The Flames that Created a Fire across the Country: The Civil War The Revolution created the United States, but the Civil War determined what kind of nation it would be. Disputes kept building onto each other and eventually burst into a “fire” over the entire country. This would come to be known as the Civil War. The Civil War was not only fought because the North and South differed in their views on slavery, but through a combination of causes.
The Civil War was a battle of great importance to our history of the United States. On April 12th, 1861 this battle broke out between the Union States, North, and the Confederate States, such as the South. The Civil War took place all throughout the United states, and did not come to an end until the Union won the war on May 9, 1856. So, our question of “What caused the Civil War”, comes with three important answers. The three main causes of the Civil War between the North and the South were Economic, Social, and Political differences.
The Mexican-American War did not directly lead to the Civil War as much as abolitionism and the issue of slavery did. One could argue that with the Compromise of 1850, following the Mexican-American War, creating the Fugitive Slave Act and creating tension between the north and south because the north did not follow the Fugitive Slave Act, which angered the south. But the major cause of the Civil War was slavery and abolitionism, which was obvious because Abraham Lincoln, the president during this era, abolished slavery during the war while the north was winning and believed that they would win the war. This was called the Emancipation Proclamation. The Civil War is also called the “War to Make Men Free.”
Due to the fact that the South had more of an agricultural economy, the Southerners thought that the states should have the right to decide whether residents could own slaves, rather than the federal government. In 1846 a congressman from Pennsylvania named David Wilmot introduced a bill to the House of Representatives called the Wilmot Proviso. This said slavery would not be allowed in any western territory acquired from Mexico. Of course most of the politicians from the North loved the idea, while the politicians from the South did not. The Missouri Compromise on March 3, 1820 (also called the Compromise of 1820) was the first major legislative compromise that was passed to draw a line between slave and free territory.
The American Civil War was the bloodiest war fought on American soil. The Civil War was fought over whether or not slavery should be legal and continue in the U.S. Before the war was fought many compromises were made to prevent the war. One was the Compromise of 1850. The Compromise of 1850 was the most efficient way to settle the conflict of the amount of slave states and abolitionist states in the senate after the Mexican American War. The abolitionist states outnumbered the slave states in the senate.
The Civil War was a very brutal war that left hundreds of thousands dead. The Missouri Compromise started this war by placing a boundary that did not allow future slaves North of Missouri’s southern border. In 1859, John Brown, an abolitionist, tried to start a slave uprising which created tension between the South and the North. Also in 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States, which frustrated others because he was an abolitionist. An abolitionist is a person who doesn’t believe in slavery.
Abraham Lincoln caused the civil war. Abraham Lincoln was elected the 16th president on November 16, 1860. Abraham was the first republican president ever. He was born near Hodgenville, Kentucky on February 12, 1809. His family moved to Indiana when he was seven and he grew up on the frontier.
Throughout the middle of the 1800s, the unity of the United States was threatened by the possibility of traveling closer to dividing into two separate countries. Disputes between the North and South grew as they disagreed on the allowance of slavery in the United States. The North strongly believed that slavery was immoral and should be abolished, whereas, the economy of the South greatly depended on the work of slaves in the cotton industry. After many years of compromises dealing with popular sovereignty among the states, a few key events led to the inevitable disunion of the United States. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the decision in the Dred Scott case led to disunion because they resulted in disagreements between the North
The question of slavery expanding or being terminated has been a question that has been asked all throughout the antebellum period. Yet, all through that period it was never answered. Conflict between abolishing slavery which was fought for by the Northerners and preserving slavery, fought for by the Southerners has spiked as time has gone on. Though, each plan that was designed to make a compromise between the two conflicting arguments has just seemed to arouse the fighters even more. For example, The WIlmot Proviso Act was shot down by opposed Southerners, the Compromise of 1850 infuriated both argumentative sides, and the secession of South Carolina angered and feared Northerners.
Problems emerging from slavery's western development caused issues for the U.S. from the beginning. Fights arose over the westward expansion of slavery and over the position of the government in securing the attention of slave owners. Northern and Southern states started to oppose on the duties of the government in seizing and delivering runaway slaves back to their owners. Slaves remained essential to the country's economy, powering the south's plantation economy as well as giving crude materials to the Northern industrial economy. As the nation pushed westward in its quest for new land, people started wondering whether those grounds should be slave-states or free.