The Civil War (1861 - 1865) took more American lives than any other war in history. It so divided the people of our nation that in some families brother fought against brother. It is often said that war is hell, but civil war must surely be the most brutal kind of hell, where people with so much in common - family ties, geography, history, language - become so bitterly divided that they killed each other. What causes and emotions led to this bloody battle that was responsible for a war that pitted brother against brother? To try and understand what the emotions of the North and South were before and during the Civil War we need to look at some important factors and secondary issues that eventually led to the war. The Civil War is far too large to blame on a few simple factors. Leading to the causes of the war were a number of factors, one of the largest, slavery, in the Southern States. Slavery had caused a great division in our country by the 1850's. It had a direct effect upon the economy of the South. The South, which was mainly agricultural, depended upon slave labor to run its large plantations where cotton was grown. Cotton produced most of the South's wealth. The Southern States felt it was important to preserve slavery which was their agricultural way of life and which they depended upon. The Southerners were indignant and disturbed by the threat of totally changing their economic system and they did not like being told they were morally wrong. Not only was slavery an important factor in starting the Civil War but also the Southern States had different view points on important issues such as states' rights and property rights. The number one goal of the South was the preservation of their main source of capital: cotton and slaves. At the same time, the North was turning more and more to manufacturing. The Northern States were dedicated to a more modern way of living (industrialization). The work in these factories was done mainly by immigrants. Immigrants settled in the larger cities of the North where they could find jobs. Because of this the Northern cities grew even larger. The Northerners began to believe that the slavery system was an evil institution that needed to be phased out, many Southerners perceived the industrialized North, with its factories and wage laborers, as a form of incivility.
The American Civil War is one of the biggest turning points in American history. It marks a point of major separation in beliefs from the North and the South and yet somehow ends in a major unification that is now called the United States of America. It still to date remains the bloodiest war in American history. The book “This Republic of Suffering, Death and the American Civil War” by Drew Gilpin Faust better explains the change in thought from the American people that developed from the unexpected mass loss of soldiers that devastated the American people. Throughout this review, the reader will better understand the methods and theory of this book, the sources used, the main argument of the book, the major supporting arguments, and what the author did well and what the author didn’t do well.
The book “For cause and comrades” written by James M McPherson is not one of your typical civil war books. This book is completely different than what everyone would expect, McPherson tries to explain the why of the war behind the scenes of it. He goes into great detail onto how dissects the initial reason of both sides North and South by concentrating not on battlefield tactics and leaders but what emotional and great experiences the men had to face in the battle field.
Sectionalism was the underlying cause of the Civil War. The North and South could not agree on anything which caused a lot of animosity between the North and South. The collapsing of the two party system and the rise of sectionalism started the Civil War. Every act and policy can be traced back to sectionalism. The South valued State’s Rights and always tried to use them against the North. The North tended to favor Central Government. The question of slavery was also a good example because neither side could collaborate and find the right answer. From the Tariff of 1832 to the Fugitive Slave Act neither North nor South was pleased at the same time. The Civil War was going to happen no matter what as long a sectionalism was an issue.
The Northern economy was on of industrialization, urbanization, and the embrace of new technologies, such as the use of trains for transportation, and shipping goods. Factories were built. City living, and paid labor became the way of life for much of the North. Slavery was never really a factor to the Northern economy, so non-slave owners in the North, greatly out numbered the small number of slave owners that remained.
The American Civil War was caused because of the North and South differences in economies, disagreements about abolishing slavery and whether the state or federal government had more power. These three factors played a key role in America's deadliest war. Understanding the causes of the Civil War is important because the war was one of the most important events in our nation's history. After the Civil War all men were truly created equal, it reunited the country as one, and redefined what it meant to be an
Most appalling to Northerners was that slavery did not encourage social mobility, education, or industrial expansion in a society. This was in direct conflict with northern views. The North has always been an industrious society. Ever since the Transportation Revolution of the early 19th century, the North progressed while the South stagnated. The North produced steel and iron while the South mainly produced cotton.
The North and South were forming completely different economies, and therefore completely different geographies, from one another during the period of the Industrial Revolution and right before the Civil War. The North’s economy was based mainly upon industrialization from the formation of the American System, which was producing large quantities of goods in factories. The North was becoming much more urbanized due to factories being located in cities, near the major railroad systems for transportation of the goods, along with the movement of large groups of factory workers to the cities to be closer to their jobs. With the North’s increased rate of job opportunities, many different people of different ethnic groups and classes ended up working together. This ignited the demise of the North’s social order. The South was not as rapidly urbanizing as the North, and therefore social order was still in existence; the South’s economy was based upon the production of cotton after Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin. Large cotton plantations’ production made up the bulk of America’s...
The main problem in every event leading up to the Civil War involved the issue of slavery, making slavery the main cause of the war. The initial blame for the war can be pointed at America’s founding fathers who knew slavery violated every aspect of America’s liberty, but yet they still did not prohibit slavery. If it was not the election of President Lincoln that caused South Carolina to secede from the Union, allowing other states to follow, a different event would have triggered the war, making the Civil War inevitable. All in all, the Civil War was bound to happen and it became the bloodiest war in American history.
Following the American Civil War, the whole nation was forever changed and was the result of many good and bad things. Although it was a very costly war and was So, the Civil War did define us and made us the good and the bad things we are and led to an extremely significant change because slavery was abolished once and for all and African American rights followed many years later, the Federal Government imposed more power over the states, our country was divided for a while, and it left the nation in debt due to the fact that we fought each other.
A lot of people say that the southern part of the United States is what started the war. Their stubborn ways forced the north to take action, which led to the civil war. In all reality, there was more that came into play when the civil war was in the making. States rights was one of the problems that led to the civil war, the constitution did not define who had what powers and what authority over what. Also slavery played a part because the slaves were raising up and fighting for their rights in which the south did not like and the north tried to help, only making the problem worse.
The Civil War officially began on April 12th, 1861, when Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard shot at the Union Troops currently occupying Fort Sumter. While this specific event may have marked the beginning of actual warfare, it was not the only event to spark the beginning of the Civil War in general. One of the most well-known causes of the Civil War is the conflict over slavery. The Southern states were very dependent on agriculture and the slave labor that was required to maintain healthy crops. On the other hand, the Northern states were more focused on factories and industrial work, and did not want slavery to expand as the country grew. As if this disagreement didn't cause enough tension, Southern states were seceding from the Union because they felt that the government (which at the time was run mostly by people from the North) was gaining too much power, and soon would have complete control over the Southern states. Starting with South Carolina, a total of eleven states seceded from the Union during this time period. The third cause of the Civil War was the taxes that were placed on many parts of the South. Taxes such as those placed on European goods imported to the South proved to be quite a burden for the people that lived down there, and this only further encouraged them to separate themselves from the Unio...
“War is at best barbarism….Its glory is all moonshine….War is hell. (Union General William Tecumseh Sherman) A wise quote by an even wiser man, The Civil War was agreed a “hell”. For four years (1862-1865) a war was fought between both Northern Union states and Southern Confederate states over the matter of slavery. During this time period many changes were happening in the United States; the election of an anti-slavery president, Southern states trying to secede to become their own independent country. These factors and many more including slavery were the main causes of The Civil War. To begin slavery was the main income for southern states.
The North had confidently been recognized as a manufacturing society. Labor was needed, although not necessarily slave labor. Immigration was an encouragement. Immigrants that were from European regions worked in factories, built the railroads in the North, and developed the West. Very little stayed put in the South.
There are various explanations as to who and what really caused the Civil War. It is even fair to say that sometimes morals stand in the way when deciding who really started the war. Therefore, the facts must be analyzed clearly and in depth. It is true that the north played a major role in the Civil War, however, the south would not release their strict traditional beliefs of slavery. As time progressed, slavery debates pressured the South more and more to stand by their strict beliefs. Fugitive acts, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Secession all showed how the south used brutal methods to preserve slavery. Therefore, since the popular sovereignty doctrine, the pro-slavery souths’ strict use of slavery and decisions to secede from the nation, angered the north, leading to a civil war.
The Civil War was technically caused by the secession of the Southern States, but the secession was primarily about slavery. One can infer, then, that the Civil War was indirectly, but primarily, caused by Slavery. It is important to note that just because Slavery was the primary cause of the civil war does not mean that the war was only about slavery. The war was fought for a plethora of different reasons that surrounded the creation of a new and independent nation. These reasons include states’ rights (rights to maintain and spread slavery for the most part, however a state’s right to secede appeared to be heavily contested as well), the power of federal government (something the south wanted to weaken in order to maintain slavery), and economic and cultural differences, which had the south relying more heavily on slaves to work at plantations. While these reasons