The Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865, was mainly caused by the moral issue of slavery and the constitutional issue of slavery, which led to the division of the western states between freedom and slavery. However, there was also the issue of the controversial tariff, which further divided the Union.
The Tariff of 1825 raised the duties of imported goods by about 45 percent, which angered the South while appeasing the manufacturing North. The Southerners rightly believed that the tariff discriminated against them. They sold their farm produce without the benefits of a tariff but were forced to buy their manufactured goods that were heavily protected by it. This enabled the American manufacturer to raise their prices anywhere to one cent below the English competitors, who had to pay the high tariff. The fact that when Americans bought less English textiles, the English would buy less Southern cotton also infuriated the South.
English: Marais des Cygnes massacre
Civil war reenactment at Kennekuk County Park, nea...
Map of Confederate territory losses year by yearThe moral issue of slavery also helped to ignite the fire of the civil war. Abolitionists argued against slavery as the horrible, immoral practice that it as, while the South was reluctant to lose their "property" of slaves. Southerners argued that their slaves lived a better life than the free slaves in the North, who worked in unhealthy factories that paid small wages. However, the North had come to see the South as the land of slavery, a hateful institution.
The Constitutional debate over fugitive slavery also aided the beginning of the Civil War. The debate of 1850 started when the South complained that the fugitive slave law passed by Congress in 1793 was ineffective in returning slaves. Slave owners rested their argument on the Constitution, which protected slavery. The North, an anti-slavery region, eventually came to a compromise but later this very compromise...