Civil War Basics

The Civil War was one of the most important events in the history of the United States. There were many different factors helped lead to the war. The three most significant factors that led to the Civil War were states rights, Western Expansion and slavery.

The south believed in strong states rights. If land was taken away or slavery wasn't allowed anymore then the people of the south would have to do all of the work for themselves. The north believed in strong federal government because with states rights, it didn't really affect the north in any way. The south thought that states should be able to make decisions for them and not have Washington controlling what they do. While the south believes that it's their right to leave the union if things didn't work for them or if they didn't like how things were being done. The north disagreed with the south's positions on states right. For example; Lincoln, who was president at the time, didn't believe that South Carolina could secede from the union. South Carolina eventually did leave the union, which lead other states to do the same. After South Carolina left, the lower south started seceding. States like Florida, Texas, Georgia and Alabama followed. The seceding of these states led to many of the conflicts of Western Expansion and the war.

The problem with Western Expansion was the decision about if a state was free or if it was a slave state. This problem started when Missouri wanted to become a slave state. This caused problems because if Missouri became a slave state then the land that was slave was larger then the free states land. So the decision was that Missouri became a slave state and Maine became its own state, a free state. This created the Compromise line. It was a line that separated the free states and the slave states; north was free and south was slave. After Texas acquired its independence it wanted to join the union. It wanted to join the union as a slave state, which obviously upset the north. As a result, Texas was annexed which upset Mexico. This then led to the war with Mexico. Later, after the war was over, California, Utah and New Mexico were gain. Again a problem, which are free and which are slave? California ended up being a free state and Utah and New Mexico both had popular sovereignty because of the Compromise of 1850. Later the Kansas-Nebraska act was introduced. This repealed the Compromise line, which lead to "Bleeding Kansas". This was when people from the north and south started moving into Kansas to try to win the vote of popular sovereignty when they started fighting. This is how slavery was introduced into the north, because of popular sovereignty. So as you can see, Western Expansion led to many conflicts, and eventually the war.

In the south the production of cotton was very important. The importance led to the invention of the cotton gin, by Eli Whitney. The cotton gin increased the amount of cotton that was able to be produced which led to increase of slaves that were necessary for picking the cotton. The demand for cotton was very high in the north. They depended on it. The north used cotton for their textile mills. Abolitionists didn't like slavery so they started protesting it. Fredrick Douglass and John Brown started changing peoples minds and turned the north farther away from slavery. Later the Fugitive Slave Act was put into effect which made the north feel as if they were being dragged into slavery which turned them away from it even more. Overall the south depended on slavery for everything, which caused many problems, which added to the cause of the war.

States rights, Western Expansion and Slavery were the three most significant factors that led to the Civil War. All have to do with the disagreements between the north and south. So in all, it could be said that, the differences between the north and the south led to the Civil War. If the north and south were united as one whole, there might not have ever been a Civil War.