonable terms for a compromise between the North and South. In addition, if any other candidate had been elected whose position on slavery wasn’t as firm and were more willing to compromise, solutions could’ve been found through politics instead of violence. However, once Lincoln was elected, any hopes for compromise or negotiation were shattered. Lincoln was firm in his beliefs and wasn’t willing to compromise with the South, ultimately leading to the Civil
Leading up to the final outbreak of the Civil War, the issue of slavery was greatly avoided until it became a huge controversy from 1850 to 1861, especially between the North and the South. From the start of the nation’s beginning, the Founding Fathers had collaborated to create the Constitution, which was expected to unite the nation and its people together. Evidently, as slavery threatened to shred apart the union, the Constitution was proved powerless to alleviate the rising tensions. As time progressed, the Constitution’s imperfections were exposed one by one to the Americans. By the 1850’s, the Constitution had failed to produce clear terms on the process of determining whether new states would be free or slave-holding, the status of slaves and free blacks concerning the Fugitive Slave Acts, and the issue of secession within the discontented states. All the defects contributed to the ultimate failure of the nation, with the impending Civil War not far away.
The Civil War has been viewed as the unavoidable eruption of a conflict that had been simmering for decades between the industrial North and the agricultural South. Roark et al. (p. 507) speak of the two regions’ respective “labor systems,” which in the eyes of both contemporaries were the most salient evidence of two irreconcilable worldviews. Yet the economies of the two regions were complementary to some extent, in terms of the exchange of goods and capital; the Civil War did not arise because of economic competition between the North and South over markets, for instance. The collision course that led to the Civil War did not have its basis in pure economics as much as in the perceptions of Northerners and Southerners of the economies of the respective regions in political and social terms. The first lens for this was what I call the nation’s ‘charter’—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the documents spelling out the nation’s core ideology. Despite their inconsistencies, they provided a standard against which the treatment and experience of any or all groups of people residing within the United States could be evaluated (Native Americans, however, did not count). Secondly, these documents had installed a form of government that to a significant degree promised representation of each individual citizen. It was understood that this only possible through aggregation, and so population would be a major source of political power in the United States. This is where economics intersected with politics: the economic system of the North encouraged (albeit for the purposes of exploitation) immigration, whereas that of the South did not. Another layer of the influence of economics in politics was that the prosperity of ...
Socioeconomic reasons for the causes and outcome of the Civil War Analyzing the causes and the eventual outcome of the American Civil War can be a difficult task when you look at all the issues at once. The fields of the political, economic and sociological differences between the Union and the Confederacy are were we find the bulk of the answers as why the two regions of the United States separated. When trying to discuss the Civil War we must first explain why the Confederate states seceded and just as importantly, how they were defeated. When trying to find the causes and the outcomes of the Civil War, I've chosen to bypass the political reasons and would rather discuss the areas of economic and sociological conflict. It is hard to discuss one of these aspects without showing how closely it is tied into the other.
Americans have always been independent group of people. We just don’t like being told what to do. This is true now as it was in the past, or will be in the future. It all started in the early colonial era (1700) when we really felt ourselves as “Americans”. Before that in the 1600’s we were just settlers in the new America. In the 1700’s we fought with the British to stop the union of France and Spain. We started our own newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazett published by Benjamin Franklin. We opened the first American public library, the first hospital. We started the postal service with Benjamin Franklin as Postmaster General.
Albert Gallatin Brown, U.S. Senator from Mississippi, speaking with regard to the several filibuster expeditions to Central America: "I want Cuba . . . I want Tamaulipas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexican States; and I want them all for the same reason -- for the planting and spreading of slavery." [Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 106.]
Contrary to what today’s society believes about Lincoln, he was not a popular man with the South at this period in time. The South wanted to expand towards the West but Lincoln created a geographical containment rule keeping slavery in the states it currently resided in. Despite his trying to rationalize with the South, Lincoln actually believed something different ”Lincoln claimed that he, like the Founding Fathers, saw slavery in the Old South as regrettable reality whose expansion could and should be arrested, thereby putting it on the long and gradual road ”ultimate extinction” (216). He believed it to be “evil” thus “implying that free southerners were evil for defending it”(275). Lincoln wanted to wipe out slavery for good and the South could sense his secret motives. By trying to trick them, the South rebelled as soon as Lincoln became president and launched what is today known as the Civil war.