The Causes of the American Civil War

The Civil War was the bloodiest conflict ever fought in U.S. History. This war had divided the American Nation between the North (which was designated ‘The Union’) and South (which was ‘the Confederacy’). The causes of this war are very wide ranged and debatable. However, the most debated, relevant, and obvious causes would include: Conflicts of slavery, the election of President Abraham Lincoln, and the secession of southern states.

The conflict of slavery has been the most debated cause of the entire conflict of the American Civil War. The north and south had many contradicting perspectives on the way a lifestyle should be. The north put forth an immense effort to push their beliefs of the immorality of slavery in order to get the forced servitude of human beings outlawed in all parts of the United States. The south, inverse to the northern principle, believed slavery was a necessity for the production of cotton that largely contributed to the economic growth of U.S. The standard southern ideology was that slaves were personal property of their owners, which was a southern principle that was protected under the Constitution of the United States. This disagreement was the first main stepping stone to the War Between the States.

The election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the U.S. was the last straw, so to speak, for the south. As a result of Lincoln’s proposal of compensation emancipation and being referred to as the leader of a Black Republican party during his clash with Stephen Douglas, he was basically dubbed as an anti-slavery supporter. The south believed that, with Abraham Lincoln as president, they had no chance to gain the representation in the Senate and House that they believed they deserved.

Due to Lincoln’s election, a month afterwards, South Carolina seceded the United States. South Carolina was later followed by Florida, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and then Texas. As a consequence of Lincoln’s beliefs of preserving the Union, he privately attempted to persuade the seceded southern states to return. It was established the secession was illegal, though the constitution gave no power to stop it. So, as a result, the south drafted its own constitution and formed the Confederacy. Then shortly after, the Confederacy believed it was unnecessary for the Union forts to be in Confederate territory. When the Union ignored this claim, the Confederacy attacked Fort Sumter. The attack on a Union Fort began the Civil War.

So, to put it briefly, it was mainly the disagreements between two different ways of life that created the conflicts that lead to the bloodiest war in America’s history. Once the south lost hope in maintaining control in the Senate and House when Lincoln was elected, they alleged that their way of life was then threatened. So accordingly, the south revolted to preserve their lifestyle and become independent from Unites States, which was under the control of the faction (the Union) that had a contradictory way of life from the south.