Blog #163 – Causes of the Civil War and Inevitable-ness
There has been a lot of time and money and energy spent talking about the causes of the Civil War ever since the guns stopped firing in April 1865. And judging by the historiography, American historians have viewed the primary causes in a different light depending upon the time period in which they lived in. One of the main reasons why there has been such interest in this topic is because the war set Americans vs. Americans and was, in one way, a fight over the future of the country. Were we going to remain an agriculture-based economy (think Jefferson) as exemplified by enslavement or were we going to keep up with the times and become more industrial as seen in the Northern factories? Another issue at stake was the status of African Americans in this country – would they stay or be sent back to Africa? Would slavery and second-class citizenship be their continued status or would they share in the rights that ALL Americans are supposed to have? And how in the world would the country help get four million formerly enslaved African Americans a leg up and possibly on an equal playing field with the rest of the country?
Historians who wrote about the conflict soon after the war were usually Northerners who blamed an aggressive slave conspiracy that wanted to spread the institution all across America. Southern historians saw the conflict as a moral one in which the North instituted an unconstitutional strategy of making the South economically subservient to the North. A third group tended to blame the short-sighted politicians of the antebellum era who could not reach compromises like had been done in the past. President James Buchanan and Senator Stephen Douglas are their usual targets.
By the 1890s, a Nationalist school of history arose, sparked by America’s emergence as a world power economically and politically. One particular historian, James Ford Rhodes, wrote that slavery was the primary cause, where the South fought
the war to extend slavery and that the war was an “irrepressible conlfict”. However, he didn’t see Southern slave owners as hideous monsters and in some ways blamed the cotton gin for making slavery become more entrenched in the South. Slavery, in essence, became a burden that 1860 slaveowners had inherited and some thing that they couldn’t completely control. (Like, what…?) Nationalist historians tended to focus also more on the outcomes of the war – American industry exploded after the war, a more powerful federal government emerged, and we became an imperialist nation starting in 1893. So I guess the Nationalist historians put a positive spin on the enslavement of 4 million people, the deaths of over 750,000 Americans, and the destruction of the Southern economy…. cool story, bruh.
The next group of historians, writing in the 1920s and 30s, was called the Progressive School and was influenced by the ill social effects of run-amuck industrialism and uneven distribution of wealth in the country. Charles and Mary Beard were two of the most influential of this school, and they saw the war as a “social cataclysm” in which “the capitalists, laborers, and farmers of the North and West drove from power in the national government the planting aristocracy in the South.” This school of history focused more on the economic causes of the war instead of slavery, which fit well with some very racist historians writing at the time who portrayed the South as a land of chivalrous planters with their pathetically helpless and loyal slaves – by contrast the North were nasty, profit-driven capitalists trying to destroy the honor and tradition of the South. Essentially, the Lost Cause Myth, which we will explore in the coming weeks.
Revisionist historians, writing in the 1930s and 40s, saw the war as an insufferable evil, regardless of causes. The political leaders were to blame for not taking advantage of alternatives that could have saved the nation. They thought that the war could have been avoided, and that the politicians had deliberately set apart the North and South during 1840 – 1860 as people who were both trying to preserve their culture and way of life. James G. Randall called these politicians the “blundering generation.”
Starting in the 1960s, newer historians started reevaluating all of these previous approaches and started to synthesize them together and not focusing on just one cause. Prominent historians like Edward Ayers, Michael Holt, Eric Foner (the author of a competing APUSH textbook and an expert on Reconstruction), James McPherson, Manisha Sinha all mashed these causes together and reformulated the causes of the war together. Some focused on an ideological conflict – whether slavery or economics – that primarily caused the war. During this time, we also see more women and historians of color asking different questions than previous generations who had their own takes on the war as the academic world becomes more diversified.
I think this Venn diagram kinda shows how that maybe all of them interlock together.
Here are the 2 questions I asked you at the beginning of this unit:
- So, when you think about what primarily caused the Civil War, there is a lot to choose from. Slavery? Economics? States’ rights? Clash of cultures? Terrible politicians? Westward expansion? Which is it and why?
- Do you think the war was inevitable? If yes, at what point did it become inevitable? If you don’t believe the war was inevitable, why did the war start when it did with the bombing of Fort Sumter?
Please answer both of these questions with a minimum of 400 words total for both answers by the beginning of class on Monday, January 8.
I think the Civil War was started by a mix of many things but most of all slavery and politicians. The reason I think slavery caused it was because of the constant fighting over whether one state should be free or not. For example, the Kansas-Nebraska Act which gave the citizens the right to vote on if Kansas should be a free state or a slave state with no property requirement. This led to people with the proslavery ideal to cross the border into Kansas, also known as Ruffians, and vote for slavery to be able to be held in Kansas. Also, the Fugitive Slave Act put harsher rules on slaves and required the people in the area the slave escaped to help look even if they disagreed with slavery. I also think terrible politicians were a reason for the civil war for creating bad acts or governing the wrong way to let things get out of hand. I already mentioned how Stephen Douglas came up with the idea for the Kansas-Nebraska act which led to a massive downfall in the relationship between the North and the South. Also, Buchanan in general was just the worst president ever. Buchanan was a bystander during this whole debate over slavery and just sat there and let it happen, he also didn’t attempt to stop 7 states from seceding the Union and creating their own Union, the Confederates. Overall, slavery and terrible politicians were the reason for the Civil War.
I think this war was inevitable because of the slowly degrading relationship between the North and the South. The South wasn’t going to give up slavery anytime soon and wanted to extend it further west. The North wanted slavery to be gone or at least ban the extension of slavery into western territories. This was fought over for years politically and small rebellions by individuals or groups of people and no one was willing to budge leading to the deaths of civilians. For example, John Brown’s attempt to start a slave revolt all across the South but getting shut down by the local militia led by Robert E. Lee. There were emergences and disappearances of some political parties leading to new leaderships and beliefs. Politicians from the North and South were fighting all the time to on decisions about certain laws and acts and how they should be solved, it even led to someone getting hit in the head by a cane. Overall, the Civil War was inevitable and was always going to happen due to the North and the South not being able to agree on any decisions.
So, when you think about what primarily caused the Civil War, there is a lot to choose from. Slavery? Economics? States’ rights? Clash of cultures? Terrible politicians? Westward expansion? Which is it and why?
The various causes of the civil war all worked together to bring the violent conflict about, and not one can be cited as the sole origin of the problem. However, when examining which root was the primary source of regional disagreement, slavery personally comes to mind. Slavery can be seen as the basis for every major and minor discord between the regions, and each important event leading up to the war dealt with it in some way. For example, while formed due to Douglas’ desire for westward expansion through a transcontinental railroad, the differing reactions to the Kansas-Nebraska act had mainly to do with slavery, sparking violent responses from both sides and leading to the title “Bleeding Kansas”. One such act of violence was John Brown’s murder of five proslavery citizens in Pottawatomie Creek, which sparked varying replies from either section of the nation. In fact, John Brown would later go on to conduct a raid of the Harper’s Ferry armory in an attempt to instigate a slave revolt, but failed and was hanged for his crimes. A radical abolitionist, Brown’s focus was solely on freeing as many enslaved people as possible and providing them with the means to take violent action on their slaveholders and those of others. While the Dred Scott case tied into slavery’s westward expansion and individual constitutional rights, the basis was clearly slavery itself, as seen in the very nature of the lawsuit. Even Lincoln’s election, though he ran on other Northern platforms such as tariffs to protect industry, angered the South because of his bold antislavery stance, which was viewed as a threat. In fact, most of the other causes ties into slavery in some way or another. The clash of cultures between the North and South was mostly based around whether or not people believed slavery was wrong, the South’s agricultural economy was fully reliant on slavery, and debates around westward expansion went hand in hand with the spreading of the practice. Politicians were focused on and elected based on slavery as well, with their competence often being judged by the public through the firmness of their beliefs on the subject and their ability to subdue or somewhat solve regional disputes concerning it. All in all, though a case can be made for the other roots of the Civil War, slavery makes the most consistent appearances throughout the events leading up to secession and outright conflict.
Do you think the war was inevitable? If yes, at what point did it become inevitable? If you don’t believe the war was inevitable, why did the war start when it did with the bombing of Fort Sumter?
When looking at the events spanning the century leading up to the Civil War, and even the nature of the United States before, it seems clear to me that the war was completely inevitable. From the very birth of the country itself, slavery was an institution already ingrained in the minds of white American citizens, going all the way back to 1619. At first an institution spread throughout the country, it soon became greatly reduced in the North due to industrialization, therefore there was a lessened need to keep the practice around. As the Northern states became free, it became necessary to balance the number of free and slave states in order to ease the mind of Northerners and Southerners alike. The Missouri Compromise was an important measure taken to preserve such balance, keeping the peace between regions for three decades. However, even Thomas Jefferson recognized that the slavery issue would not be so easily dismissed, and it would come back to haunt the United States in the future. In the decades leading up to the 1850s, abolitionist numbers were on the rise along with other reform movements, and slave revolts angered the South. As the late 40s and early 50s rolled around, conspiracies and hostility between the North and South were at an all time high compared to earlier decades. From the start, the South was highly suspicious of the North’s intentions in restricting slavery, and, with the help of influential antislavery literature such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, many Northerners began to view Southern slaveholders as cruel and barbaric, calling for abolition and restriction in western territories. However, attempts at peaceful resolution, such as the Compromise of 1850, were still made, though the stricter Fugitive Slave Law was a source of disapproval for Northerners. Tensions peaked in 1854 with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the first large push and main turning point towards outright war. The Act completely disregarded the Missouri Compromise, the delicate thread that had bound the nation together for years. A small-scale foreshadowing of the war could be seen in “Bleeding Kansas”, where disputes over the state’s free or slave status turned horrifically violent. A main perpetrator of violence on the antislavery side, John Brown, even went on to stage a raid of the Harper’s Ferry armory, garnering increased fury from the South and accolades from antislavery Northerners. At this point in time, the path to nationwide violence had long been paved, and the outcome of the Dred Scott did nothing to settle matters. The Supreme Court ruled that, as the enslaved were “property”, and citizens could not be deprived of property without due process, all compromises and laws made to restrict slavery in certain areas of the nation were void, and anyone could be a slaveowner in any territory, appalling Northerners. The situation was beyond irreversible at this stage, but the final straw for the South was the election of Abraham Lincoln. Taking note of his strong views against slavery and ability to win the presidency without a single electoral vote from the South, threatened Southerners, starting with South Carolina, voted to secede from the Union. They believed that Lincoln would let them go as Buchanan might have, unaware that their secession would lead to the bloodiest war in American history. In conclusion, ever since slavery became a point of sectional debate, some sort of conflict was bound to occur, but the Kansas-Nebraska Act was the main marker of inevitability.
The primary cause of the Civil War is slavery because all other causes relate back to slavery. For example, the reason why states’ rights could be considered a cause of the Civil War is because some states wanted the right to have slaves. The same is true for economics, as the economy was divided between northern manufacturing and southern agriculture, which used slave labor. Laws regarding slavery were also the main cause of the tensions that led to the Civil War, specifically the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which drew the North and South apart by requiring that enslaved people who escaped to the North had to be returned to the South, and that people who tried to assist enslaved people who were running away would face fines. Additionally, the Dred Scott decision is an example of slavery being the primary cause of the Civil War. This Supreme Court decision said that, among other things, slavery can not be restricted in territories because that would deny people of property without due process. This ruling made the Missouri Compromise and other laws regarding slavery in territories unconstitutional. Overall, laws focused on the legality of slavery helped to make sectional differences even more prominent, and that, along with the ongoing debate about slavery from a moral and religious standpoint, caused the Civil War.
The Civil War was inevitable. The turning point that made it unavoidable was the Harper’s Ferry raid, since that event not only led southerners to believe that northern abolitionists wanted to destroy all slavery in the South and ruin the southern economy, but it also helped form the southern militia that would become the Confederate Army. John Brown’s raid instilled fear in Americans living in the slave states, so they bought more guns and ammunition as they formed stronger militias so that they were prepared to defeat abolitionists in case another raid happened again. Eventually, when the South seceded from the Union, they did not have the force of the United States Military, but they did have their own militias which were well equipped to fight the North and become the Confederate Army. After John Brown’s raid, the Civil War was clearly going to eventually happen, since tensions between the North and South were so high and both sides had enough weapons to be able to fight each other. Another event that directly led to the Civil War was the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which intensified disagreements over slavery. The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, since Kansas would not have been allowed to be a slave state by the law of the Missouri Compromise, but it was able to be a slave state under the popular sovereignty of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This upset many people, especially northerners, so the Republican Party was formed as a direct response to this act. The Republican party was typically a northern party that opposed slavery, and it was the party in power during the Civil War. The Kansas-Nebraska act made the Civil War inevitable by bringing up debates about slavery that had been solved long ago during the Missouri Compromise, but became relevant again once the Missouri Compromise was no longer in effect.
1. There were definitely many causes of the Civil War, but when asked what the primary cause was, it was obviously slavery. Rather than just slavery, the war was caused by the greed Southerners had to keep slavery in place. I agree with the historian James Ford Rhodes in the sense that the cotton gin had an immense impact on how slavery grew, but I of course disagree from absolving all blame from Southerners. The cotton gin allowed for cotton sales to skyrocket, and in order to sell cotton you needed people to farm that cotten, so Southerners turned to slavery to gain their wealth. Cotton just kept growing and entrenching slavery further into society. Slavery made the southerners so rich, they were too greedy to abolish it. Slavery is clearly the primary cause of the Civil War because every main event that happened leading up to it, was because of slavery. Slavery was the cause of the sectional divide in the first place. Regardless of the causes, the Civil War was an integral part of U.S history and helped the nation learn from nationwide divides.
2. I believe a civil war was inevitable, but I don’t believe the Civil War we experienced was destined to happen. On one hand, I think by the time slavery caused a sectional divide, I think the chance for compromise was most likely gone. Both the North and the South were so buried in their beliefs that I don’t think they ever would have been able to peacefully resolve their differences in their beliefs. The only way either side would surrender was by force. On the other hand, a war might have been inevitable when slavery became a more permanent institution in the first place. The Civil War might not have happened how it did, it’s possible that both sides would have reached a compromise for however many years. Both sides could be temporarily happy while slavery still existed. But people who knew slavery was wrong wouldn’t disappear. Abolitionist voices would rise again and call for a change. Some people would realize slavery was morally wrong while some wouldn’t entertain the idea of abolishing it. Maybe, someone like John Brown would integrate an abolitionist attack, or inspire a slave revolt. Maybe enslaved people would revolt on their own. Whatever happened, eventually a war would break out over these ideas. I think slavery itself was so polarizing and so morally wrong, the only solution would come from bloodshed. Certain things like idiotic leaders were the reason the Civil War happened when and why it did and when the South bombed Fort Sumter, the North took it as a sign fighting had truly begun. But even if the events hadn’t happened like this, some war at some point was, how I understand it, the only solution to the issue of slavery.
I think that the primary cause of the Civil War was Slavery. As we’ve learned in class through power points and articles, the Civil War started when there were disagreements about the expansion of slavery. The South wanted their empire of free labor to grow in the American economy as Americans expanded westward. The North wanted to stop the spread of slavery into new states and territories but not quite get rid of it as a whole. They wanted to stop the spread first because they viewed slavery as morally wrong. I think the Civil War also had to do with AMericans moving westward. The Southern people were moving Westward and wanted to make more territories slave territories. The Northern people also wanted to expand their economy westward but did not want slavery to expand with it. Both groups tried to send many people so that the popular vote would be in their favor if that group had the most people. Slavery was ultimately the biggest controversy between the North and South so this is why I believe it was the primary cause.
I do believe that the Civil war was inevitable. I think this because when you have a controversy of any kind, and this was a huge controversy of North vs. South in America, you’re going to have to solve it someway. Sense America started building its government and its self as a country when they gained freedom from Britain, the Atlantic Slave trade took off and the south started buying slaves to work on their farm land. For years this had been a southern custom and the south was not planning on stopping it any time soon. The North however was not a fan of their free labor down in the south, but they were not as innocent as they may have seemed. The North bought southern products that were produced by slaves but still said that slavery was immoral and should stop. Another reason that the was was inevitable is because slavery was such a big disagreement and a war felt like the only way to solve it. Neither side ore party was willing to change their views for the other or accept defeat. The north often crap talked of slaveholders and people in the south, and southerners found this threatening. They thought northerners were not only disrespecting them owning slaves, but disrespecting their way of life in all things that they do in the south. For these reasons above, this is why I think that the civil war was inevitable.
1. I think the best and most obvious answer for what was the cause of the Civil War is slavery. Throughout the history of the United States prior to the Civil War, there have been differences between the North and the South, and at the center of it all was slavery. I think that slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War because the institution of slavery has always been a key part of the South. The South’s plantations, whether it was tobacco or cotton, had kept most of the United States’ companies, like clothing, afloat, and these were for the most part run by slaves. But as we know, many people disagreed with the practices of slavery, and most of them were from the North. This became increasingly more intense, where the United States began to split more into 2 parts, the North and the South. Slavery impacted the North and South the most, which is why it was the cause of the Civil War.
2. I think that the war was inevitable, and that there are multiple instances where there was no return, but I think the most important ones were the Wilmot proviso and the Kansas-Nebraska act. First of all, the Wilmot Proviso was a bill to forbid slavery in any of the new territories that the United States gained from Mexico. This eventually passed the House twice, but failed in the Senate. This bill reopened the argument of slavery and sectional differences because many northerners saw the Mexican War as a plot for the South to extend its power of slavery. Secondly, the Kansas-Nebraska act was incredibly influential in the causes of the Civil War. The Kansas-Nebraska act was originally just a means to appease the South so that Stephen Douglas could build railroads and promote western settlement. To appeal to the South, the bill would divide Nebraska into both Nebraska & Kentucky, and both states’ place on slavery would be determined by popular sovereignty. However, since the territory was north of the 36 30 line determined by the Missouri Compromise, the Slave states could expand past the original limit. Northerners called it a “surrender to slave power” and the bill was passed in 1854. This was seen as an act for the South, since now they could expand slavery past the Missouri Compromise. This upset the North incredibly, but they would still have a chance to gain a free state, so many northerners and already existing northerners in Kentucky came to vote against slavery in popular sovereignty. But pro slavery Missourians had the same idea, and fighting broke out. Although I think that the Kansas-Nebraska act was the point of inevitability for the Civil War, I also think that the fighting is what secured that place in separating the United States in two. This fighting grew into attacks and raids from both sides, and eventually led to the Civil War.
Slavery is most definitely the leading cause of the civil war. Starting off the economic differences all revolve around the use of slaves and their products, the states rights in question were of course slavery and the majority of the differences in the north and south, centered on the use of slavery. Furthermore, Slavery was being fiercely argued over in congress and even violently fought over before the war in Kansas. In short slavery caused the two halves of the nation to split apart because they had completely opposite views on slavery which both sides tried to force upon the other, resulting in a lot of tension. Both sides fought for control over the land so that they could decide whether it could contain the stain of humanity that slavery is, within its borders or to refuse to harbor such evil. The argument over slavery got so bad that the structural integrity of the united states government was comprised entirely, in congress a man had nearly killed another over his views on slavery and personal attacks and president Buchanon watched idly as kansas ripped itself apart over slavery so overall, slavery was the main factor that triggered the war.
The war was inevitable and it became so during the election of president lincoln. To begin, the splitting between northern and southern democrat in that election was a huge red flag as well as the fact that The republican Party was entirely a northern facet and the president wasn’t on a single southern ballet and still won the election. To be fair, If I was in the south and I realized that my vote didn’t matter I would be upset too. In the time before the election of Lincoln, tension had been brewing over the Kansas Nebraska act and of course the overall debate over slavery and the Election was the little tipping point at the top of the mountain of conflict that triggered the downward spiral into war, seeing as less than 6 weeks after Lincoln was elected states were already seceding which meant that war was sure to come. Furthermore, the political instability in the election like the splitting of the democratic party, the fact that a party existed solely to preserve the union and the recent death of the whig party all are indicators of major conflict. The political turmoil slightly before and during Lincoln’s election, not to mention just after, clearly point to the Election as a point of no return where war became, unfortunately, inevitable.
In my opinion, the primary cause of the US Civil War was slavery. Slavery was the major reason for the conflicts between the North and South. For example, on deciding if a state should be a free state or a slave state or how far slavery could possibly extend and through what avenues. The South’s economy, which heavily relied on slavery, was scared of potential abolition while the North was scared of the expansion of slavery and fear over the fragile balance of power between free and slave states. This all goes back to slavery, and it all climaxed with the presidential election of 1860, which elected Abraham Lincoln as president of the US. The South threatened that if Abraham Lincoln was elected that, they would secede from the union. Why were Southern slave states so scared of Abraham Lincoln? The reason is, once again, slavery. Abraham Lincoln was not even an abolitionist, yet his hostility to slavery was enough to push the South to secede from the Union and start the Civil War. This showcases the importance of slavery to the Civil War. It was so important that the South did not even need the election of an abolitionist to cause them to secede from the union. The importance of slavery to the South was because it was the driver of their economies. So once Abraham Lincoln became president, they became very fearful even if he was not explicitly for abolition. Just the fact that he was openly hostile towards slavery made them scared because their economies ran on slavery, and a president who was opposed to slavery could potentially hurt their economies. This fear fueled secession and then culminated into a full-blown civil war. I think this shows how big of a deal slavery really was. The union was in such a fragile state that the South did not even need an explicit abolitionist to become president to secede from the union. The Southern economy heavily relied on slavery to the point where just the hostility Lincoln had for it, even without an outright abolitionist stance, was able to finally cause the South to secede from the Union and start the Civil War. To conclude, in my opinion, slavery was the most important factor that started the Civil War because of the importance of slavery to the Southern economy and the fear that the South had of hostility towards it, which was realized with the election of Abraham Lincoln as the president of the US.
I believe that the Civil War was not inevitable. In my opinion, the Civil War started with the bombing of Fort Sumter because, prior to the bombing, the Confederacy seceded from the Union and then demanded that Union forces leave the fort. The Union forces refused to leave, which caused the bombardment of the fort on April 12, 1861, which marked the beginning of the Civil War. The fort was a federal military installation held by Union forces in Confederate territory, which the Confederacy wanted to reclaim. To add more context, Fort Sumter is located in South Carolina, which seceded in December 1860. Efforts to peacefully resolve the issue failed, and when Abraham Lincoln sent supplies to Fort Sumter, the Confederates viewed this as an act of aggression by Abraham Lincoln, which led to the bombardment of the fort and the Civil War. I also think the broader context of the election of Abraham Lincoln was a big reason for why the war started with the bombing of Fort Sumter. Lincoln’s antislavery stance first led to the secession of South Carolina, which was followed up by several Southern states. If the election of 1860 had led to the election of a president who was not hostile to slavery, the Civil War would not have started like it did with the bombing of Fort Sumter. I believe that the anti-slavery stance of Lincoln, even if he wasn’t an abolitionist, elicited a strong response from several Southern states, leading to secession and then finally leading to the delivery of supplies to Fort Sumter and bombardment, which led to the Civil War. If Lincoln was not elected and instead a president who was not hostile to slavery won, it would have not led to the secession by several Southern states and the bombing of Fort Sumter, which led to the Civil War. Pointing out the circumstances is important. The Union was in a fragile state with the balance of slave states and free states, which completely came down with the election of Abraham Lincoln. Even if he wanted the Union to not be preserved and the Civil War to be avoided as his number one priority, his anti-slavery stance pushed the South to secession and laid the groundwork for the beginning of the Civil War even if he was not quite an abolitionist his hostility towards slavery was not welcomed by Southern states who’s economies heavily relied on slavery and viewed the hostility towards slavery as a threat to slavery which culminated in the bombardment of Fort Sumter and beginning of the Civil War. This shows that the secession of several Southern states, starting with South Carolina, was dependent upon Lincon’s anti-slavery stance. If this stance did not exist the South would not have a reason to secede from the Union. This would have avoided the bombardment of Fort Sumter and the Civil War with the Union remaining but in a fragile power balance. To conclude, the war started with the bombing of Fort Sumter because of Lincoln’s hostility towards slavery, which first led to the secession of South Carolina, which was then followed by other Southern states. This secession caused Confederate forces to demand that Union forces leave Fort Sumter, and when they refused, the Civil War began.
The primary cause of the Civil War was economics. To start, the North and South were economically opposites. The North was emerging as more industrial based and was not reliant on slaves for labor. On the other hand, the South was mostly an agricultural economy. Not everyone was a rich plantation owner in the South, but the most popular job was some sort of farming. The big plantations in the South used slave labor in high numbers to run the plantations. The rich owners of the farms got their money from forcing their slaves to harsh labor around the plantation. Most farmers in the South had under 100 slaves, but there were also small farmers with just a few slaves in their ownership. The poor farmers in the South who had no slaves usually supported slavery in hopes that one day they could have slaves themselves. The reason why most people in the South wanted slaves was because of money. The more slaves a person owned in the South, the more money they made, and the less work they had to do themselves. The opposition to slavery in the North mostly came from northerners being jealous of southerners making so much money. Northerners didn’t like that they had to mostly work hard earning wages, when southern plantation owners could sit around and watch their slaves make money for them. The motive behind slavery was money because if plantations with slaves didn’t make an absurd amount of money, it wouldn’t have been so popular in the South. The motive of money in America before the Civil War fueled the North and South to continue to separate economically until it finally pushed the breakup of the United States into two separate entities.
Yes, the Civil War was inevitable. It became inevitable when South Carolina seceded from the Union in December of 1860. South Carolina’s succession from the union was the point in the North v. South conflict when the South showed how serious they were. Southern secessionists claimed that if Lincoln was elected, they would leave the union. Most people didn’t know if that was a real threat until South Carolina left the union. Following South Carolina to leave the union were Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Once these states left and created the Confederate States of America, there was no turning back. Everything that happened before South Carolina seceded was less definitive on whether the war would be inevitable. The message that was sent when South Carolina left was the South was willing to go to war. Once South Carolina left the Union, they were followed by many other southern states, which put the conflict over the point of no return. The only way to solve the conflict after South Carolina seceded from the Union was a war.
1.I think that slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War because it was one of the first things that began tearing apart the country. The different views from the North and the South were represented through their economy, their government, as well as their governments’ take on slavery. It also began with the North and the South having separate thoughts which further lead to sectionalism. I think that the war began because of a combination of all these things, but I think that many were caused by slavery. For example, the southern economy heavily relied on slavery, so when the North began to threaten slavery, they worried about their economy crashing. Slavery was also a part of states rights because the states did not want to give up their rights to own slaves, therefore they wanted their own government. A big lead up to the Civil War was Bleeding Kansas, which was caused by the Kansas- Nebraska act. This proved that the North and the South were prepared to fight over the issue of slavery when Kansas was put under a pro slavery government by Fraud. The issue of slavery led to many conflicts between the North and the South, but Bleeding Kansas was one of the most known.
2.I do think that the war was inevitable. I think that due to the extremely different mindsets that citizens in the North vs the South made it bound for the war to occur. The South thought that slavery was backed up by the constitution, and that therefore they should be allowed to own slaves, but on the other hand, the Northerners thought that it was morally wrong to hold slaves and backed themselves with religion. I think that the war was caused by the built up anger citizens gained from many different issues. Therefore, despite when the war happened, eventually the anger would become too much to handle, and fighting would begin. I also believe that if the war did not occur, the divide between the North and South would just have continued to get larger and larger. I think that the war became inevitable when John Brown raided Harper’s Ferry in 1859. When John Brown conducted his raid, the southerners became more fearful of the abolitionists and to what extent they would go to stop slavery. This raid in the southerners’ view also confirmed their conspiracy that the northerners were trying to get the slaves to revolt and that the north wanted to destroy the south. Therefore, the people of the south worried that they were already being attacked, and that they needed to fight back in order to keep their beliefs.
Looking at the timeline of how the American Civil War came to existence, we can identify multiple different reasons for it. First of all, I think the system of the US since the beginning being organized in states allowed for a lot more freedom and allowed for some states to allow for example slavery or secession. This freedom of states created a huge difference between the regions, especially North and South, regarding big issues like slavery. On another side, is the political aspect that was shown especially through the creation of the Republican party and Lincoln’s election in 1860, which caused secession and Civil War directly. The Westward expansion is often also seen as an issue, but I think it was handled pretty well until the Kansa-Nebraska brought huge issues around slavery. Of course, I would say the main cause of the Civil War is slavery and arguments around it, since the purpose of the war was to free the slaves (at least from a Northern perspective). Overall, all these events and actions by different people all came together to develop a huge tension between North and South, leading to the Civil War.
I think from the point in history that slaves were brought to Jamestown in 1619, and that there were no written rules prohibiting it, the Nation was already doomed and would have everlasting problems and arguments over the issue. The fact that most people knew it to be morally wrong showed a major issue and preceded conflicts lasting for centuries. Another issue in the governing around this is the number of Compromises that were put in place. I personally only see the Compromises as a way to push back the War for a bit, hoping it won’t happen, and instead of fully fixing the conflict, just delaying it. Tying into this, I think that if the conflict was fixed from the start, it would have been harder to get rid of than when it was fully established and became the centerpiece of the South’s economy. For this, it became a huge debate and basically impossible to just get rid of slavery immediately, because that would mean sending the whole South part of the country to ruins. They were therefore forced to push for a gradual emancipation of slavery, but such an act would be extremely hard because of the South’s radical position to keep it, even if it meant secession.
1. I believe that the main cause of the civil war was the expansion of slavery. If not for slavery, the civil war might not have happened (despite other issues like states rights, cultures, or bad politicians). If any of the other issues had been eliminated, it’s likely the civil war would’ve still happened due to slavery’s expansion. Every Confederate state’s justification of secession centered around slavery – proof that it was the main reason the south separated in the first place.
The other contender for the main cause is states rights, but those had been resolved in the past without a civil war (primarily through SCOTUS decisions), so if that had been the sole issue, it would’ve likely ended in supreme court decisions or amendments — not war. For ‘clash of cultures,’ I’d argue that the main cultural difference between the north and south comes back to slavery: the north was developing a capitalist industrial economy while the south had an agricultural economy dependent on slave labor. For terrible politicians, there’s been other instances in history when the US has had terrible politicians, and hasn’t really resulted in conflict. While they may have exacerbated the situation, I think that even a good politician wouldn’t have been able to prevent the war.
However, I think that westward expansion is part of the main cause. Many northerners (including Lincoln) would allow slavery in the places where it already existed, but they simply had issue with its expansion. Also, slavery’s expansion prompted some of the most controversial acts like the KS-NB act (without which the Republican party may never have been formed). Thus, the expansion of slavery is the main cause of the civil war.
2. I think that the civil war was inevitable after the election of 1860. It was this pivotal moment that prompted the states to secede and cemented the idea that the south had lost political influence. It was the “final nail in the coffin of secession.” All attempts at compromise afterwards failed (such as the Crittenden compromise), and the country was on the road to war. Also, Breckenridge’s success throughout the south was indicative of their will to secede. Since Lincoln won (and he cared about preserving the union) war became inevitable. Also, if the democratic party had stayed united, it’s very possible that their candidate would’ve won, and maybe led to the continuation of popular sovereignty or a non-war outcome.
Q1: When we examine all of these possible causes of the Civil War, we can find that most of them were only problems in the first place because of the way slavery affected them. Therefore it is fair to say that slavery was the primary cause of the war. The complicated implications of slavery on the country was what made the doughface politicians weak to do anything strictly in the direction of emancipation. If they had, the South would have seceded. Then they did! As soon as Lincoln was elected and things started to not go their way anymore. The main goal of the country at the time was to stay a union. Anytime a politician had done anything in the way of compromise, it just made the situation worse. With Steven Douglas and popular sovereignty, it caused Kansas to become “bleeding Kansas”. Or when the Dred Scott case came out and the ruling was that every anti slavery legislation was unconstitutional. The states rights were called into question because of slavery. Without slavery there were rights being called into question, the only rights that were being debated were those that allowed white Southerners to own slaves. Slavery was the main division between the North and the South. Other divisions such as agriculture vs. industrialization weren’t a problem because agriculture fed the North’s factories. It only became an issue as the Northerners learned how awful and evil slavery was. It’s a very similar thing with Westward expansion. No one had a problem with it while gaining the land. During the Mexican war, the US was fine and united. Then after we won the land the question of whether slaves were allowed or not arose immediately in Texas. Slavery was at the forefront of everyone’s minds before, during, and after the Civil War. If not for slavery, it wouldn’t have even happened.
Q2: The war was inevitable. It became inevitable after the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The act had thrown all compromises out the window, which were what had previously kept fighting from erupting in the US. Popular sovereignty was poorly applied to the country, therefore causing “bleeding Kansas” because it had no residency clause. Which meant that settlers from all over could cram into Kansas to influence the vote for slavery. Which in the end, led to John Brown’s escapades. Which in turn further divided the North and the South. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was also the point in which the Republican party came into fruition, which is how Lincoln got elected and caused the South to secede. So in short, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was the first domino in the trail that led to the Civil War.
On the first question, the primary cause of the Civil War was slavery because you can’t talk about any other reason without mentioning slavery. Economics, states rights, clash of cultures, terrible political blunders, and westward expansion all ultimately correlate to slavery. The Panic of 1857 is the best example of how economics tied to slavery led to secession. The Panic of 1857 only majorly affected the North and West’s economy. It gave Southerners a false sense of pride and proof that cotton was king and that their “peculiar institution” worked regardless of what the North said. The South, especially South Carolina, had always been particularly rebellious to the federal government’s laws. Possibly taking inspiration from New England in 1814, they threatened to secede if forced to pay a tariff under Andrew Jackson. This would lead South Carolina to whenever their rights were threatened, threaten back with secession. When they felt slavery was on the line though, they did secede even though President Lincoln assured them slavery would stay where it is. As for the clash of cultures, this starts from and evolves from the founding of the colonies but the catalyst was most certainly the second great awakening. This is the point where the civil war became inevitable. The North and South also argued that the other’s forms of labor were inhumane. While the North used “wage slaves” the South used real slaves which they argued felt more familiar bonds with their masters than the capitalistic greedy northern businessmen had with their workers. The South argued that Northerners were hypocrites because while they condemned the South’s inhumane practices, they, as the South believed, benefited the most when their slaves benefited. They believed by this reasoning that they treated their slaves better than the North treated their workers. Terrible political blunders like the Dred Scott case, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and arguably the compromise of 1850 doomed the nation from the moment they passed. The Dred Scott case led to the breakup of the Dems as Stephen A Douglass had to reconcile the Dred Scott case with popular sovereignty. His response lost Southern support. The Kansas- Nebraska Act led to the formation of the republican party which elected Lincoln in 1860. The Compromise of 1850 prolonged the civil war by a decade but did not do anything to prevent it. It increased the North’s political power and rendered the South useless in an election. All these were political blunders used to try and resolve the issue of slavery. Westward expansion can’t be talked about without talking about slavery and power. The potential for more land to expand each side’s influence and reach caused turmoil within Congress and politics. Overall slavery, and especially the role it played in the U.S., led to the Civil War.
The Civil War became inevitable from the Second Great Awakening, and not for the reason you think. The Second Great Awakening and the preachers of the movement lay a knife over the threads that held us together, united in slavery, and started working away at it. The second great awakening was an extension of the white savior idea which eventually evolved to be more genuine and then clashed head-to-head with the evil forces of slavery. With the second great awakening, people in this nation started looking around them and realizing that society had many ills that they in GOD’s name had to solve. The people in charge of these reform movements felt that they were obligated to solve all the problems around them. To solve the ills of the drunkard, to solve the ills of the mentally ill, to solve the ills of the imprisoned, to solve the problem of the African American was the white man’s purpose. Note I did not mention women’s rights because that movement’s foundation was laid when white men excluded them from everything, including other reform movements. This specific fact supports the idea that white men believed that as white men, they had to solve the ills of everybody else because everybody else was incapable of campaigning for themselves. White men laid the cage to oppress every other group, hid the key for a while while everyone forgot who originally set the cage, and came out with a key to solve everyone’s problems hundreds of years later. They believed that this made them, in the caged’s eyes, as the liberator. Now the “ex-oppressed” see them as great when they wouldn’t have before caged. The White man’s ego was lifted, but that’s another blog in itself. Anyway, the reform movements worked everywhere in the North but in the South. Let’s get it out of the way. The South was racist and they enslaved Africans. They had such hate for them that they chose and preferred to keep them caged in oppression. The South and really the whole nation, in the beginning, feared the release of the oppressed. In the time in that cage, all the hatred and emotion felt towards the malevolent people who laid the cage compiled and multiplied. Rightfully so. And the South realized this. The North now came along and for underlyingly racist, and in the South’s view, ignorant reasons that would doom them all, wanted to release a seemingly passive, energy from oppression. However, most northerners wanted to free African Americans for racist and political reasons but not be anywhere near them. The northern goal was simple, be the “good guy”, who represented the U.S. in the campaign for “expansion of freedom”, another inherently racist and nationalistic notion. The West was seen as the land of opportunity for the northern whites. not caring at all what happened to African Americans or the South because they were more racist and oppressive than them. Then the struggle began, fighting over the key to African Americans’ freedom and future. North vs South, anti-slavery vs pro-slavery, Wilmot proviso vs. anti-Wilmot proviso. It is key to note that there were people who actually cared for African Americans and their well-being and this developed later as we got closer to the Civil War. Some American people got rid of their racist reasons for freedom. The majority, however, saw freedom as a chance to expand their political power. Every other nation in America banished slavery when they got independence from their European oppressors. The U.S. was the only backward nation left behind. This contradicted and challenged northerners’ view that whites were intellectually and morally superior to everyone else. The catalyst for the Civil War was the second great awakening because the northern white reformers looked around the country and resolved themselves to solve the social ills of the South. Leaving Southern slavery alone was a way to avoid Civil War but the evil of slavery had to be fought at some point.
I believe slavery was the primary issue that caused the Civil War. Slavery started to divide the North and South as they started separating ideas about the issue. I believe it started to get intense when the book “uncle tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe came out, showing the North all of the cruelty of slavery. Many Northerners saw that slavery was horrible and that it should no longer be an expansion and some that hated slavery (abolitionists) wanted it to end. At the same time, the Southerners viewed slavery as good and many believed that the book was not true, and they believed that the enslaved had it better and that they were happy to be enslaved. The disagreement with this was just the beginning. Going back two years was “The Compromise of 1850”. This was also one of the big things that upset the North. The Compromise of 1850 adding in the new fugitive slave law was a huge thing that upset those in the North. The South was happy about this law because it made it easier for them to get their escaped slaves back but the North wasn’t because they did not like how they were forced to help torture the enslaved blacks because they had to help find them and get them enslaved again after being freed and many already were not fans of slavery to begin with. Another thing was the Kansa-Nebraska Act because this let slavery be opened in the territories but the Missouri Compromise stopped this from happening. Once again the South was happy with popular sovereignty in the territories because that left the option of slavery open but this upset the North because they didn’t like the idea of expansionism of slavery in the territories. Next was the Dred Scott decision. The South of course was excited by this because it favored their rights as slaveowners and this upset the South because this allowed slavery in the territories also undoing the Missouri Compromise. Next was the election of 1860 since Lincoln was elected and this caused the South to secede. (7 states) All of these are ways in which slavery caused the division between the North and South leading to the Civil War.
Yes, I believe the war was inevitable. I feel like slavery made the different sections of the country separate and made each other angered each other because of their different views on the issue. The South just saw the North’s disagreement with slavery as a stab in the back to them because that was the way of their life and that is how they kept on making money etc. I think Lincoln’s election was the last straw because this made the South secede. After all, Lincoln was a Republican and they didn’t know what it would be like with him as president and were worried about the issue of slavery. I feel the Confederate states started to fight because they wanted to affirm their authority over the federal government so they could get rid of laws they did not agree with or support. Overall I feel that the war was inevitable when Lincoln was elected.
1.The Civil War wasn’t merely caused by one factor but by a variety of factors, including slavery and political blunders. First and foremost at the forefront of the war was slavery, a heated issue in the North and South, as they regarded slavery morally as different things. The South regarded slavery as a “positive good” and believed it to be an inalienable right, sanctioned by the Bible and constitution, as it was deeply entrenched in the South. While the North saw slavery as a sin and a moral evil in the United States, these conflicting views were exacerbated by political blunders and economics. For example, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, fueled by Stephen A. Douglas’ greed, was to let popular sovereignty in the Kansas and Nebraska territories decide whether slavery would be allowed in those territories, but Stephen Douglas made a fatal flaw: he didn’t set any residency requirements, allowing people from nearby states such as Missouri to pour in to sway the vote in their favor. This ultimately led to violent attacks over the issue in the territories known as “Bleeding Kanas,” causing some people to lose their lives. This only widened the division between the two ideologies, resulted in fights on the Congress floor, such as the caning of Senator Sumner, and resulted in the creation of new parties, such as the prominent Republican party that was opposed to the expansion of slavery. The division of the North and South was only exasperated by the political blunder of a decision in the Dred Scott v. Sanford case, where the judge made a ruling that allowed slavery to expand anywhere after ruling that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional and that the framers of the Constitution didn’t intend for African Americans to be citizens. This outraged the Republicans, who denounced it as “the greatest crime in the hands of the republic.” This led to some Republicans believing in a “slave power” conspiracy as a result of the timing, which divided the North and South even more. The difference in morals regarding slavery in the North and South led to some people attacking others for their beliefs, such as in John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry, where he planned to ignite insurrections in the form of slaves killing their masters. This resulted in the North and South becoming more divided, as some of the South believed that the North wanted to destroy the South through uprisings. Ultimately, the Civil War was caused by many factors, including political blunders such as the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision, that were affected by the North and South’s different views regarding slavery.
2.The war was inevitable once it reached the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The war was inevitable once it reached the Kansas-Nebraska Act because this political blunder not only led to the widening of the division between the North and the South but also led to the creation of the Republican Party, which opposed the expansion of slavery. The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, effectively allowing the expansion of slavery to any territory that was previously prohibited by the Missouri Compromise. This resulted in fierce opposition between Southerners who supported the expansion of slavery and Northerners who opposed it, which consequently directly led to conflict and fighting that escalated the divide between them, which would be known as “bleeding Kansas.” This opposition to anti-slavery directly opposed the Democrats, who upheld slavery and didn’t oppose its expansion. After the creation of the Republican Party, a party meant to directly oppose the extension of slavery into the western territories of the United States, This means that when the Republicans win, the Democrats will be fearful, as just stopping the extension of slavery wouldn’t pacify them and would still lead them to secede from the union in the face of a Republican president. As a result of a multitude of political blunders up until the 1860 election, the North and South both had a deep distrust for each other and with the result of a Republican winning the election, Abraham Lincoln, they believed that they would greatly damage the way of life and hurt the economy. So as a result, and with the addition of conspiracies such as “slave power” and “abolitionists,” the great distrust already in place within the South caused them to secede, believing that it would protect their economy and way of life. Ultimately, Stephen A. Douglas added the Nebraska bill, which led to the Civil War by creating the event known as “bleeding Kansas,” where both pro- and anti-slavery settlers came in to sway the vote, which resulted in a period of violence intensifying the debate of slavery. With the creation of the Republican Party, which opposed extensions of slavery, the South felt threatened, and when a Republican president who held moderate views on slavery, believing that it was a moral wrong but threatening to abolish it in places where it existed previously, came into power and won the presidential race, many states such as South Carolina, Alabama, and Alabama seceded. With the differences between them written in their names (confederacy and the United States), it only confirmed the divide, and when the U.S. took control at Fort Sumter and resupplied them, the South attacked to make them leave the fort, which led to the battle of Fort Sumter and the civil war.
In my opinion the primary cause of the Civil War was the massive debate over slavery. However, this problem would not be as massive if there were better politicians. Southern politicians were far too stubborn to make compromises and believed that if they did, then slavery would be doomed. If there were more reasonable and self-controlled politicians on both sides then the issue would definitely have been resolved without warfare (not saying that there wouldn’t still be extensive debate). All of the laws and acts put in place that angered so many people were because of bad politicians who made them because of the slavery debate. Its expansion was a key factor in acts like the Kansa-Nebraska and decisions like the Dred-Scott. It can be reasoned that if a republican was the high chair in the supreme court then the ruling would be otherwise, so the decision essentially represented the whole democratic party. There are too many differences between the parties that it almost feels like the situation resembles the Revolutionary War. Then an exceedingly awful president took command, and his name was James Buchanan. It was in this time period that the country needed a positive and problem solving person but instead they got the opposite.
The war was inevitable at a certain point. There were many chances for it to be prevented but a series of unfortunate events and the last straw, the election of 1860, ultimately caused the Civil war to become unstoppable. With the southern democrats feeling more isolated and their ideas more attacked, they start to feel the need to become a separate country. When Lincoln got elected, the southern democrats knew that it wouldn’t be possible for their slave ideologies to be preserved. Thus, they left the country starting with South Carolina, followed by six more states, all of which were southern. Secession could only mean one thing at this point, because the whole idea of America is that it is a unified nation that seemed impossible to break. Furthermore, the now called “Confederate States of America” were now using what used to be shared land as their own, and with the close proximity to the northern states, a separate country was just not meant to be. It’s like how fights between siblings are inevitable, yet they grew up in the same house with the same ideologies. It would be ridiculous for one sibling to live in the attic just because they don’t agree with someone else in the family, and the issue would have to be reconciled.
1. So, when you think about what primarily caused the Civil War, there is a lot to choose from. Slavery? Economics? States’ rights? Clash of cultures? Terrible politicians? Westward expansion? Which is it and why?
I personally think that the primary cause of the Civil War was slavery. Slavery was an evil engulfing America and in the process benefitting both the South and the North, but torturing and killing the African Americans. As abolitionists and anti-slavery communities popped up in the North trying to stop the expansion of slavery and sometimes even meaning to end it completely, the South felt threatened. This was their way of life and tradition, this is what they depended on for their economy to survive and flourish. They wouldn’t let the North take that from them. We can clearly see in history and during that time, whenever a new territory is to be made a state the issue of slavery always pops up over and over again and whether it is to be made a slave or free state. Slavery even made different states automatic enemies. A perfect example of that is the actual start of the Civil War which was the bombing of Fort Sumner. If slavery was nonexistent the needed supplies that were being sent to the fort would have no problem getting there, but since it was operated by federal troops, and would benefit the Union the Confederates attacked it. This would not even have happened if South Carolina never succeeded and became a part of the Confederate states. They would not have succeeded if they felt that slavery was not threatened.
2. Do you think the war was inevitable? If yes, at what point did it become inevitable? If you don’t believe the war was inevitable, why did the war start when it did with the bombing of Fort Sumter?
I think the war was inevitable, especially at the point all 11 states, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina seceded from the Union and became the Confederate States of America. It is nearly impossible for a country that was once so interconnected and interdependent on both parts (North and South) to split up abruptly and expect to live in peace. Even though the North and South were hated by one another they could not survive without one another, the majority of the North’s economy and success in industrialization depended on slavery in the South. Who would buy the crops that slavery produces if there wasn’t a manufacturing empire such as the North that needed them? How would the South survive if no one would buy the goods produced by slavery? What made everything worse was the fact that the North and South both wanted their ways of making money to be the only way in the whole country, the South wanted to expand slavery, or in other words, agriculture, and the North wanted to expand manufacturing and industrialize the U.S.
I believe that slavery and westward expansion can be seen as two of the major causes of the Civil War. When Northerners and abolitionists, as well as other anti-slavery people, began seeing slavery as evil, and spreading their ideas, tensions that were majorly regional began to form. The American economy was built on slavery, and especially the South relied on it. Once states began abolishing slavery and the country began expanding the issue came into play through politics, you can see this through how the Missouri Compromise was eventually settled so that balance between free and slave states would remain. But when the Kansas Nebraska Act replaced the Missouri Compromise, and now states were allowed to vote under popular sovereignty whether or not to allow slavery I think this is a key example of tensions being formed between the North and South. When anti and pro slavery people, who did not live there, came to these territories to vote on the state’s slave status many influential fights broke out, giving the name “Bleeding Kansas”, which can be seen as a main turning point going into the Civil War. The issue of whether or not to have slavery expand as the United States did was one of the major points of influence when looking at the Civil War because it created regional tensions and some fighting from both sides began.
I think that the Civil War was inevitable, and I think two of the main turning points are John Brown’s Raid and the election of 1860. John Brown’s raid can be seen as one of the first fights of the Civil War. Southerners viewed him as a murderer and felt scared at the thought that his ideas could spread to slaves in the south, and some northerners even viewed him as a martyr. This also shows the beginning of northern/abolitionist and southern militia’s being formed. Lastly, the election of 1860 can be seen as a clear turning point to the Civil War. Prior to the election, the Democratic party had split over the issue of slavery. Southern democrats who were pro-slavery had many times threatened to secede from the Union, and specifically threatened if Lincoln, the Republican candidate, won the election. When Lincoln won the election southern states began to secede, starting with South Carolina, and made the Confederacy. When the confederate army began the Battle of Fort Sumter the Civil War had officially begun.
So, when you think about what primarily caused the Civil War, there is a lot to choose from. Slavery? Economics? States’ rights? Clash of cultures? Terrible politicians? Westward expansion? Which is it and why?
I think that slavery was the main cause of the Civil War, because slavery is what initiated heated debates over economics, and state’s rights, and it also did not help that there were lousy politicians at that time. To start, in the South, the production of cash crops, especially cotton made up most of the economy. Around the year 1850, out of the 3.2 million slaves in the country, about 1.8 million were part of cotton production. America had also supplied two-thirds of the world’s cotton supply at this time. Abolitionist in the North threatened their economy because the abolition of slavery, even if it was gradual, would devastate their way of life and their massive cotton production. As for state’s rights, there was much debate over the Missouri Compromise, and whether or not it was constitutional regarding the Dred Scott v. Stanford case in 1857. There was also a dispute about whether Kansas should be a slave state or a free state, so much so that pro-slavery people traveled into Kansas, and made the decision fraud because they were not actually residents in Kansas. These groups also broke out in violent fights, known as “bleeding Kansas.” After the fights in bleeding Kansas broke out, politicians began fighting amongst themselves as well. Charles Sumner, who represented Massachusetts in the senate, was hit multiple times with a cane by Preston Brooks, who represented South Carolina. The incident happened after Sumner had made a speech including abolitionist ideas. Brooks took this as a personal attack, and to defend his honor, thought it appropriate to hit Sumner with his cane. The news spread, and while the North was in outrage, many Southerners condoned Brooks’s decision by sending him more canes in the mail, after he broke his while attacking Sumner. Along with this incident, there were a few Doughfaced precedents before Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860, who didn’t dare upset the South, such as James Buchanan and Franklin Peirce. The election of 1860 was also influential because Lincoln was able to win the election with just the votes from the northern states. This angered the Southern states because they realized that they did not have the political power the North had, and against the North, had little to no control over presidential elections. This, as well as the issues of slavery and abolitionists, caused the Southern states to succeed and for the Civil War to begin.
Do you think the war was inevitable? If yes, at what point did it become inevitable? If you don’t believe the war was inevitable, why did the war start when it did with the bombing of Fort Sumter?
I think the war was inevitable after Bleeding Kansas began. Before then, there was still a chance to find compromises, and slowly end slavery, but because of terrible politicians in charge at the time, the Civil War started. Bleeding Kansas started because politicians decided to leave the debate of whether it would be a slave state or not up to the public, as “popular sovereignty.” What they did not account for, was other non-residents to travel into Kansas from both the north and South to rig the votes. They were able to do this because there were no requirements on how long you had lived in Kansas, or where your residence was. Because of this, people easily lied about the votes and then went back to where they lived in other states. This angered the real residents in Kansas because the majority of them were anti-slavery but under a pro-slavery constitution. This also angered the North because the majority of illegal voters were pro-slavery and came from the South. Then the “small civil war” started in 1854, with multiple battles, mostly started by a pro-slavery group, inside the borders of Kansas. This went on until 1861 when Kansas joined the union as a free state, just a few months before the Civil War started. Another reason the Civil War broke out was because the South felt they had limited political power against the North. This was proven in the election of 1860, when Lincoln won all the northern states, and became president, without needing a single southern state to do so. The southern states were upset with this because it meant their pro-slavery beliefs were in jeopardy with a majority of politicians in the executive and representative branches being on the Republican party, as well as many being abolitionists which threatened their way of life and their economy. So because of the events at Bleeding Kansas, the Civil War became inevitable, but when Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860, this became a major turning point to the war as well because Lincoln posed a large threat to the South because of his beliefs and political power. Also because Lincoln was not a doughface as other presidents before him were, although his stance on abolition was moderate, he agreed that slavery was immoral and not right, and was not prepared to abandon that idea for the sake of the South. The bombing of Fort Sumter occurred when it did because of Lincoln’s election, and because he refused to give up the fort as his first act as president.
1)I think that slavery was the main cause of the Civil War. One of the first main policies that was put in place about slavery was the Missouri Compromise. It prohibited slavery above the 36–30′ line but allowed slavery south of it. But as more individuals began to move to the U.S., new states were created. For example, in California, there was a gold rush, and in 1849, they decided to apply for statehood. They drafted a constitution that outlawed slavery there, which infuriated the South. The 1850 Compromise was approved as a result, which stated that the government would assume Texas’s $10 million debt, that the Mexican Cession would be divided and settlers would decide on slavery by majority vote, that California would remain a free state, and that the slave trade would be outlawed in Washington, DC, but that a new Fugitive Slave Law would be created and strictly enforced. This new Fugitive Slave Act and new anti slavery books written by northerners drove a wedge between the north and the south. This was because southerners believed the north wanted to “destroy the institution of slavery.” However, this gap grew with the passing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. It divided the Nebraska territory into two (Nebraska and Kansas) and allowed the settlers in the territories to choose if they wanted to allow slavery. This act repealed the Missouri compromise, which has helped contain regional tensions and caused conflicts to erupt. For instance, slaveholders from Missouri attempted to seize control of Kansas; therefore, antislavery Northerners formed the New England Emigrant Aid Company in retaliation. This covered the cost of transporting antislavery settlers to Kansas and resulted in fights between the groups and a split within the Democratic Party. This division led to the formation of the Republican Party, which wanted to repeal both the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Fugitive Act. Another incident involving slavery occurred when John Brown’s men stole an arsenal in an attempt to arm Southern slaves in order for them to revolt and free themselves. This failed, and the South saw this as final proof of the “North’s true intentions”—using slave revolts to destroy the South. At their annual convention, where they selected their presidential delegate, a large number of delegates from the South left before the choice was made. Later on, a convention was held by these frustrated delegates. They chose John C. Breckinridge to run for president and called for the unrestricted extension of slavery throughout the territories. However, during this election, the Republican Party elected Abraham Lincoln, who supported the exclusion of slavery from the new territories. Even though Lincoln didn’t cast a majority vote, he ultimately won all of the North’s free states, which made up 59% of the electoral votes. This made the south realize that the north could win without a single vote, causing them to secede and eventually the Civil War. All in all, slavery was the main cause, as it was at the center of every presidential candidate nomination, new policies, and conflicts.
2) I believe that war was inevitable, and it became so when the Kansas-Nebraska Act was enacted because it repealed the Missouri Compromise for good. The Missouri Compromise served to control conflicts by balancing the slave states and free states. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, however, created tensions over the establishment of slavery in the new territories by leaving the slavery question up to popular sovereignty. This led to pro-slavery Missourians starting to move to Kansas and set up homesteads in order to gain control of the territory for the south. But the North wanted to keep it free, so they established the New England Emigrant Aid Company to finance the migration of antislavery settlers to Kansas. As a result of all these people moving, fighting broke out between proslavery and antislavery groups, causing the Democratic Party to become further divided between its Northern and Southern factions. This split ultimately led to the creation of the Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln being elected as president without even receiving southern votes. This infuriated the south, causing them to secede from the union, triggering the Civil War.
1. Slavery was at the heart of economic, social, and political tensions between the Northern and Southern states. The Southern economy heavily relied on agriculture, particularly large-scale plantation farming that depended on slave labor. In contrast, the Northern states were experiencing industrialization and favored a more diversified and free-labor economy. The cultural clash between the agrarian and slave-dependent South and the industrializing and free-labor North exacerbated existing tensions. The stark differences in societal structures fueled animosities between the two regions. The conflict was not only about the moral implications of slavery but also a struggle for power and control between the states. The issue of slavery became a focal point, with debates over its expansion into newly acquired territories further intensifying the divide. The Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act attempted to address these disputes but ultimately failed to prevent the inevitable conflict. The election of Abraham Lincoln, a staunch opponent of the expansion of slavery, further heightened Southern fears, prompting several Southern states to secede from the Union. The Civil War ultimately reshaped the nation and set the stage for a long and challenging process of reconstruction.
2. These diverges but forced interaction is what inevitably doomed the war. Absent contact between the two regions and a mutual agreement on isolation, the war may haven’t existed. But, this wasn’t the case for the Civil War. It reached a boiling point with the election of Abraham Lincoln as President. His victory without Southern support heightened Southern fears of perceived Northern aggression against their way of life, particularly regarding slavery. Declarations was massively influenced by the fear of control from the state, especially when your president is anti-slavery. The absence of mutual agreement on isolation and the persistent clash of ideologies exacerbated the tensions. The war might have been averted if the two regions had maintained a distance, but the political landscape, characterized by the election of Abraham Lincoln, acted as a catalyst. His presidency, marked by a stance against the expansion of slavery, heightened Southern apprehensions about perceived Northern aggression. This fear, coupled with the potential loss of control over their way of life, especially concerning slavery, prompted a cascade of secession declarations, starting with South Carolina in December 1860. The declarations were a massive response to the looming threat of increased federal intervention and a president who opposed their established practices. Through the regional conflicts and then a transfer of presidency, the civil war is safe too say that it’s inevitable.
When I think about the primary cause of the Civil War the first topic that comes to mind is slavery. I believe that slavery is the primary cause of the Civil War, but also other topics such as poor politicians, states rights, and economics had a large impact on the increasing tensions that led up to the Civil War. This is due to the fact that every, if not most conflicts that people equate with the beginning or cause of the Civil War have something to do with slavery in some form. For example, events such as John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Dred Scott Decision all were ignited due to the conflict of slavery and its legality in the United States. All three of these events can be used as examples of times when the Civil War was beginning to be inevitable and are events that could be considered a starting point in the escalation in the conflict that would end up becoming the Civil War. To add on, all three of these events were not only over slavery or caused by slavery. For example, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was based around where slavery would be considered legal, but was passed due to so many more poor politicians being in Congress at the time and was secondly based largely around states rights such as in Kansas and Nebraska. This is why I believe that slavery was the main cause of the Civil War due to how many events that are considered to be the starting point of the war being based primarily around slavery.
I do believe that the Civil War was inevitable once the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in 1854. I believe this because the Kansas-Nebraska Act completely contradicted the Missouri Compromise that had been in place for over three decades prior and seemed to be easing the tensions around the conflict. This compromise was agreed on and kept the North and South out of most conflict relating to the spread of slavery into new territories. By contradicting this and allowing popular sovereignty to decide whether or not the territories of Kansas and Nebraska would become free states or slave states Congress greatly angered the people of the North. This was due to the fact that this allowed for the possibility for states above the before agreed on 36°30’ line to allow slavery. And, the Kansas-Nebraska Act did not include any property or residency requirements for voting on whether or not to allow slavery. This led to “Bleeding Kansas”, a rigged vote, and many severe conflicts between pro and anti slavery people. It is at this point when I think that there was no preventing the Civil War and it therefore became inevitable due to the severity to which the conflict had escalated to.
1, I think the primary cause of the Civil War was discussion of slavery as a way to make money and the idea of slavery as a whole and economic differences between the North and South. The North and South had very different views on how to make money and how they based their economies. The North had a more modern, industrial way of making money where they depended on the working middle class to support their industries compared to the south which depended on Slavery and mistreating slaves to work for long hours to make money. The North had a business that could keep on improving and building on each other by making new inventions and turning that into a business by itself. The South on the other hand ran on slavery, which always was seen as bad by the north but became more criticized when abolition and anti-slavery groups started to get more popular across the states. This South way of economics left the south to be severely underdeveloped with only a small percent who were wealthy and the majority of the south being poor. The south also had very few inventions and other industries to rely on if slavery were abolished. Which shows how much misconception the south had during this time that their industries were going to last long.
2, Yes I think the war was inevitable and the point where it came insatiable was John Brown’s Harper Ferry Raid. I think John Brown’s Harper Ferry Raid made the conspiracies between the South and the North stronger and made them conspire more against each other. The South especially got very scared after the incident since they became aware just how big of a problem slavery was to the north and just how much power the people had to overthrow slavery. I think the south became very scared of what would happen if they allowed the north to take away slavery from the south. If they allowed that to happen their whole entire economic industry would crash since slavery was the main reason the south had any wealth. Since the south knew the consequences of letting the north take slavery away from them so they started to become willing to fight against the north more passionately than ever. That’s why the south started the Confederate army which became a huge deal when the actual civil war happend.
So, when you think about what primarily caused the Civil War, there is a lot to choose from. Slavery? Economics? States’ rights? Clash of cultures? Terrible politicians? Westward expansion? Which is it and why?
You could have valid arguments for why economics, states’ rights, clashes of cultures, terrible politicians, and westward expansion are all causes of the civil war. Although these causes were important, I think the slavery issues rooted most of these causes and were the primary reason for the civil war. The institution of slavery was extended to all aspects of southern society. Slavery influenced economic, political, and societal systems in the South. This dependence on slavery in all aspects, especially agriculturally with cotton, confirmed the South’s commitment and desire to preserve the slavery institution. The north, on the other hand, was more industrialized and didn’t rely on slavery. In fact, many abolitionists hated it, and anti-slavery people wanted to prevent it from expanding. These differences in labor systems and economic differences caused conflict between the two regions, both having different priorities. Politics was also immensely affected by slavery. Arguments over the extension of slavery in the new territories caused intense and resentful debates in Congress. Even the compromises that were made didn’t work and might have made things even worse. The Missouri compromise temporarily paused the tensions over slavery, but everything started to heat up again when more new territories were added. The Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas Nebraska Act were weak attempts to solve the issue, making things even worse with the hatred of the Fugitive Slave Clause and the issues with Douglas’ popular sovereignty, which totally contradicted the Missouri Compromise. State’s rights were invoked by the southern states wanting control over slavery decisions within the North. These actions by the south were a response to the North’s efforts to limit slavery and showed the broad conflicts over the role the government played in regulating slavery. Cultural clashes were also intertwined with slavery. The south clashed with the north because the south was more hierarchical and ran on slavery, while the north was industrial and had paid labor. These differences only expanded when the nation kept expanding westward with questions on whether slavery should be allowed in the new territories. Overall, slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War because its implications and differences led to economic, political, cultural, and social differences between the north and south, which led to violence over the issue.
Do you think the war was inevitable? If yes, at what point did it become inevitable? If you don’t believe the war was inevitable, why did the war start when it did with the bombing of Fort Sumter?
I think the Civil War was inevitable. The inevitability of it traces back to the differences between the two regions that spanned many decades. The economic, social, and political differences between the two regions were eventually going to have to crash into each other as long as the country wanted to become unionized. The Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850 did nothing but postpone the slavery conflict and make it worse before it got better. The compromises were nice, but little progress was made, and neither side was picked to be able to solve the issue. The Kansas Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas, the Dred Scott decision, John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry, and the election of Lincoln were the main catalysts that sparked the idea that war was necessary. I think the Kansas-Nebraska Act and Bleeding Kansas specifically were the points at which the war became inevitable. By the reaction of the people when the Missouri Compromise broke when Douglas implemented popular sovereignty, you can tell that slavery was an issue that was never going to be solved without violence. Slavery was so valued by the south and so despised by many northerners. You could see the passion of this conflict over slavery when the south fled into Kansas to try to expand it and when the north’s abolitionists published tons of propaganda and when people like John Brown took radical measures. The intense arguments over slavery were eventually going to have to settle with one side being right, and that had to be settled with a war.
1) I think the primary cause of the Civil War was slavery. The reason why I believe this is because although economics, state rights, culture, politicians, and westward expansion were huge factors for the start of the war; slavery was interconnected to all of these factors. Regarding economics, the South and North differed a lot because of slavery. In the South, it was mostly agricultural with the root cause being slavery. While the North was still contributing to slavery indirectly it didn’t directly have slaves which made the North more industrial-based. State rights were affected by slavery because of the right to allow vs abolish slavery. This can be shown with the principle of popular sovereignty. Cultures can be connected to slavery by comparing the culture of white people vs black people. Humans don’t like things that are perceived as foreign or different and that stayed true when it came to black people and racism in America. When it comes to politicians and slavery it can be connected because of the poor decisions and laws passed by these politicians and presidents of the time. Examples of this could be the Fugitive slave act, popular sovereignty, and even the Dred Scott v. Sandford case where black people were said to not be U.S. citizens simply because of their race. Lastly when referring to westward expansion slavery is one of the main parts of the expansion. During the expansion, slavery flooded into states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas. This made the political topic of slavery even bigger than it already was. All of these factors being interconnected or directly connected to slavery solidifies my belief that slavery was the main cause of the Civil War. Without the presence of slavery, a lot of these factors might’ve not been as prominent.
2) I think the Civil War was inevitable and this is why. Slavery had been an issue long before the U.S. became an official country. There were always tensions when it came to the topic of slavery between the North and the South, both morally and economically. Although the North wasn’t completely innocent when talking about their involvement in slavery they were far more against it than the South. Economically the South didn’t want slavery in the South to be abolished because of their source of income coming from agriculture which was only dependent on slaves to do the work. If slavery was abolished everywhere in the U.S. then the South would crumble unless changes were made. By the time Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860 tensions between the North and South on the topic of slavery had grown too much for a peaceful resolution to be found and that’s when I think the war became inevitable. Sectionalism was a huge factor in this because the difference between economics, culture, etc. created mistrust and animosity between the two sides. The bombing of Fort Sumpter in 1861 was just a clear representation of the overflow of tensions between the two sides.
WWhile everyone has their own point of view on the causes for the civil war, I personally believe that the main contributor was the economic and moral debate over slavery between the north and south. However, while I do think that slavery was the main cause, I think that the reason it was such a big problem was because of the other reasons that are listed. For example, westward expansion intensified the debate over slavery because people couldn’t decide whether or not states should be free or not. Another thing that adds onto this is states rights. This is because the new states that are being added into the union are having the debate over whether they should be free or not, and the people living in the state don’t often get a lot of choice unless there’s popular sovereignty. Even the politicians of that age contributed to the slavery debate by leading by poor examples. Theres so many things that contributed to the beginning of the civil war thats its impossible to pinpoint an exact reason. So, while I personally believe slavery may be the main contributor to the civil war, I also think the debate of slavery wasnt just on its own, yet intensified by other things going on in the country.
I personally do believe the the war was inevitable for a few reasons. One reason is that there was never going to truly be a solution for the slavery debate, because no matter what decision is made, people will be happy and people will be unhappy. When people dislike whatever decision is made, they will try to change it. Even if the government made no decisions of people and let citizens do what they wanted, people would still fight and it would eventually lead to fights and have to be addressed one way or another. Another reason is just that the north and south had such different ideals, and while the north was adapting to industrialization seen around the world, the south wanted to stick to their own ways and saw whatever change the north tried to make as a “threat to southern way of life.” If the union wanted to survive as one, there needed to be a solid agreement between the north and south, and in order for that to happen, one sided needed to somehow lose to the other.
If I had to choose one primary cause of the civil war I undoubtedly would pick slavery. Though the other factors definitely had a grand impact on the Civil War, they all tie into the fundamental argument of slavery between the North and the South. For example, when the argument of economics comes into play, the north is titled an industrial economy whilst the south is agricultural. Well, the north’s industry is powered by paid workers yet the south’s agriculture is powered by enslaved individuals. Or, if you listen to an argument of cultures, the south undoubtedly will mention how slavery is a part of their southern culture. The westward expansion argument also includes slavery–the North argues for no slavery in the new western territory while the south argues for slavery throughout the territories. Even politicians have slavery woven throughout them. Whether they outwardly support it or make decisions favoring–or not favoring–slavery. Slavery is completely why there were sectional differences in the United States at this time. The problem of slavery has been brewing for a while though. Ever since it was introduced into the states, slavery primarily has been in the South. The use of slavery in the South allowed for economic prosperity during the time. Slavery boosted the production of cash crops, including the most significant, cotton. Cotton went on to be the primary export of the South. As time went on, the South became more and more dependent on slavery for their economy. The dependence that the South had made them more and more inclined on protecting slavery, no matter what. On the other hand, the north never exactly relied on slavery. Due to the geographical region they lived in, agriculture never thrived, therefore they never needed slavery in the way that the south did. Though, it is important to not forget that the north did use slavery. Whether it is using products from enslaved individuals or using enslaved people in separate industries, the North had a role, but it was not as strong as the south. So, as time went on the North never became fully dependent on slavery and their economy thrived on paid labor. Additionally, abolitionist or anti-slavery groups started to grow in the North, especially during the second Great Awakening. More and more people in the North started to see the wrongs in slavery. As differing feelings in regards of slavery grew, sectional conflicts also grew. As the South felt more and more threatened that their “right” of slavery was going to be taken away from them, the early stages of the civil war began.
Yes, I do think that the Civil War was inevitable. It became very clear that the sectional differences between the North and South was going to lead to disaster. Though, I do not think there was an exact date that the Civil War showed to be inevitable. Slavery is the definite stressor. The time that slavery became an argument really started the road to war. As the North started to question and dislike the institution as a whole, the South became more and more protective. The South conspired and believed that the North was trying to destroy slavery, their main economic component. This then sparked sectional differences and arguments, ultimately leading to secession and Civil War.
So, when you think about what primarily caused the Civil War, there is a lot to choose from. Slavery? Economics? States’ rights? Clash of cultures? Terrible politicians? Westward expansion? Which is it and why?
I solely believe that slavery was the primary cause of the civil war. As we see when the union and the confederation broke up the two sides had always clashed on the biggest point of slavery. The south was reliant on slavery for the overwhelmingly majority of its economy. Southerners thought that without slavery they believed the south would crumble. The north however who was extremely reliant on industry and such thought the opposite. So this problem became the main issue with all new laws, politicians and policies. The questions arose of how it was going to affect slavery. If it was going to develop it more or try and minimize it. It became a never ending battle between proslavery and antislavery. Thats too unfair, thats unconstitutional, they are taking away too many rights, etc. It seemed that the north and the south were too radical for each other to compromise on anything. Both sides wanted to expand there own type of ideals onto the other and it seemed to be causing more issues than ever. Another big reason why I think slavery was the primary cause is because the south decided to succeed after Abraham Lincoln was elected. While Abraham Lincoln wasn’t as vocal about his thoughts on slavery like other politicians it was enough for southerners to believe that he was going to come after slavery and try to revoke it. So to try and protect themselves they wanted more and more to succeed. The last reason I think slavery was the primary cause was because after the John Brown raid on Harpers Ferry speculation started to float around in the south on how this was an attempt from the north to attack slavery and try and take control of the territories and make them free. This prompted rage throughout southerners and how the unfairity coming from the north shouldn’t be tolerated any longer.
Do you think the war was inevitable? If yes, at what point did it become inevitable? If you don’t believe the war was inevitable, why did the war start when it did with the bombing of Fort Sumter?
I believe that the war was inevitable. Both the north and the south were too different to compromise on any sort of agreement on slavery. They both shared qualities of radicalism that would not subside without any force. I believe that the point when the war became inevitable was when the Kansas-Nebraska Act was put into effect. This act didn’t solidify slavery, nor did it ban it, and it repealed the Missouri compromise that kept peace for long time. The south did not like the Kansas-Nebraska Act because it did not protect the “rights” of slavery for the south. Since the Kansas-Nebraska Act relied on popular sovereignty it led to unjust and violent voting fraud. With no compromise in place to hold slavery where it was in the west, the south became restless as it worried if slavery was going to be voted in or out. Then for the north it did not ban slavery which upset them thoroughly. Northerners too participated in the voting fraud which upset the south. An event of a raid of antislavery advocates killed many proslavery voters in this territory which the south saw as an attack on slavery (John Brown’s Raid.) This upset the north as before they had a set line of where slavery could go and could not. Which leads into the last point of how the Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise. A compromise that stood and kept the peace between the sides for a very long time. Without the Missouri Compromise keeping everyone in check and with the Kansas-Nebraska Act letting anyone vote on its territories laws, it created more tension surrounding slavery. Which I believe inevitably led to the civil war.
1. The poor governmental decisions led directly to the beginning of the Civil War. Although The United States was plagued with various issues shortly before the Civil War, had the government been more decisive and effective with its actions, it could have prevented the war entirely. The Dred Scott decision and the Kansas-Nebraska Act are two prominent examples of these occurrences. These political decisions failed because they overturned crucial precedents that were holding the union together by balancing the wants of pro and anti-slavery supporters. The Dred Scott decision ruled that because slaves were considered property, and the Constitution prohibited seizing or restricting the use of one’s property without due process, then all laws and acts prohibiting or restricting slavery were unconstitutional. To make things worse, this was decided in the Supreme Court, meaning no other court or governmental body could challenge their decision. Their conclusion overturned both the Northwest Ordinance of 1785 and the Missouri Compromise. Had the union not split and upheld this decision, it would have allowed slavery not only into the territories but even into the northern states where it had been banned for decades. Similarly, the Kansas-Nebraska Act negated the Missouri Compromise by allowing slavery north of the established line and into the territories. Allowing slavery into the territories would have enabled it to last in the United States for years to come which the anti-slavery supporters never would have allowed. These poor governmental decisions catered to the volatile South while leaving the North with nothing, inevitably making them mad.
2. The Civil War was inevitable after Abraham Lincoln was elected as president. Before his election, prominent figures in the South said they would secede if he was elected president, but he still chose to run. Once states seceded from the union a Civil War was no longer optional. It would be impossible for the two new countries to coexist peacefully in such proximity and with different ideologies. Also, although the South’s economy was not as large as the North’s, it was still a very significant contribution to the overall economy of the country. A president would lose all respect and popularity if he chose to let the Confederacy take all that land and declare itself a nation without any attempt to stop it. Also, even if the two nations were peaceful at first neither would be willing to give up the western territories which would also to an inevitable fight.
So, when you think about what primarily caused the Civil War, there is much to choose from. Slavery? Economics? States’ rights? Clash of cultures? Terrible politicians? Westward expansion? Which is it and why?
For me, there are 2: Slavery and Terrible politicians, but the one that I believe was the most crucial to the beginning of the Civil War was the system of slavery. Ever since 1619 when the first slaves were brought to America from Africa, human rights were being violated and the slaves were being dehumanized through rough and thorough beatings and punishments as well as very intensive unpaid labor. Now coming up on the Civil War, multiple events that took place would spark the abolition movement and some events that took eradicating slavery to war. The one that I thought was the most responsible was the raid of Harpers Ferry Arsenal. John Brown, a 59-year-old, immensely religious, and father of 20 raided Harpers Ferry Arsenal on October 16th, 1859 along with 21 men black and white, including 3 of his sons. The goal of this raid was to supply slaves around the Southern plantations with arms and ammunition to fight back against their slave masters which he hoped would spark a fire across the nation. This raid however went very wrong when Brown allowed a train to get through and back to the city of Baltimore. The passengers on the train quickly reported the raid to the government and Robert E. Lee was sent along with the federal militia to halt the raid. Brown was captured within a few days of being discovered and most of his men were killed including 2 of his sons. After his trial Brown said, “Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I say let it be done.” What Brown is saying is that even if he must be killed for his actions, he will do anything to make sure the slaves are freed and given the lives they deserve. This enraged the Southerners who thought the North was behind all of this because the North “wanted to destroy the South”. This single idea was spread throughout the South and in my opinion sparked the secession process as the first shots were fired 15 months later.
Do you think the war was inevitable? If yes, at what point did it become inevitable? If you don’t believe the war was inevitable, why did the war start when it did with the bombing of Fort Sumter?
The American Civil War was the result of a number of related events, and historians continue to disagree over whether it was inevitable. The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which placed a geographical limit on the spread of slavery, is just one of the early compromises that attempted to address the topic of slavery and served as the start of the conflict. Relationships were further strained by the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, both of which repealed the Missouri Compromise and prompted bloody skirmishes in the recently opened territories. The Dred Scott Decision of 1857, which held that Congress lacked the power to outlaw slavery in territories and that slaves were property rather than citizens, widened the divide. Fears in the South were heightened by the violence that followed abolitionist John Brown’s unsuccessful raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859. Although the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861 served as the starting point for conflict, the secession of Southern states and the creation of the Confederate States of America were significant stages toward conflict. It is difficult to identify a single point in time when the Civil War broke out, but a combination of these incidents and ongoing tensions between the various states eventually caused it.
I believe slavery was the main cause of the American Civil War. Slavery had constantly been at the heart of political discussions for decades and the tension between the South and North kept growing stronger. Both sides were very stubborn, and could not make compromises easily. The South believed the North was trying to destroy their economy and that they were infringing on their rights as slave owners, and that the North was being unconstitutional. Northerners, on the other hand, also took the moral perspective into consideration and the large majority was disgusted. Tensions kept rising with more acts and actions being done by both sides to retaliate against the others. The Kansas-Nebraska act created more tension due to disputes about repealing the Missouri Compromise which had been in place for decades, and now allowed popular sovereignty in the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska. The resulting “Bleeding Kansas” undoubtedly created anger on both sides. When Antislavery Novels were published the South denied any wrongdoing as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “The Impending Crisis of the South” exposed the harshness of slavery. These books became a leading cause of why Northerners had a moral problem with slavery, but the South responded by explaining that slavery benefited not only the master but the slave too. By the Election of 1860 the relationship between the North and South had been so strained that there was no coming back. The Democratic Party had basically crumbled, and the North didn’t need the South’s votes to win the election. The South said they would secede if President Lincoln won, to protect their right to Institute slavery. The Civil War ultimately set the stage for the future of the country, and whether or not slavery would be part of it.
I believe the War was inevitable. Slavery had become so entrenched into the American lifestyle since it had been there since the early beginnings of the country. The South’s agriculture basically relied on slavery to function, and the fertile land there made it feasible and profitable. Slave Owners in the South couldn’t imagine not owning slaves to work for them and the North had pressing moral issues. Neither side could compromise and for years politicians had been implementing laws such as the Missouri Compromise to keep both sides satisfied, but realistically both sides had separate goals as a nation and laws such as the Missouri compromise just worked to keep everyone temporarily satisfied to try and avoid conflict. The South saw the Industrial world of the North as greedy and the North saw what the South was doing as morally wrong. Southerners wanted to expand this system throughout the country and the North was just as dire to stop the expansion. War of some sort was inevitable.
So, when you think about what primarily caused the Civil War, there is a lot to choose from. Slavery? Economics? States’ rights? Clash of cultures? Terrible politicians? Westward expansion? Which is it and why?
The origins of the American Civil War may be clearly linked to the practice of slavery, however other causes also played a role. The North-South economic divide created conditions for a conflict rooted on opposing social order.
The North benefited greatly from industrialization, having both small-scale agricultural and a strong manufacturing areas. On the other hand, the economy of the South was primarily dependent on large-scale agriculture, especially tobacco and cotton, which was supported by the labor of slaves. Southern fears increased as abolitionist ideas gained traction in the North after the 1830s due to worries about the spread of slavery into new areas. This caused a lot of small outbursts of violence against a lot of abolitionists.
Slavery was extended to new regions with the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which raised tensions by promoting the idea of popular sovereignty. Violent fights between pro- and anti-slavery groups resulted from this in “Bleeding Kansas.” At the same time, Northern resistance to the laws resulted in the creation of the Republican Party, which was strongly opposed to the spread of slavery into new areas.
Fears in the South got worse by the Dred Scott case ruling in 1857, which upheld the legitimacy of slavery in the territories. The attack at Harper’s Ferry by John Brown in 1859 reinforced the belief in the South that the North wanted to abolish slavery since it was the foundation of their economic success.
Abraham Lincoln’s election in November 1860 marked a turning moment, the tables were turned as ones would say. His victory, which was based on anti-slavery ideals, told the South that the federal government was not paying attention to their issues. Tensions escalated into open secession within three months after Lincoln’s election, when seven Southern states South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas joined the Union after succeeding like a million times.
A combination of growing socioeconomic inequality, growing unease about the spread of slavery, and a core ideological conflict between the North and South culminated in the Civil War. Despite a number of contributing reasons, slavery’s centrality remained the issue that finally caused the nation to split and sparked a deadly conflict.
Do you think the war was inevitable? If yes, at what point did it become inevitable? If you don’t believe the war was inevitable, why did the war start when it did with the bombing of Fort Sumter.
The inevitability of the Civil War comes from the huge differences between the North and the South, mainly centered on the large issue of slavery. The difference between these two regions in terms of their beliefs, economic systems, and societal values laid the groundwork for an inevitable war that would ultimately turn into a horrible conflict.
The North and the South existed as almost different countries, each with its own set of beliefs. The North adamantly opposed the institution of slavery, viewing it as morally wrong and opposed the principles of liberty and equality upon which the nation was founded. Also a lot of people found that slavery was wrong in the eyes of christianity. These were the two reasons for people being either anti slavery or abolitionist. The South strongly defended slavery, arguing that it was vital to their economy and way of life. This fundamental disagreement over the ethical and economic undertones of slavery created a large rift between the two regions.
As tensions rise, the moral divide between the North and the South becomes increasingly more obvious. The differences in their social, economic, and political structures widened, raising the underlying conflict, although the conflict was not physical yet, there was a lot of speculation about tensions rising. The North’s industrialization and embrace of free labor stood in stark contrast to the agricultural driven, slave dependent economy of the South. These different paths led to further animosity between the regions.
Also, legislatives disputed laws only served to deepen the rift. The issue of slavery permeated every aspect of governance, and attempts to find compromises or legislative solutions failed to bring balance to the conflict. The implementation of laws such as the Fugitive Slave Act, which required the return of escaped slaves to their owners, made tensions even worse and fueled the growing resentment between the North and the South.
The sum of these factors, including the fixed beliefs, economic disparities, legislative conflicts, and societal divisions, set the stage for an unavoidable confrontation. The Civil War was not merely an isolated event but the culmination of years of mounting tensions and irreconcilable differences between two regions that were fundamentally at odds with each other.
In conclusion, the inevitability of the Civil War was rooted in the stark contrasts and irreconcilable differences between the North and the South. The opposing stances on slavery, divergent economic systems, legislative disputes, and societal values created a powder keg that eventually exploded into a devastating conflict. It was a war born out of the inability to reconcile deeply fixed beliefs and systemic differences.
1. Out of all these topics, I believe that slavery had the biggest impact in setting off the Civil War. However, slavery was not the only reason this war happened, because it caused many of the other subjects to occur like state rights. During this time, slavery was one of the biggest reasons for sectionalism to be prominent in America. To add to that, one event that caused an uprise in the debate over whether slavery should be allowed, was the Kansas-Nebraska Act, where there were multiple opinions on whether one territory (which was split into Kansas and Nebraska) should have state sovereignty and decide if they would be ruled as free or slave states. This caused the North to be frustrated because it contradicted the Missouri Compromise and went over the 36’30 line, where it was in effect three and half decades prior and helped to have a temporary “solution” over the slavery debate in America and lower the tension between the North and South. However, the Kansas-Nebraska Act stopped this and instead gave hope to the South because of the potential of spreading slavery over the 36’30 line and getting it to Northern states, which wouldn’t have been possible before. In all, state rights had a close tie to how slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War and how the North and South responded by being unhappy with America’s current position at the time.
2. Looking at America’s history, I believe that the war was inevitable once John Brown’s raid came into play. John Brown was able to acquire money from six wealthy abolitionists to be able to afford the supplies they needed for the plan Brown executed. Moreover, Brown went to an arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia to obtain firearms with the other twenty-one people with him. His raid ended with the deaths of multiple white slave owners which caused Brown to be executed on December 2nd, 1859. This raid changed the South’s perspective on their militias and changed it to where they bought more firearms, causing it to turn into the Southern Confederate Army. To add to that, this event in American history supported and reinforced the South’s panicked conspiracy about abolosnists giving money out money to get white southerners enslaved to kill them in the middle of the night. With all of this in mind, the South’s growing awareness and caution of revolts, and the North’s abolosnists ideas growing stronger, John Brown’s raid showed both the effects of the Souths militia and the North’s abolostnists going against each other and creating a bigger wedge within the two regions. Overall, causing the Civil War to break out and commencing one of America’s most significant wars to this day.
I think that the primary cause of the Civil War was slavery. There were many causes of the war but they all led back to slavery. This can be seen starting with westward expansion. As new territories and states joined the United States, the balance in Congress between free and slave states became a hot topic as neither side wanted the other to have more power and be able to make slavery illegal (which would have an extreme impact on the ‘southern way of life’). Stephen Douglas is an example of a politician who increased the effect of westward expansion. One of his main goals was to spread the reach of the United States across the continent which can be seen in his role in the creation of the Compromise of 1850 which added California as a free state and New Mexico and Utah as territories with popular sovereignty on slavery. Then, he wanted to build a railroad connecting California to Illinois (which would mainly boost the northern economy), and to make the South happy, he proposed that Nebraska be split into two territories and that they should both have popular sovereignty. This ended up creating major issues including the Missouri Compromise being overturned and the Supreme Court ruling that making slavery illegal was taking away people’s property without due process and should not have been allowed. This shows how issues about bad politicians, westward expansion, economics, and many other things all relate back to slavery and how slavery was the main cause of the Civil War.
I believe that the Civil War was inevitable. I believe that it became inevitable after the Harper’s Ferry raid. This raid showed the South how the North was willing to go very far in their fight against slavery, including taking over an armory. The interviews from the battle to the courtroom spread far and fast, with many reporters showing John Brown as a hero and willing to do what was necessary to make necessary changes. The South did not like this perspective and even when many Northerners came back and said that they did not condone this behavior, it still scared the South a lot. I think the election of Abraham Lincoln was also a very important turning point in the causes of the Civil War. Before the election, southern states said that if Lincoln got elected, they would secede from the union, and that did end up being true with South Carolina seceding immediately and then 6 more states 3 months, all before the war started. These two made the Civil War inevitable for the United States.
Question 1: The primary cause of the Civil War was the many disagreements over slavery. These disagreements show up a ton throughout history for example, what states should be free and which states should be slave states. Throughout the development of the country, there were many arguments about free or slave states like the Missouri Compromise. The argument of the Missouri Compromise was whether or not Missouri should be a free or slave state. Slavery was well-established in Missouri so the Northerners were worried since it would tip the balance of having more slave states than free states. They finally decided on Missouri being a slave state and admitted Maine as a free state to keep the balance. This sparked fear in the South and North in case other states from the Louisiana Purchase, like Missouri, would apply for statehood and what they would do. The Compromise of 1850 would also have tensions running high between the North and South. Congress began to talk about whether the territories after the Mexican-American War would be a slave or free state. The start of this disagreement was in 1849 when California requested to be a free state, this would mean destroying the balance between the free state senators and slave state senators and the balance between how many free and slave states there were. A disagreement that kept going was the Fugitive Slave Act. The Northerners didn’t agree with this law and that Northerners couldn’t help or they would be fined. The act also denied free slaves constitutional rights as a citizen. A “Gag rule” was implemented in Congress. When abolitionists started sending petitions about ending slavery to Congress. The Pro-slavery representatives then passed a rule that no one could talk about those petitions that were being passed to end slavery. Which caused more infighting. This is why the many disagreements about slavery were the primary cause of the Civil War.
Question 2: I believe the Civil War was inevitable. The turning point of the start of the Civil War was Lincoln publicly announcing reinforcements for Fort Sumter. Lincoln publicly announced that he was sending reinforcements to the fort which was the problem. Once Lincoln said those words, the count down to the Civil War only began. Once the Fort was bombed, the countdown was complete and it was only a matter of time before the Civil War was publicly announced. This is why the Civil War was inevitable and what the turning point was.
The primary cause of the Civil War was slavery, as it was the largest point of conflict between the North and South. There was constant conflict over slavery, both politically and physically between the North and South. There were multiple compromises made in order to settle arguments between the two sides, but they continually failed. One of the first ones was the Missouri made to protect slavery in the South, but prevent expansion of it to the North. This failed in the 1850’s when the Kansas Nebraska Act was created. This is another example of a compromise that failed. It was created to settle arguments over slavery forever, however it just enraged the North because they thought it was made for the South, which it kind of was, and led to ‘Bleeding Kansas.’ ‘Bleeding Kansas’ was a direct result of the Kansas Nebraska Act because people flooded to Kansas in order to vote for the state to be pro their belief. Because of this tensions rose and there started to be destruction of towns and murders across the state. A notable one would be John Brown’s attack on multiple pro slavery men. He killed five men in front of their families because of their beliefs. Another one was the caning of Senator Charles Sumner in the senate for his anti slavery speech. Even congress was resorting to violence on the subject of slavery. Almost every tension between the North and South had some connection to slavery, to the point where congress stopped speaking about it all together in order to keep the peace. This proves that slavery was the main cause of the Civil War and the tensions preceding it.
The Civil War was completely inevitable. Slavery had been a controversial topic in the United States since its founding. With an issue that is incredibly deep rooted and the radicalness of both sides, there is little that can stop fighting from breaking out. I think the war was highly likely once the Kansas Nebraska Act was passed and ‘Bleeding Kansas’ happened. At that point fighting had started breaking out and it was likely the bloodshed would only escalate from there. However, I think the war became inevitable once Abraham Lincoln ran for president. The South warned they would secede if Lincoln won, and he had most of the North on his side. The secession of the South would 100% lead to war, so as soon as Lincoln ran and won the war became inevitable.
The cause of the Civil War was a combination of multiple theories, including, slavery, states’ rights, culture conflict, economics, bad politicians, and westward expansion. I would lean more towards claiming slavery as the main cause. Slavery was a large cause that influenced other issues and differences between regions. The economics of the south were based on slavery, cotton, and farming opposed to the industrial north. This difference is emphasized by slavery. Slavery became a sectional dividing factor and claimed as a personal way of life and any action against it was an attack and consequently a culture conflict. Westward expansion was only an issue because along with acquiring western territory came the “slavery question” of whether or not slavery would be permitted in the new land. Bad politicians as the cause of the Civil War were the cause of bad policies or failure to compromise when considering slavery. Slavery was the main cause of the Civil War because it was not only a dividing issue in the United States but it was also the cause of many other factors that would increase tensions leading to the war.
The Civil War was inevitable because with such vehement opinions about topics concerning people’s lives it would be impossible to compromise, apparent when people were not able to compromise in previous years. The tensions surrounding the Civil War had been building for many years and there was no sign of that stopping when more people were joining the cause on either side as well as emotions and sectional pride strengthening as well. Radicals on either end of the spectrum would not have been able to settle. Which is evident with the secession of many southern states causing the split of the country as the Union and the Confederacy. The Civil War became inevitable with the election of Abraham Lincoln to presidential office. Tensions were rising between the north and the south, namely northern abolitionists and southern advocates for slavery. Abraham Lincoln was not the cause of the civil war but it is possible that without him as president it never would have occurred. We learned that many southern states threatened to secede if Lincoln was elected and after he won that is exactly what occurred. The United States became literally divided in two. It is also possible that Lincoln or any other possible candidate could have not initiated the war and it would not have happened, but with the way Lincoln controlled his presidency the Civil War did begin in 1861.
So, when you think about what primarily caused the Civil War, there is a lot to choose from. Slavery? Economics? States’ rights? Clash of cultures? Terrible politicians? Westward expansion? Which is it and why?
I feel like a lot of these reasons end up being hand in hand causes of the Civil War, because, at the end of the day, slavery ends up going with the states’ rights portion. The way that slavery and the states’ rights lay hand in hand is because the main reason there was such a fight over states’ rights is because they were debating how states should chose if they were to be a free or slave state. While places like Kansas chose popular sovereignty, people still fought over this, due to the fact that it was so easily rigged. And, with this, westward expansion goes with the states’ rights, due to the fact that states’ rights were debated so much because of the land the United States of America gained from the Mexican War (i.e. the Mexican Cession) and trying to figure out how to deal with them. With all the compromises that were created or attempted (Compromise of 1850 and Crittenden Compromise) at organizing all of this new land and getting them split up so there wouldn’t be any further arguments over it (New Mexico and Texas) and also so they could populate the west more efficiently. But, at the end of the day, if you had to chose the one main reason behind the Civil War, it would be slavery. The Civil War was split into the North/West vs. the South due to their disagreements over how slavery should be dealt with. The North and West were all primarliy against slavery and were doing everything in their power to either bring graduate or immediate emancipation to the United States and their primary political parties were filled with free-soilers, anti-slavery people (a.k.a. People who were against slavery in the West because they wanted land that was purely for white people), and abolitionsits (who were against slavery everywhere in the United States). And, while the North and West were filled with people who were at least vaguely against slavery, the South was filled with people who were pro-slavery, and they ended up seceding because the new president was an anti-slavery person, so I think that it is safe to say that the primary reason behind the Civil War was slavery.
Do you think the war was inevitable? If yes, at what point did it become inevitable? If you don’t believe the war was inevitable, why did the war start when it did with the bombing of Fort Sumter?
I feel like the Civil War wasn’t always an inevitable event, but eventually became one because of actions that were done by awful politicians and others. But, it did reach the point where it became an inevitable event, specifically after “Bleeding Kansas”. Hearing and reading about these actions of violence really made me realize that this was the point that condemned us to the fate of the Civil War, due to the fact that they happened beacuse people didn’t agree what was happening with the Kansas-Nebraska Act and how people were fighting over if there should be slavery in Kansas or if it should be a free state and how people from Missouri were coming over the border to figh people over this and to also rig the vote so that they could make Kansas a slave state, even though it was primarily an anti-slavery place. Even though in the first attack in Lawrence, Kansas only one person died, it condemned the U.S. to more fights over the issue of slavery, eventually leading to the Civil War. So, the Civil War was inevitable due to “Bleeding Kansas”.
1. I think that slavery was the leading cause of the Civil War, but not the only cause. Economics and state’s rights also go hand in hand with the disagreement over slavery and the ultimate cause of the Civil War. No one act or law sparked the war but I think the Kansas- Nebraska Act, the Dred Scott case, and the election of 1860 are three major events in American history that pushed people in the direction of a Civil War. The Kansas- Nebraska Act created two new territories and allowed for popular sovereignty, this then led to anti-slavery and pro-slavery Americans getting into fights in all different areas of Kansas. The state was known as “Bleeding Kansas’ and tension grew between the north and south. The Dred Scott case is known to be the Supreme Court’s worst decision and is widely known for its connection to the start of the Civil War. The Supreme Court’s ruling stated that African Americans were not citizens of the United States and therefore would not receive protection from the Federal government. Finally, the election of 1860 was the turning point and the last straw for the South. When Abraham Lincoln was elected president the South decided to secede from the union. South Carolina was first and most southern states followed shortly after. Because of these reasons and how prominent slavery was in the South, slavery was the primary cause of the Civil War.
2. I believe that the war was inevitable and no matter what decisions were made by the North and the South, they would have led to the war. The North and South had tensions over slavery ever since Texas became part of the Union. Because Texas had such a high slave owner population the question of if slavery should or should not be expanded into the new territories was prominent. The tensions got worse when the Mexican war ended and the United States gained land all the way to the West Coast. This meant that the dispute over slavery couldn’t wait and people were already starting to move into the new territories. When the Kansas- Nebraska Act was passed and popular sovereignty was allowed slavery began expanding to new places. Once the states got to choose on whether they allowed or did not allow slavery there was no going back on the issue of slavery. The North and South wouldn’t have been able to agree on where slavery stopped expanding and the tensions in the United States would grow too much to avoid a Civil War.
I believe that, though all the foundations of the Civil War were intertwined in a way, slavery was the primary and leading cause with the greatest influence on other issues such as cultural differences between regions and economical tension between agricultural and industrial societies. Emerging early in American history, slavery became the primary method of mass crop production, quickly inserting itself as a keystone in the country’s economical expansion. Society began to build itself around the system of slavery, promoting plantations as the simplest way to gain wealth and the means to provide for the country’s rapidly expanding population. After over two centuries of influence on America, slavery held as much importance in politics and economics as the newly booming industrial system, which is where the regional differences truly began to take hold. Having quickly adopted industrialization, the North had little reliance on the slave system and were willing to see the flaws and evils of the southerners who held it in such high regard. Rather than acknowledge this, the South chose to frame the northerners as their enemies instead of having their way of life “replaced” by industrialization. With the country split in two in such a way, it was no wonder that politicians struggled and failed to find a solution to please both sides.
Despite countless efforts to create a peaceful compromise, the Civil War was simply inevitable because there was no way to preserve slavery while still removing it. Rather than a specific event causing this inevitability, I believe that the industrial revolution in general was the point where both main regions of America became too different and interested in their own methods of growth to agree to adopt each others’. Once the North had shown their interest in industrializing and the South had firmly planted their dislike for it in favor of a slave-based system, there was no possible way that both sides would be able to continue to coexist without some form of conflict. The North couldn’t morally accept the preservation of slavery, and the South rejected morality for their need to protect the fragile yet profitable system that had become the basis of their economy. No solution would be able to convince such a large number of people give up their opposition, and doing nothing would force the citizens themselves to take action against each other. Even if the debate over slavery had never prospered, their cultural differences would have eventually caused major disagreements over the country’s progression, surely causing both sides to split apart or reduce themselves to war.
The civil war was a massive conflict regarding tens of millions of people. Because of its size, it is impossible to trace one source; everyone was fighting for different reasons. However, predominantly, slavery was the main cause of the war. Nearly every conflict between the North and the South in the 40 years leading up to the war revolved around slavery, and when South Carolina finally declared secession, it was based on the fear that Lincoln’s presidency would call for a ban of slavery. The compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska act, the Dred Scott decision, and the John Brown raids, all major events in progressing sectional differences and promoting the division that led to the civil war, were all based off of slavery, mainly the South’s inability and unwillingness to tone down the practice in any way. Many people blame politicians for not compromising, and while that is a major cause, it was nearly impossible to compromise under Buchanan’s presidency because both the North and the South were dominated by completely polarizing radicals, like congress today but worse. In nearly every compromise made between proslavery and antislavery values, it seems as if the proslavery side got exactly what they wanted and gave up little to nothing, while the antislavery side seems to lose every deal. In the compromise of 1850, for example, the proslavery side got a much stricter and enforceable fugitive slave law, while the antislavey forces merely got one free state, a reduction of Texas, and the useless, selfish ban of the slave trade in Washington DC. It is obvious that the South benefited more from this deal, largely because of their unwavering drive to expand slavery, leading them to be unable to lose anything of value in a compromise. While politicians, compromising, economics, and state’s rights were major factors, almost every problem boils down to slavery as the main perpetrator of war.
The civil war was inevitable, dating much farther back than most people think. Since the Missouri Compromise in 1820, there has been a clear-cut, guaranteed road to secession. The compromise proved the South’s unwillingness to give up the practice of slavery, and massively expanded sectional differences, with national law claiming that states above and below the compromise line were different. The compromise showed that the South was never going to stop slavery if they had a choice, and with the North growing more liberal every year, growing tensions would eventually hit a boiling point and war would inevitably break out. The Missouri compromise can be seen as a ceasefire, rather than a treaty, as much like how the Treaty of Versailles guaranteed World War 2, the Missouri Compromise guaranteed the American Civil War.
#1) I think that slavery was the main cause for the civil war. Slavery was a huge deal in the South. They relied on it to run their economy, especially for cash crops like cotton that required a lot of labor. The North, on the other hand, focused their economics mainly on industry. This difference in economic systems created a ton of tension between the North and South. It made the South assume that the North wanted to destroy not only slavery but also the South as they knew it. The issue of slavery was also a big factor when it came to expanding westward. As the U.S. acquired new territories, there was a big debate over whether or not those areas should allow slavery. For example, the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The violence in “Bleeding Kansas” demonstrated the intensity of the sectional conflict and the inability to peacefully resolve the issue. The Dredd Scott decision which was about slavery also fueled the Civil War. The majority opinion concluded that enslaved individuals, whether enslaved or free, were not considered citizens and therefore could not bring lawsuits in federal courts. Northern abolitionists were outraged by the ruling, viewing it as a pro-slavery stance that threatened the principles of free labor and the containment of slavery. These passionate abolitionists in the North are also a big reason why this conflict was such a huge deal. As the uprising of abolitionists occurred in the North the angrier the South got with these protests. Moral question of slavery was a big deal too. The North was all about getting rid of slavery because they thought it was morally wrong. The South, on the other hand, was all about defending slavery as a way of life they used the bible to do so in. There’s also more examples to show how slavery tried to be resolved but because of how big of an issue it was it was impossible. The Compromise of 1850 was a package of legislation designed to settle several outstanding issues arising from the acquisition of new territories after the Mexican-American War. The harsh Fugitive Slave Act, part of the Compromise, intensified Northern resistance and heightened opposition to what was seen as federal overreach in enforcing pro-slavery laws. So while economic, westward expansion, and state rights were a reason these troubles may not have occurred if it wasn’t for slavery.
#2) I think the civil war was inevitable due to slavery, states rights, and disagreements over westward expansion. First, the North and South had totally different ways of making money. The South relied on farming with slave labor, while the North was busy with factories and businesses. They just couldn’t agree on how the country should grow. They tried to make deals to settle their differences, like the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, but those just made things worse. The arguments over slavery got even more heated. Then there was a big court decision in 1857, the Dred Scott Decision, saying that enslaved people were like property, not citizens. Another major factor that contributed to the inevitability of the Civil War was the ongoing debate over states’ rights. Including the fugitive slave law which infuriated northerners who were trying to help escaped slaves. It also made them question if their rights were being infringed on. This made things even tenser between the North and the South. The leaders of the country couldn’t find common ground. The Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and other attempts to work things out didn’t succeed. The country was split, and no one could agree on how to fix it. By the time they got to Fort Sumter in 1861, the South had had enough. They didn’t want to be part of the United States anymore, and that’s when the fighting started. All these events contributed to the Civil war but there was one event that couldn’t be resolved. At what point the war was inevitable is highly debatable. I would say it was Lincoln’s election in 1860. Lincoln’s victory in the 1860 presidential election, without winning a single Southern state, triggered fears in the South that his administration would threaten the institution of slavery. The fact that Lincoln won the election without even being on the ballot probably made the South feel like their vote didn’t even count, erasing any chance of slavery continuing to expand. Southern states began to secede from the Union in response to the threat to their way of life. While the South had prior conspiracies of the North trying to destroy them, the election of and Anti- Slavery president confirmed their superstitions. This fear of their main economic source being taken away scared the southerners into seceding from the Union which was the start of the Civil war.
The primary cause of the Civil War was slavery. Many of the points mentioned partially originated from slavery and much of the South’s aggression and unwillingness to give up was because of slavery. For example, suppose Westward Expansion is considered one of the reasons for the Civil War. In that case, it can easily be observed that many of the problems from Western Expansion were on the topic of slavery. As seen for Kansas and many other western states, Both Northerners and Southerners rushed to Kansas to claim it for themselves and make it either a slave state or a free state. There was a sort of competition and division that grew between the North and the South for territory, almost as if they were separate counties trying to claim the new land for themselves. If the state was turned into a slave state, the South saw it as a victory and the North saw it as a loss, and vice versa. But during that division, southerners didn’t want “abolitionist Northerners” to take away their chance for more slaves or their way of life and Northerners didn’t want the South to expand on slavery, as seen with the rejection of Lecompton’s constitution for Kansas. Southerners also saw that slavery was one of their constitutional rights, tying that in with state’s rights. They saw slaves as their property and thought that they had the right to that property, a view some Northern politicians disagreed with. Seeing that these two other reasons go hand-in-hand with slavery, it becomes much clearer that slavery was the primary reason for the disagreements that eventually led to the Civil War.
Was the war inevitable? Yes, it was inevitable. You could argue that there is a chance for anything to happen, but the war wouldn’t have happened only if everything went perfectly. Otherwise, and more realistically, the war would have happened. The division between the North and the South was too great and the rising dislike for each other eventually led to the Civil War. The war became inevitable when slavery was banned in all Northern states in 1804. The South was an agricultural part of the U.S. and they would have eventually run out of soil or land that would be suitable for their uses unless they expanded. With the ban on slavery for Northern states, it set a precedent for future Northern and Northwestern states to ban slavery as well. So if the South needed more land to continue slavery, they would have to eventually expand to the West or Midwest, where most of our farming is done today, leading to conflict. States like Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, or Utah are not suited for agricultural purposes, hence why most of our farming isn’t done there today. While many argue that bad politicians were the reason for the Civil War, even if politicians made good compromises, they would just prolong coming conflicts similar to how the Missouri Compromise did. Southern farmers would have eventually succumbed to greed, as it is natural for humans, and made a move to try and take away land from the North or allow slavery in it, something Northerners probably wouldn’t be very fond of. As it can be seen, the Civil War was inevitable and any effort to stop it would just prolong its coming.
The biggest cause of the civil war was slavery. Although there are lots of other reasons for the Civil war, many of the other differences between the north and the south began with slavery. For example, as the United States grew to the west, the south wanted to introduce slavery to all the new regions whereas the north believed the new territory should be slavery free. The slavery/no slavery debate continued through states rights after popular sovereignty was established in Kansas and Nebraska. As a result of the influence of slavery, people from the north and the south rushed into the states to vote for their side. The conflict, named Bleeding Kansas, between the two sides included murder, pillaging, and more. This event that stemmed from the issue of slavery. is considered by many historians to be the point of no return to civil war. All in all, there are many reasons the civil war took place, but almost, if not all of them originate from the issue of slavery.
In my opinion, the civil war was not inevitable. It became inevitable after John Brown’s raid of Harper Ferry. Prior to the raid, conflict between the two sides had more to do with individual people acting out in radical or extreme ways for the benefit of their side. Such as John Brown’s killing spree during Bleeding Kansas. There had been no significant military action by either side upon the other. Because of this I think it was still possible at that time for the government to settle the situation down. However, at Harpers Ferry, It was the first time that the military became directly involved and took action in a North/South dispute. From this occurrence, a precedent was set that if either the north or the south felt threatened or just didn’t like something the north was doing, it would be completely within their rights to do so. This was the same thing that happened in the bombing of fort Sumter. First, the north moved their army into southern territory to claim the fort. This caused the south to send their military to remove northern forces. In conclusion, The use of the military to settle these disputes which was first used in John Brown’s raid of Harpers Ferry was used again by both sides at fort sumter. However this time, It would lead to the bloodiest war in American History.
When I think about what primarily caused the civil war, the obvious answer that comes to mind is slavery. For example, slavery was the root cause of almost every single problem between the North and South. The country’s divide was also caused by slavery. Slavery had been causing problems for many years leading up to the Civil War and certain events led to it becoming a full-fledged war. For example, states fought over new territories so that they could decide whether to have slavery in it or not. Abolitionists such as John Brown showed their distaste towards slavery by murdering 5 proslavery settlers and leading the raid at Harpers Ferry where he tried to incite a slave revolt. John Brown’s plan was to give slaves who lived in Virginia guns and encourage them to kill white slave owners. However, Brown and his army of abolitionists were caught by the U.S. Marines led by Robert E. Lee. Brown was then hanged by the state of Virginia. This is just one of many examples that shows how deep rooted the mindset of slavery was within Southerners and how deeply some Northerners hated it. With how key the institution of slavery was to the South, it makes sense why they wanted to protect it. However, the moral disagreement from the North led them to disagree with the Southerners and this disagreement became so intense that the whole country became divided. President Buchanan watched on as this happened and left all the problems for Lincoln to fix.
I think the war was inevitable from the point that Abraham Lincoln was elected. When Abraham Lincoln was elected, Southerners were infuriated that the North was going to put an end to and destroy the practice of slavery everywhere. The threat to secede from the South loomed large for the North. The South realized that after Lincoln’s election, they wouldn’t be able to expand slavery westwards anymore. Lincoln’s election signified that the South had lost the majority of its power in the United States and thus must look towards secession. Southern states started to secede. South Carolina was the first to secede, followed by many others. The states who seceded from the Union formed the Confederate States of America. Abraham Lincoln decided he wouldn’t sit idly as President Buchanan did and this ultimately led to the fighting of the Civil War changing United States history for generations to come.
So, when you think about what primarily caused the Civil War, there is a lot to choose from. Slavery? Economics? States’ rights? Clash of cultures? Terrible politicians? Westward expansion? Which is it and why?
There are so many factors that caused the Civil War but the clear cause was slavery. Northerners opposed slavery and believed that it should be abolished for moral reasons while Southerners supported it believing that it would destroy their region’s economy if abolished. An example of this is when John Brown, an abolitionist who was poor and despised slavery, led a raid in Harpers Ferry in 1858 to steal weapons and give them to escaping slaves and punish slave masters. This ended up dividing the South and the North further due to their contrasting beliefs and also convinced the South that they are very persistent when it comes to abolishing slavery which leads into the Civil War and the armies formed. John Brown was viewed as a martyr for human liberty and the antislavery cause. Slavery was just an awful structure that shouldn’t exist. In conclusion, the primary cause of the Civil War was slavery.
Do you think the war was inevitable? If yes, at what point did it become inevitable?
I believe that the Civil War was inevitable mainly from the election of 1860. Abraham Lincoln doesn’t believe in slavery which threatens the southerners and they warned that if Lincoln ever became president, their states would leave the Union. The election results came out and Lincoln won and soon South Carolina seceded, followed by conventions in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. Southern whites believed they had a right to end a constitutional compact and thought that Lincoln would follow through without a war. The war was inevitable though, it was bound to happen because the southerners were threatened. Their economy mainly depended on slavery and if that was to go then everything would crash. The northerns had more of an industrial economy while the south was more of an agricultural economy. If there was a different president elected then things would’ve possibly changed due to the fact that Abraham Lincoln was anti-slavery which would have made the states not leave the Union. Soon, slavery was abolished nation-wide led to more freedom within American citizens. To conclude, the Civil War was inevitable mainly from the election of 1860 and the events that led from it.
So, when you think about what primarily caused the Civil War, there is a lot to choose from. Slavery? Economics? States’ rights? Clash of cultures? Terrible politicians? Westward expansion? Which is it and why?
I believe a clash of cultures was the main cause of the Civil War, mainly because it encompasses all of the above aspects into one idea. The South claimed that slavery was ingrained into the Southern way of life, as industry was with the North. When the North confronted the South on their racist practices, the South took it as a personal affront, claiming that the North was trying to interfere with their “honor”, “dignity”, or even “identity”. This also ties into economics, as the South was primarily agricultural, and prosperous by using the unpaid labor of others, the North was a pillar of industry and manufacturing. This however presents a problem in itself, as the textiles that were being exported from the North were created using cotton from the South, meaning that regardless the North depended on the South for their goods. Terrible politicians were also the result of culture clashes simply because the very same politicians were products of the area they grew up in. With a few exceptions, depending upon where the politicians originated determined their political motives. John C. Calhoun was born in South Carolina, a known pro-slavery state, in fact the first state to officially secede from the Union. In contrast, Abraham Lincoln was born in Illinois, a state that in 1848 banned slavery and was part of a sort of northern coalition of states determined not to let slavery spread out west. These various aspects made up the polar opposite factions of the United States, as culture includes every segment of a society, from its economics to its moral beliefs.
Do you think the war was inevitable? If yes, at what point did it become inevitable? If you don’t believe the war was inevitable, why did the war start when it did with the bombing of Fort Sumter?
If it was any other country, I might say the war was not inevitable, but seeing as it is dealing with the United States of America, I would call the war inevitable. America’s message has always been, from its early Revolutionary War’s beginning, that this country is “the land of the free and the home of the brave”. Francis Scott Key’s words in the War of 1812 were not penned then, but decades before in the founding of the US. In every American’s mind the fight for freedom from oppression has been ingrained into their very being, so much so that at some point along the line American’s began to believe that it was their God-given right to do whatever they wanted, regardless of moral or ethical codes. That push and drive to have freedoms meant that Americans would fight if they were denied what they believed to be their natural rights. So as the two branches of America grew into nearly separate nations, each with their own ideas of how the country should be run, it turned out that the two areas’ images of freedom were very different. But despite their differences they were united under the common belief that they were doing what was right because it was possible for them to do so. Freedom can lead to corruption if left unchecked, and that’s exactly what happened. From the moment the transatlantic slave trade began, the wheels were set in motion for a divide. One section of the country based on enslaved workers and the other on industry would never work, because soon those areas would grow to be so independently minded and disagree with each other so much on the simple word “freedom” that a war had to happen, in order to show how much we would lose. How stubborn Americans had to be to fight a war and lose millions of lives just to see that enslaving human beings was wrong.
1.) I think that the clash of cultures along with economics was the primary cause of the Civil War. As we know, Bleeding Kansas was the physical clashes between anti and pro slavery forces in Kansas that had opposing intentions for the state’s future. Because both of these forces were inhabiting part of Kansas, they felt the need to create two separate legislatures, and therefore increased the intensity of the pro-slavery vs. anti-slavery conflict in the process.
The South’s opposition to the clash of cultures becomes very obvious in its threat to succeed from the Union, if Lincoln was elected into office. Since Lincoln was a Republican, the southern Democrats were concerned about what Lincoln would do as a president from an unprecedented political party. Although the democrats could not truly predict Lincoln’s moves, they did know that he opposed the expansion of slavery, and by extension, the unrestricted growth of the southern slave economy and culture. If Lincoln opposed the expansion of slavery, as promised in the Republican platform, then the Southern agricultural and Northern industrial cultures that were heavily influenced by economics would be forced to clash and accommodate each other. The separate legislatures created in Kansas accurately displayed sectional oppositions to the clash of cultures, and Bleeding Kansas displayed the severity of sectional tensions.
2.) I think that the war was inevitable, and it became inevitable when the Missouri Compromise was repealed. The first time that the Missouri Compromise was repealed, was when the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which proposed the idea of popular sovereignty into the divided Nebraska territory, went into effect in 1854. By allowing the settlers of the territory to vote on whether or not they were pro-slavery or anti-slavery, the strict 36°30′ line was bypassed. Unfortunately, the Missouri Compromise, and its 36°30′ line allowed for a truce between the North and South concerning the debate over balance in the Senate. The instant that the line was repealed, The Whig Party split, and havoc followed.
The second instance in which the Missouri Compromise was repealed, was the ruling of the Dred Scott v. Sanford case. At conclusion of the case, the supreme court justices deemed the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional because the 36°30′ line that it established violated the pre-established property rights that applied to the enslaved people in any state, both above and below the 36°30′ line. This ruling in particular gave power to the south by stating that all citizens, including slaveholders, could not be denied their property rights in any state or territory. It also directly opposed Stephen Douglas’ popular sovereignty, which would later lead to the publication of the Freeport Doctrine.
So, when you think about what primarily caused the Civil War, there is a lot to choose from. Slavery? Economics? States’ rights? Clash of cultures? Terrible politicians? Westward expansion? Which is it and why?
I believe the cause of the Civil War was because of multiple reasons, however I think that the primary cause of the Civil War was slavery. Many of the reasons like economic differences in the states and states’ rights all were related to slavery. Slavery and states’ rights are related because the reason there was such a large conflict over the rights of states was the debate on if they should be a free state or a slave state. Economics also went hand in hand with slavery because the southern economy was based on agriculture and farming fueled by the institution of slavery, and the north was a more industrialized economy. This created conflict between the south and north because it further separated the two. Slavery was the primary cause of the civil war because it sparked conflicts in the northern and southern states.
Do you think the war was inevitable? If yes, at what point did it become inevitable? If you don’t believe the war was inevitable, why did the war start when it did with the bombing of Fort Sumter?
I believe the Civil War was inevitable. I believe that Abraham Lincoln’s election was the breaking point of the civil war. After his election in 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the union, which was then followed by many other states in the south. However, I also believe the war was inevitable because it had been brewing for a long time, for many reasons. For example, the supreme court in the Dred Scott case ruled that Dred Scott could not sue for freedom, because any African American, free or not, was not considered an American citizen, and therefore could not sue. This further polarized the north and the south by showing that the south viewed slaves as property that were not entitled to freedom. Also, the differences in the north and the south became so heightened that it became very difficult to find common ground. Debates over the state’s rights to own slaves, as well as the morality of slavery increased greatly. In addition, the opposing ideas of whether to have a country based on agriculture or based on industrialism fueled hostility. In short, all of these factors contributed to the tense relationship between the north and the south, but the breaking point that I believe started the Civil War was Lincoln’s election, which was followed by the secession of South Carolina.