Causes of the Civil War

Essay by HenryCollege, UndergraduateA+, January 1996

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In 1861, most of the nation's thirty-one million people lived in peace on farms and in small towns. Later on, they found this peace and trust in each other to be false, because the summer of 1861 brought on the most disturbing war America has ever faced, The Civil War. The Civil War was fought in more than 10,000 places, from New Mexico, to Vermont. Over three million Americans fought in this war, and nearly 600 thousand men, 2 percent of America's population died in it. What began as a dispute over Union and State rights ended as a struggle over the meaning of freedom in America. It is agreed that this war, was one of the most destructive wars in America's history, but no one could compromise on the one thing that started it.

There are many theories to what caused the Civil war slavery, and the inability to free the slaves in the South is said to be one of the main reasons Americans went to battle.

Many of these people even think that without the conflicts of slavery, the differences between North and South could have been worked out by compromising and listening toward one-another, but with the topic of slavery here, solutions became unsolvable. Even as early as the summer of 1787, when the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia, the delegates of the North debated with the delegates of the South over many important issues. At many times, questions about slavery, slave trade, the counting of slaves in representation in the lower house of Congress, and the regulation of commerce were the topics of many discussions. During the Constitutional debates, however, not many delegates were worried, or even concerned about if the new nation could remain permanently half slave and half free. After the debates, the...