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Slavery: The Most Important Cause Of The Civil War

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The Civil War was necessary to resolve the escalating tensions between Northerners and Southerners regarding slavery. To Southerners, slavery was essential to their agricultural economy and way of life. The North was industrialized and did not need slavery to support their economy. Since the regions had different views on slavery, compromises and fighting occurred to try to solve the issues which slavery brought up. Tensions over slavery began to grow when the country started expanding West because the North and the South wanted their personal beliefs to be spread West. However, nothing worked to ease the tensions and the Civil War unfolded.Therefore, the most important cause of the Civil War was Westward expansion because it caused violence …show more content…

Additionally, popular sovereignty allowed the residents of that state to vote on if slavery will be allowed or not. To make sure the state adapted their view on slavery, settlers from throughout the country moved West. The Missouri slaveholders who moved to vote for slavery in Kansas are known as border ruffians. Border ruffians also caused many violent interactions against the antislavery settlers in the state. The clashing beliefs of proslavery and antislavery settlers resulted in such violent interactions because, “the proslavery side thought that its adherents followed the rules and saw themselves as the defenders of law and order, while they sincerely believed that those who opposed slavery were dangerous fanatics who brought anarchy to the border region”(Fuller). One extreme example of this is Bleeding Kansas, a territorial Civil War in 1856 between the proslavery and antislavery settlers. The violence between the Northern and Southern settlers was a few mere years before the Civil War was officially started. Since there was a large amount of violence due to clashing beliefs of settlers moving West, Westward expansion was a driving force in the cause of the Civil

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