These social and economic differences became a cause of the civil war due to the fact that the industrial North soon controlled about a large share of the industry, as well as two thirds of the money supply and the army. This success of the North was not welcome by the South and hence the bitter rift between the two expanded further.
Electoral fears
As mentioned earlier, the gap between the North and the South was getting wider due to the changes that were occurring in the individual regions. The south was still devoted to the agricultural way of life, cotton plantation to be precise, and had a low population growth. The industrial North on the other hand had a high population growth and was also experiencing a high influx of immigrants from Europe. The high population growth of the North meant that the efforts of the South to have a balanced government were weakened. The significance of the population growth in the North was that, there was the potential for the election of someone from the North, which would lead to an increase of free states and even more, the election of a president who would be against slave trade (anti-slavery). The election of an anti-slavery leader was perhaps one of the most dreaded threats to the Southern people as their cotton economy flourished mainly due to the cheap labor provided by the slaves; a ban on slave trade would lead to a huge fall back on the Southern economy.
Slavery and Control of the Government
The southern politicians attempted to maintain slavery by controlling the federal government. During almost half of the nineteenth century, the Southern people remained at advantage due to the fact that a large number of the presidents were from the South. As more states were added to the nation, a number of compromises had to be reached that claimed an equal number of the free and the slave states.
For some time, the balance of the free and the slave states was well managed. In the year 1820, Missouri came in as a slave state while Maine joined as a free state. This balance was however interrupted 30 years later. The Southerners pledged to allow California to come in as a free state, and in exchange, requested for laws that would favor slavery much more. These new demands obviously brought problems to the already agreed upon terms, and therefore brought in new conflicts between the Southerners and the Northerners.
One may look at the issue as exploitative or perhaps manipulative on the part of the Southerners to ask for more favorable laws in regard to the slave issue and in return sacrifice a state to the Northerners, however when we think back to the economic life of the Southerners, the request then becomes clear, the Southerners wanted to secure their slaves so as to ensure continuity of their successful cotton plantations.
The fight for new territories
America started to expand due to the territories gained from Louisiana, and also from the Mexican war. This expansion brought about the issue of whether the states admitted would be free or slave. A rule that banned slavery from the previous Louisiana Purchase, except Missouri, was passed in 1820 under the Missouri Compromise. Conflict once again rose following the Mexican war, on what was to happen to the territories that the United States expected to gain if they emerged victorious in the war. In response to this, David Wilmot came up with the Wilmot Proviso in the year 1846, which was to ban slavery in the new territories.
This issue was not taken well and in 1850, Henry Clay created the Compromise of 1850, which was to help deal with the balance between the free and the slave states. However the issue that caused more conflict and therefore a major fuel to the civil war, was the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, which facilitated the creation of two territories that allowed them to use popular sovereignty in order to determine whether these states would be slave or free. With the high population growth in the North, it meant that the Northerners would be at an advantage over the lower population Southerners, now that the fate of the new states would be decided by the consent of the people in the North and South. This act, therefore, lead to more problems than solutions between the states.
Bleeding Kansas
Following the Kansas-Nebraska Act that brought further conflict between the states, more problems happened in Kansas where the proslavery people from Missouri came into Kansas to help it to become a slave state. Fighting occurred between the states, and hence the term “Bleeding Kansas.” Though the pro-slavery group from Missouri influenced the elections, the matter was taken to Congress, it was turned down, and the congress ordered new elections. In the year 1859, an anti-slavery Constitution was passed by congress, and this led to further fighting in Kansas, hence heightening the unrest between the North and the South. Kansas was opened and both anti and pro-slavery groups went in to settle. This saw the eruption of violent clashes between the two groups.
In the year 1955, other elections were held for the territorial legislature, and more than 6000 people fron Missouri flooded into Kansas, yet initially, there were only 1500 authorized voters. The obvious result was the election of the pro-slavery majority into the legislature. The violence continued for another two years, until the Lecompton Constitution was promulgated.
Abolitionism
The problem of slavery was made worse by the emergence of a movement known as Abolitionism. The people in the North felt that the issue of slavery was not just evil, but was immoral as well. These supporters of anti-slavery ranged from those who felt that all slaves deserved to be freed soon, to those like Abraham Lincoln, who strongly desired to stop not just the spread, but also the influence of slavery.
The abolitionists simply wanted slavery to be abolished. They called it a peculiar institution and came up with campaigns to end it. Due to the persistence of the abolitionists, a debate rose among them and the Southerners that looked into the morality of the issue of slavery, and both sides interestingly quoted the Bible.
The Abolitionist movement appeared to win the battle in the year 1852, whereby they were receiving a lot of attention due to the publication of an anti-slavery novel titled Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which helped to win the public against the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. It was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Fight for States' Rights
The South soon realized that they were losing control of government matters, and it quickly turned to states’ rights type of argument in order to protect the issue of slavery. They attacked the federal government saying that the government was restricted from imposing upon the rights of the slaveholders, claiming that the government was not to interfere in the states where slavery was in existence. They believed that this attack on the government in regard to the breach of the constitution would help them to maintain their mode of living. This does not seem to have worked out as well as they expected and continued fueling the tension between the north and the south which later gave birth to the civil war.
Clearly, thanks to the Abolitionists, the Southerners were losing the battle in regard to slavery, and the cards were in favor of setting the set the slaves free Northerners, something that put the economy of the southerners in danger, as discussed earlier. Due to this, more tension continued to grow and eventually factored in, in the civil war.
The election of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was elected into presidency in 1860, due to the larger population of the North. He defeated Stephen Douglas. The southerners were already in tension due to the growing success of the Abolitionist movement. Therefore with the election of Lincoln, they felt that their livelihood was in danger. As discussed in the paper, even before the election of Lincoln, the tension between the states was already high, however things became tougher after he was elected as president.
On December 20, of 1860, South Carolina presented its Declaration of the Causes of Secession, due to the belief that Lincoln was an anti-slavery agent and would therefore favor the North. After North Carolina seceded, six southern states left the union namely; Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. Soon after Lincoln won the election and following this secession, the dreadful four year war known as the American civil war began in 1861.
Conclusion
The American civil war is perhaps one of the most outstanding features of the American history. A lot of what is happening today can be traced back to this war. There are a number of causes that lead to the war. This paper has attempted to highlight some of the major causes of the war, but it is possible that there are some other causes of the war that were perhaps never documented. However one thing that stands out from all the causes discussed is the fact that the major backbone of the whole war was the issue of slavery. The southerners were in support of slavery due to the need for cheap labor to work in their cotton plantations, while the Northerners were against slave trade claiming that it is evil and morally wrong. A lot of factors came into play surrounding the issue of slavery between the states, but the climax of the tension was the disastrous civil war that has left such a mark in the history of America.
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