Position:Home>History> What were the immediate causes of the civil war?

Slavery and a states' rights over rights of the Federal Government!.

1!. Economic and social differences between the North and the South!.

With Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in 1793, cotton became very profitable!. This machine was able to reduce the time it took to separate seeds from the cotton!. However, at the same time the increase in the number of plantations willing to move from other crops to cotton meant the greater need for a large amount of cheap labor, i!.e!. slaves!. Thus, the southern economy became a one crop economy, depending on cotton and therefore on slavery!. On the other hand, the northern economy was based more on industry than agriculture!. In fact, the northern industries were purchasing the raw cotton and turning it into finished goods!. This disparity between the two set up a major difference in economic attitudes!. The South was based on the plantation system while the North was focused on city life!. This change in the North meant that society evolved as people of different cultures and classes had to work together!. On the other hand, the South continued to hold onto an antiquated social order!.

2!. States versus federal rights!.

Since the time of the Revolution, two camps emerged: those arguing for greater states rights and those arguing that the federal government needed to have more control!. The first organized government in the US after the American Revolution was under the Articles of Confederation!. The thirteen states formed a loose confederation with a very weak federal government!. However, when problems arose, the weakness of this form of government caused the leaders of the time to come together at the Constitutional Convention and create, in secret, the US Constitution!. Strong proponents of states rights like Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry were not present at this meeting!. Many felt that the new constitution ignored the rights of states to continue to act independently!. They felt that the states should still have the right to decide if they were willing to accept certain federal acts!. This resulted in the idea of nullification, whereby the states would have the right to rule federal acts unconstitutional!. The federal government denied states this right!. However, proponents such as John C!. Calhoun fought vehemently for nullification!. When nullification would not work and states felt that they were no longer respected, they moved towards secession!.

3!. The fight between Slave and Non-Slave State Proponents!.

As America began to expand, first with the lands gained from the Louisiana Purchase and later with the Mexican War, the question of whether new states admitted to the union would be slave or free!. The Missouri Compromise passed in 1820 made a rule that prohibited slavery in states from the former Louisiana Purchase the latitude 36 degrees 30 minutes north except in Missouri!. During the Mexican War, conflict started about what would happen with the new territories that the US expected to gain upon victory!. David Wilmot proposed the Wilmot Proviso in 1846 which would ban slavery in the new lands!. However, this was shot down to much debate!. The Compromise of 1850 was created by Henry Clay and others to deal with the balance between slave and free states, northern and southern interests!. One of the provisions was the fugitive slave act that was discussed in number one above!. Another issue that further increased tensions was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854!. It created two new territories that would allow the states to use popular sovereignty to determine whether they would be free or slave!. The real issue occurred in Kansas where proslavery Missourians began to pour into the state to help force it to be slave!. They were called “Border Ruffians!.” Problems came to a head in violence at Lawrence Kansas!. The fighting that occurred caused it to be called “Bleeding Kansas!.” The fight even erupted on the floor of the senate when antislavery proponent Charles Sumner was beat over the head by South Carolina’s Senator Preston Brooks!.

4!. Growth of the Abolition Movement!.

Increasingly, the northerners became more polarized against slavery!. Sympathies began to grow for abolitionists and against slavery and slaveholders!. This occurred especially after some major events including: the publishing of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the Dred Scott Case, John Brown’s Raid, and the passage of the fugitive slave act that held individuals responsible for harboring fugitive slaves even if they were located in non-slave states!.

5!. The election of Abraham Lincoln!.

Even though things were already coming to a head, when Lincoln was elected in 1860, South Carolina issued its “Declaration of the Causes of Secession!.” They believed that Lincoln was anti-slavery and in favor of Northern interests!. Before Lincoln was even president, seven states had seceded from the Union: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

The Civil War had been building since the Missouri Compromise of 1820!.The South used states rights as an argument and claimed that slavery was humane!. Many of the presidents were slave owners which prolonged the argument!. But when a Republican (Lincoln) was elected that did it for South Carolina!. They had threatened to secede if a Democrat was elected!. The immediate cause was their firing on Fort Sumter and announced they were seceding from the Union!. The rest of the South one by one followed!. The firing on Sumter forced Lincoln's hand!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

Upon Lincolns election, South Carolina seceded from the union!. Assertion of states rights to nullify anything that the didn't agree with, and lincolns election was the last straw!. (other instances in the years before the war were able to be resolved somewhat and his put off the war for a while) but the main issue was the south wanting the new territories in the west to be admitted as slave states so the south would have more representation in congress!. It wasn't really about slavery though because the west is desert!. It was about seats in congress!. Slave owners ruled the white house for much of the first half century, but they were becoming more and more so a minority!. Slavery wasn't an ethical issue at this time, it was really about power and economics!.

Their issue with Lincoln was that he would no longer allow states to enter the union as a slave state!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

---

---

1!. Unfair Taxation
The history and economy of the North were very different from those of the South!. Factories developed in the North, while large cotton plantations developed in the South!. The Southern plantation owners relied on slave labor for economic success!. Their crops were sold to cotton mills in England, and the ships returned with cheap manufactured goods produced in Europe!. By the early 1800s, Northern factories were producing many of those same goods, and Northern politicians were able to pass heavy taxes on imported goods from Europe so that Southerners would have to buy goods from the North!. These taxes angered Southerners!.

Laws unfavorable to the South were passed!.

2!. States' Rights
Southerners felt that the Federal government was passing laws, such as import taxes, that treated them unfairly!. They believed that individual states had the right to "nullify", or overturn, any law the Federal government passed!. They also believed that individual states had the right to leave the United States and form their own independent country!. Most people in the North believed that the concepts of "nullification" and "states' rights" would make the United States a weaker country and were against these ideas!.

"The Union must be preserved" -- Henry Clay, 1850
Kentucky Resolutions -- 1798
Lincoln's inaugural address
"South has the right to secede" -- Jefferson Davis' inaugural address, February 1861
"The South has the right to secede from the Union" -- Alabama letter to Kentucky Governor


3!. Slavery
Meanwhile, in the North, many religious groups worked hard to end slavery in the United States!. They were morally opposed to the idea that one person could "own" another!. Abolitionists in the North wrote books, published newspapers spreading their ideas about slavery, and often assisted slaves to freedom when they ran away from their masters!. Southerners believed that abolitionists were attacking their way of life and that the Federal government was not doing enough to protect their "property" from running away!. Southerners were also concerned that new states were entering the Union that did not permit citizens to own slaves, because the more "free" states that entered the Union, the weaker Southerners' influence in the Federal government would become!.



"Slaves will never be free unless there is a war" -- Abraham Lincoln letter
"Expansion of Slavery Was Limited by Federal Government" -- newspaper editorial
"Abolishing slavery would be a disaster for the South" -- newspaper editorial
Compromise of 1850 -- Henry ClayWww@QuestionHome@Com

---

---