What were the causes of Civil War?

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

1. Sweeping Economic Changes

Southern political insecurity was exacerbated by external economic pressure. Around the globe, more and more countries were ramping up production of raw cotton. While Southerners boasted that “Cotton is King,” their primary export had become steadily less valuable in the decade leading up to the Civil War. Since the South had no financial system to speak of, one bad crop often sent plantation owners to Yankee banks (or London ones). “In effect, the South had all the disadvantages of a one-crop economy,” wrote the historian Paul Johnson. The North, on the other hand, was a burgeoning industrial economy with an elaborate financial sector intent on expansion.

2. The Union Was Rapidly Changing Amidst Political Upheaval

In the decade preceding the conflict, California, Minnesota, Oregon and Kansas all became states. Up until the 1850s, the Union had survived largely through the Missouri Compromise, a Faustian bargain that maintained the political balance between the North and South but did nothing to address the slavery question. The question of how these states were admitted to the Union, and which ones, created tension between the North and South.

It’s easy to lose sight of all the things that happened in the latter half of the 1850s. The Missouri Compromise was killed. The law that replaced it—the Kansas-Nebraska Act—was found unconstitutional (a stunning action at the time). A major political party (the Whigs) abruptly died. Two free states joined the Union (Oregon and Minnesota), while a slave state (Kansas) was initially denied entry. All of these things occurred under Democratic presidents relatively sympathetic to slavery. The prospect of a president opposed to slavery struck fear in the hearts of Southerners. As the nation changed, it seemed to give credence to John C. Calhoun’s warning (made just days before he died) that if the South waited too long to act it would no longer be strong enough to leave the Union (peaceably or not).

3. There Was a Breakdown of Decorum and Civil Discourse

Both North and South burned with righteous anger because both passionately believed in the justice of their cause. This caused not just harsh language, but spasms of violence that racked the nation. One of the earliest instances involved Elijah P. Lovejoy, a printer who was killed in 1837 when his small abolitionist newspaper was attacked by a mob of slave sympathizers. One of the last was John Brown’s deadly failed raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859.

In between these events were numerous other violent events, and lawmakers were not immune. Perhaps the most notorious instance was Congressman Preston Brooks’ attack on Sen. Charles Sumner, who on the Senate floor delivered a speech filled with sexual innuendo that impugned the honor of a kinsman of the South Carolina Congressman. In response, Brooks attacked Sumner in his Senate office with a cane, leaving Sumner in a bleeding heap surrounded by cane shards. (It took two years for Sumner to recover.)

In normal times a violent attack on an old, unarmed man would spark outrage. Instead, as historian Shelby Foote noted, “Southern sympathizers sent Brooks walking sticks by the dozen, recommending their use on other abolitionists…” Brooks, censured by Congress, was later overwhelmingly reelected to his congressional seat.

4. Fundamental Disagreement on Constitutional Principles

Uncertainty as to what the federal government could and could not do began before the ink on the U.S. Constitution was dry. If, how, and to what extent the federal government could limit or abolish slavery loomed over American history.

Lincoln—both before and during the Civil War—said the federal government lacked the power to force emancipation on the states. The Founders had created a system “conceived in liberty”—but one, he admitted, that lacked the power to liberate the enslaved. Radical Republicans disagreed. All constitutional issues aside, the radicals probably were correct that no nation conceived on such lofty principles could indefinitely condone a system that enslaved.

Even before the Constitution was written, Samuel Johnson ironically asked, “How is it that the loudest yelps for liberty come from the drivers of Negroes?” By the 1850s the hypocrisy could no longer be ignored because of the sheer scope of slavery. The Census of 1860 shows there were some 4 million slaves in the South—compared to 78,000 in 1727 and 697,000 in 1790.

The South might have had the Constitution on its side, but history was not. Radical Republicans with increasing frequency came to believe they had a moral duty to abolish slavery, that they were obligated by “a Higher Law than the Constitution.”

Answer 3

SLAVERY