Civil War Necessity

If you had just one word to describe the Civil War, what would it be? Freedom, bloody, tragedy, these are just a few words that described one of the darkest times in our nation’s history. The American Civil War was a war fought between brothers and families. All over one issue in society at the time; slavery. This issue divided families. And often soldiers found themselves fighting against their own cousin or family member from a neighboring town or state. My goal in this paper is to discuss the causes, major battles, and the results of the American Civil War.

The Civil War is commonly known as a war that was fought over slavery but it began as a war that was fought in hopes of keeping the Union alive. The war was caused by the growing separation of the industrial north and the agricultural south brought on by the market revolution, the urbanization of the American society, the major political battles between the northern and southern delegates, the issue of slavery, and the issue of western expansion (Kelly). The effect that the Civil War had on the civilians was unforeseen and the way that the civilians, especially the women and children, reacted to this new atmosphere was unprecedented.

Ask an average American citizen why the Civil War was fought and the common reply will be that the North wanted slavery abolished; whereas the South, who relied on slavery to work their plantations did not want slavery abolished. The slavery issue might have been auxiliary, certainly vital to keeping the states from seceding, but the Civil War was not fought to end slavery. If Linc...

Whether you prefer to call it the Civil War, the War Between The states, the war for states rights, the War of Northern Aggression, or whatever you deem appropriate, the result is the same hundred of thousands of Americans, dressed in both gray and blue, paid the ultimate sacrifice fighting for a cause that they believed in.'(globalsecurity)

Yes, slavery was the cause of the Civil War, half of the country thought it was wrong, and the other half just could not let it go or continue. The war was fought overall in different places, and the monetary and property loss cannot be calculated. Arguments about the causes and consequences of the Civil War, as well as the reasons for Northern victory, will continue as long as there are historians to wield the pen ? which is, perhaps even for this bloody conflict, mightier than the sword (Oates 388). The Civil War was a great waste in terms of human life and possible accomplishment and should be considered shameful. Before its first centennial, tragedy struck a new country and altered it for an eternity. It will never be forgotten, but adversity builds strength and the United States of America is now a much stronger nation (Oates 388).

In this essay I am going to discuss the causes of the civil war and if slavery was one of the main reasons it happened. I think the civil war started because of lots of different reasons, slavery and the westward expansion being some of them, but I am going to talk about how I think slavery is definitely one of the main causes.1 In 1808 there were more than one million slaves in the United States. The number of slaves continued to increase. In some Southern states for example, South Carolina, slaves outnumbered the amount of the white population. Slavery started to come about around 1776. Slavery had been practised in British North America from early colonial days. Slavery was recognised in the thirteen colonies at the time of the Declaration of Independence.

What degree was slavery in the cause for the Civil War? A huge part, but not the only contributing factor. Slavery had always been an issues since the founding of the country in 1776 and it was a primary reason for the war but there were other contributing components. One of the causes leading to the Civil War was the invention of the Cotton Gin, by Eli Whitney. When the cotton gin was invented it helped cotton plantations successfully pull out the seeds from the cotton bolls, going from about one pound a day by a single person to 50 pounds a day. The northern states relied on the cotton from the southern states, and the southern states depended on the manufactured goods, credit and shipping from the northern states. The southern states counted on almost 4 million slaves to help with their crops and strongly needed slavery, where the northern states were not as dependent and were viewing it in the complete opposite way as the south.

The economies of the North and South were vastly different leading up to the Civil War. Money was equivalent to power in both regions. For the North, the economy was based on industry as they were more modern and self-aware. They realized that industrialization was progress and it could help rid the country of slave labor as it was wrong. The North’s population had a class system but citizens could move within the system, provided they made the money that would allow them to move up in class. The class system was not as rigid as it was in the South. By comparison, the South wanted to hold on to its economic policy. In doing so, the practice of slavery kept the social order firmly in place. The economic factors, social issues and a growing animosity between the two regions helped to induce the Civil War.

The majority of speculations regarding the causes of the American Civil War are in some relation to slavery. While slavery was a factor in the disagreements that led to the Civil War, it was not the solitary or primary cause. There were three other, larger causes that contributed more directly to the beginning of the secession of the southern states and, eventually, the start of the war. Those three causes included economic and social divergence amongst the North and South, state versus national rights, and the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott case. Each of these causes involved slavery in some way, but were not exclusively based upon slavery.

Throughout the years, many people have been taught that the reason the Civil War happened, was to abolish slavery all through the United States. Although that is true, there were more reasons why the Civil War occurred.Referencing will be done on different articles and writers to support the findings of the authors. The article “Slavery, the Constitutional, and the Origins of the Civil War” by Paul Finkelman, discusses about the North (union) and the South (confederacy) and the disagreement of the territories following the constitutional laws regarding slavery, the article explores both sides of the territories and their beliefs of how the situation of slavery should have been dealt with. The article “The Economic Origins of the Civil War” by Marc Egnal, discusses the North’s (union) and the South’s (confederacy) economic situation that could have pushed the two territories to engage in war with one another. Finally, the last article “Politics, Ideology, and the Origins of the American Civil War” by Eric Foner, focuses on the Norths (union) and Souths (confederacy) views on politics and ideas of how each territory is ran and how they have affected the North and the South. These historians supplied specific and different explanations that explained what exactly caused the United States to enter into a Civil War. With the information provided by the authors, the evidence will lead us to the answer of what caused the Civil War.