Pros And Cons Of The Civil War

604 Words2 Pages

The Civil War claimed an estimated 750,000 lives - more lives than all other American wars combined. If you adjust the statistics to represent the modern population, a comparable war today would result in the loss of 7.5 million lives. However, while the costs of the war were bloody and harsh, many historians agree that the war itself was inevitable. And, even though the nation failed to protect African American rights during the Reconstruction Era, the post-war amendments gave citizenship and promised equality to newly-freed slaves. The Civil War also resulted in the uniting of the Union, and the South was permitted from officially seceding. Ultimately, the Civil War was a negative but sadly inevitable historic event that cost thousands of lives but also industrialized and modernized the Southern states. The most significant advantage to arise as a result of the Civil War is the freeing of slaves. Some historians have argued that America could have overcome slavery peacefully without resorting to violence. This is what other nations such as Haiti have done. However, the disagreements that led to the Civil War were not present in other countries. Elsewhere, nations had collectively decided that slavery was either a moral or …show more content…

One of these proposed substitutes is the concept of Northerners paying off Southern plantation owners, asking them to free their slaves. This would solve the issue of economic upset in the South, and it would also free the slaves. This solution also would have saved thousands of American lives from being lost. However, it does not solve the original moral conundrum of slavery. Instead of restricting the slave trade, Northerners may have actually contributed to the trade by donating to the owners. With more money, what would stop slave owners from simply acquiring more slaves that had not yet been freed by the

Open Document