World History

The American Civil War was a four-year war (1861–65) between the United States and 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. The secession of the Southern states in 1860–61 and the ensuing outbreak of armed hostilities was the culmination of decades of growing sectional friction in American society.

Sectional Disharmony As Cause Of Civil War

The Northern and Southern sections of the United States developed along different lines. The South remained a predominantly agrarian economy while the North became more and more industrialized. Different social cultures and political beliefs developed. All of this led to disagreements on issues such as taxes, tariffs and internal improvements as well as states rights versus federal rights.

1. Between 1815 and 1861 the economy of the Northern states was rapidly modernizing and diversifying. industrialization had taken root there. Moreover, Northerners had invested heavily in an expansive and varied transportation system that included canals, roads, steamboats, and railroads.
2. The Southern economy was based principally on large farms called plantations that produced commercial crops such as cotton and that relied on slaves as the main labour force. Rather than invest in factories or railroads as Northerners had done, Southerners invested their money in slaves.
3. The key issue of contention was the expansion of slavery into new states which dates back as far as the Northwest Ordinance of 1784. When the slave territory of Missouri sought statehood in 1818, Congress debated for two years before arriving upon the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
4. This was the first of a series of political deals that resulted from arguments between proslavery and antislavery forces over the expansion of slavery.
5. The end of the Mexican-American War in 1848 and new territory that the United States gained as a result of it added a new sense of urgency to the dispute.
6. America’s westward expansion raised questions about what laws and customs should be followed in the West. Ever since the nation’s early days, the northern and southern parts of the United States had followed different ways of life. Each section wanted to extend its way of life to the new territories and states in the West.
7. Another bone of contention between two halves of America is the role and powers of the federal government. While the Southern part wanted the federal government to adhere to the strict definition of the federation and limit its role in matters of an individual state, especially in matters of slavery regulation, north viewed federal government has right to regulate and even abolish slavery.
8. More and more Northerners, driven by a sense of morality or an interest in protecting free labour, came to believe, in the 1850s, that bondage needed to be eradicated. White Southerners feared that limiting the expansion of slavery would consign the institution to certain death.
9. Over the decade, the two sides became increasingly polarized and politicians less able to contain the dispute through compromise.
10. When Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of the explicitly antislavery Republican Party, won the 1860 presidential election, seven Southern states carried out their threat and seceded, organizing as the Confederate States of America.

Though the issue of slavery came to fore as the central issue that led to civil war, the main issue was the sectional disharmony between the North and the South that go back to the inception of the republic. The differing cultures of North and South and their intention to make American in their respective images fractured the nation and drove it into a bloody civil war.