What Caused the Civil War free essay sample

Although slavery was one of the key issues, the causes for the war run much deeper. Besides slavery, other issues that were causes of the civil war included the differences in moral value, and the different ways the politicians interpret the constitution. First of all, the most obvious cause of the war was slavery. According to the map in document â€Å"An† all slaves and cotton were in the southern states. Slavery had already been abolished in the north years before, and every time a territory was to become a state there was a huge struggle between the pro-slavery south and the northern abolitionist. Each time peace was maintained by way of compromise. In his speech in 1858 Abraham Lincoln foretells the upcoming war by s0aying, â€Å"In my opinion, it will not end until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. A house divided against itself cannot stand† (Doc M). So, clearly this difference in human rights beliefs between the north and south was pulling them apart. We will write a custom essay sample on What Caused the Civil War or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The differences in moral standing were another cause of the war. In 1859 John Brown led a band of men into Harpers Ferry, Virginia to steal guns and start a slave uprising. Although his plan fell through, and he was caught, tried for treason, and hanged, public reaction was intense on both sides of the issue. Politically, the States were not any more united in their point of views. They each feared each other’s political goals. Expanding westwards did would not only help each side socially, and economically, but also politically. More Slave states meant there would be more Southerners will be involved in congress. But if there were more Free States, there would be more northern representation in congress. This caused continuous unrest between the two regions. Also, both the North and the South had different views on how the government should operate. The south wanted less government control, and more state freedom, while the North welcomed the central power of a government. The South viewed the election of Abraham Lincoln, as president, as a threat to slavery. After Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, the South threatened to secede from the United States that questioned â€Å"State Rights. † We’re States allowed to secede from the nation or not? To make matters worse, the South was determined to start its own nation, by electing its own president, Thomas Jefferson. It started calling for International recognition as a nation from France and Britain. The South was persistent in becoming a separate country, but the North was not about to give up the South. Eventually, the Civil War erupted. After four long years, the Union would win the War and the country would once again become united. There were many reasons why the North was able to overcome the South. Since Southern economy was agrarian, and they had very few factories, the value of manufactured goods was higher than crops by the start of the War. This made the North wealthier, helping it to produce ammunition and other warfare utilities. The South was poorer, due to the lack of money since cotton was no longer providing the income and had only a few sources for manufacturing goods. As a result they were always unequipped and could not keep up. The North had the ability to invent modern weapons while the South had to fight with older weapons. The North always had more people compared to the South who had fewer people. At war, the casualty rates were always equal, but the South suffered more because while the North could afford these loses, the South could not. The Civil War lasted longer than it was expected to. But, unfortunately, the War was inevitable due to the great gap between the North and South socially, economically and politically. In fact, due to these circumstances, if the South had won the War, the country would have probably been divided into two separate countries. As any war would have ended, the War ended with great losses to both sides. More Americans were killed in the Civil War than in all other American wars combined from the colonial period through the later phase of the Vietnam War. Apart from the number of deaths and casualties, the great loss of property and money, the country now needed to work together in order to rebuild what was lost. Emotionally, it would take long years for many people to overcome the consequences of the war. The war was followed by twelve years of Reconstruction, during which the North and South debated the uture of black Americans and fought bitter political battles. Yet, there was a good outcome of this war. Slavery came to an end as a legal institution. But the war did not bring equal rights for blacks; they still had their own war to win until those rights would be achieved. Reference Page www. en. wikipedia. org/wiki/American_Civil_War www. history. com/topics/american-civil-war www. civilwar. org/educatio n/history/faq www. shmoop. com www. americanhistory. about. com Those are the websites I used