What Degree did Slavery Really Play in the Civil War?

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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. One of the issues leading up to the Civil War was the end of the Mexican War and popular sovereignty. With the Compromise of 1850 allowing California to be a free state and giving Utah and New Mexico the choice to decide if they wanted to be a free state or a slave state. There were many different abolitionist activities before the Civil War that could have been considered leading factors. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which forced government officials to arrest any runaway slave and increased the Underground Railroad's involvement in assisting slaves flee to Canada. The novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe was written in 1852 offering a very accurate, description of life as a slave. The mini-civil war in Kansas, better known as Bleeding Kansas was a contributing element t... ... middle of paper ... ...e slaves in the south. The Role of Women in the Early to Mid 19th Century Women took an active role in asserting their independence during the early to mid 19th century by targeting acts that threatened their family lives. Some examples of these menaces were prostitution, excessive drinking and gambling, illiteracy and even slavery. Some of the changes going on at the time were affecting family and gender roles. One such occurrence of changing social attitudes was the factory system. More women in the urban and black areas were leaving the home in search of outside work, to meet even the minimal amount of income to stay afloat. Women were also leaving the home to join reform societies such as the New York Female Moral Reform Society, which was a group dedicated to helping put a stop to such activities that were infringing on their wholesome family lives.

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