this essay is on the times leading to the civil war

Essay by jpmlac27High School, 11th gradeA+, January 2003

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In my eyes the civil war was inevitable. At a time when a nation split into two and each differing so greatly there is no question that all roads lead to war. From slavery to the social, economic, and political points of view, dating from colonial times, everythin gradually drove the two sections farther and farther apart, and closer and closer to war.

Before the Civil War, the greatest regional difference in the U.S. was between the South and the rest of the nation. The cornerstone of that difference was slavery. The South kept it, while between 1777 and 1804, eight Northeasters states passed laws eliminating it. There also were other differences of economic significance. For example, the South was less urbanized than the Northeast, and there were vastly fewer foreign born people, relatively and absolutely, living in the South than in any other region, but these were less significant and were related to slavery.

Although slaves were owned by Southerners who lived in cities to work in their homes, to work trades like blacksmithing, brick laying, and in factories, the great majority were employed in agriculture, which was the dominant economic activity in the South. The South exported most of its cotton through New York, and many of its imports came through this Northern port city. Immigrants with little or no money or skills did not settle in the South because they would have to compete with slave labor, and laborers in the rest of the country were very opposed to slavery being introduced into their states for this reason. Many immigrants in the late antebellum period settled in Northen cities to work in factories. After railroads connected the Midwest with Northern ports, New Orleans lost much of the Midwestern trade to them.

It was only about 200...