There were many factors involved in the occurrence of the Civil War. The main and immediate cause of the war was slavery. Southern states, including the 11 states that formed the Confederacy, depended on slavery to push their economy. By 1860 the North and South had become two different regions, differing socially, economically, and politically on their views. More directly it was situations such as the inclusion of Missouri that caused the war to begin.
The new additions to the union caused many problems for the union. The Missouri Compromise was passed; this compromise admitted Missouri to the Union as a slave state and admitted Maine as a free state to keep the balance in the Senate. It also provided that slavery would be excluded from the still unorganized part of the Louisiana Territory. A line was drawn from Missouri?s southern border (36ð30?) and slavery would not be allowed in the territory north of that line, with the exception of Missouri.
English: Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President ...
Sam Houston was named commander of the new Texian ...
Lithograph of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln...The gains of the Mexican War also raised the issue of balance within the Senate. The Compromise of 1850 ended this problem by admitting California as a free state and letting the territorial governments in the remainder of the Mexican cession choose whether they would permit slavery.
Many actions led to the break out of war in colonial America. The release of ?Uncle Tom?s Cabin? cause many to feel antislavery was the way to go. The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise and provided that settlers in the territories should decide ?all questions pertaining to slavery.? This doctrine was known as popular sovereignty. The Kansas-Nebraska act rooted the formation of the Republican Party which Abraham Lincoln was a supporter of. The Dred Scott case was when a slave sued for his freedom on the grounds that when his master...
Annexation of Texas - figures prominately in the Civil War
The new Republic of Texas asked to be annexed to the United States as early as 1837. The governments of Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren took no action for two reasons. First, the question of Texas annexation divided the northern and southern United States. Leading up to the 1840s, trans-Mississippi expansion had extended "Southern society" and contributed to a way of life considered to be abhorable by northern citizens. Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri were all slave states. Texas would be another. Northerners, who disliked slavery and Southern political power, imagined that the Texas territory could become as many as 11 new slave states with 22 new pro-slavery senators. Annexation of Texas was certain to arouse Northern, antislavery opposition. President John Tyler, supporting the South, tried to annex Texas in 1844 but was defeated by congressional Northerners and by some Southern members of the anti-Jacksonian Whig Party. The second reason for avoiding annexation was that Mexico still considered Texas its own territory. Annexation would create a diplomatic crisis, perhaps resulting in war.
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