West European Studies

There were various reasons that led to the rise of Civil war in the United States of America.  This civil war occurred between 1861 and 1865 and it is also referred to as the War between States. It was a sectional conflict between the Southern states and the Northern states. The Southern states had declared secession from the Union (United States) and had formed the Confederacy also known as the Confederated States of America. These Southern states were led by Jefferson Davis and they raged a war against the Union .  The Union was led by the Republican Party under President Abraham Lincoln. Therefore the war was between the Federal Government (Union) and eleven slave states in the South.  Railroads, steam ships, various military devices and weapons produced in masses were used in this war and it is therefore described as the earliest true industrial war. The war resulted in the death of 620,000 soldiers and many civilians and it is therefore regarded as the deadliest war in the history of America. This paper reviews some of the reasons for the Civil war. The main reasons for the Civil war were the difference in economies between the North and the South, issue of Slavery, the States Rights to vote and the election of Lincoln as the United states President.

The economies in the North and the South were different. This was one of the reasons that led to the Civil war. The economy in the North was industry based and people worked everyday on the factories to earn wages. The North was a manufacturing Center that used Raw materials to produced manufactured goods. The Southern states comprised mainly of large cotton plantations.  Cotton growing was labor intensive and therefore the owners of these plantations needed slaves to work in their fields. Slavery had already been abolished in the North but it still continued in the South. The Northern states were Free states where it was illegal to buy, own or trade slaves. Therefore people were paid to work in the factories. In the South, slaves worked in the plantations without pay. With the North championing for anti-slavery, a conflict was inevitable. The reasons given by the Confederate for the succession was the slavery issue. The North championed and protested against slavery but the South believed that slavery was good for their economy in that it saved the plantation owners money by not paying for the labor. The Northern States were afraid of the Slave power of the Southern States while the South was afraid of the abolitionist Republican Party.

The election of Abraham Lincoln as the president in of the Union triggered the South to a secession. The South held that President Lincoln would outlaw slavery . The election of Lincoln as the president meant the loss of control of the Federal government by the Southern states. This secession triggered the start of the Civil war. Though Abraham Lincoln was a compassionate man and was not happy on the way the slaves were treated, he had declared that he would not end slavery in states where it existed. Therefore though he was not viewed as an immediate threat to slavery, the South felt that he would lead to its extinction with time . The South thought that Lincoln who was an anti-slavery activist would abolish slavery and by doing this take away their way of life and their economy. During the 1860 presidential elections, the Republican Party campaigned against slavery expansion beyond the then slave states. The party was led by Abraham Lincoln. After Lincolns victory in the election, seven Southern states declared secession from the Union. This was vehemently rejected by the Lincoln admininistration which had not even taken office by then and by the outgoing administration. The secession was considered a rebellion by both administrations (Jones, 154).

The southern states were basically afraid of the Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln as the president of the Union. The slave states felt that Lincoln would stop the expansion of slavery. They also felt that even if Lincoln did not do this, another Northerner would do so with time. The slave states had become a minority in the House of Representatives. They also faced a future of perpetual minority in the Electoral College and in the Senate in the face of an increasingly powerful North. Therefore considering all this, the Slave states felt that it was time to quit the Union (Foote, 34). The war officially started on April 12, 1861 after a US military installation was attacked by the confederate forces. This occurred at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. President Abraham Lincoln responded to this by making a call to every state to offer volunteer army. This led to four more South states declaring secession. The degree of support for secession was in correlation with the number of plantations. The states which had the greatest concentration of large plantations were the first to secede i.e. States in the Deep South. The Border States which had fewer plantations did not secede.

Settling of new territories was another reason that led to the war. The South championed for the territories being settled to be admitted as slave states to the Union. The aim of wanting this was in order to prevent slaves escaping from the South into the new free territories. But the North wanted the new territories to be free. The loss of these new territories to Free states meant that the South would become marginalized with time. Some people championed for the States Rights where by the new territories would have a right of voting whether they wanted to be slave or free territories (Davis, 409).  The North held that the federal government had the power to decide whether or not to have slavery but the South held that every stated had a right of voting on any laws. The South also maintained that the federal government had no right or power of preventing new slaves from being taken to the new territories (Davis, 425). The South did not want to be governed by laws made by the laws made by the federal government but they wanted to make their own laws which would govern them. But the North insisted on the Federal Government making the laws. This together with the debate on the new states (whether to be slave states or Free states) triggered the Civil War (Stampp, 198).

The confederate president Jefferson Davis held that the confederate had a right to secede as this was the only way for liberation from the tyranny of an unbridled majority (Jefferson Davis, 55). The issue of slavery is believed to be the root cause of the conflict. This was because it was the main cause of different ideologies between the North and the South. In 1850, a new and stronger fugitive slave law was passed. This law gave federal agents the right to capture and return those slaves who escaped into Northern Free states (Foner, 56). Though this law was controversial, it was not a concrete reason for the secession. This is because the number of slaves who escaped was offset though Blacks from the North who were captured as slaves. This law was done away with after the secession. While the North championed for abolition of slavery, the plantation owners were angry for attacks on their peculiar institution (Davis, 186). They held the view that slavery was good for both the masters and the slaves. Even religious leaders like Rev. Fred A. Ross defended slavery by saying that it was sanctioned by God. The based their defense on Biblical arguments. The Post master General in the beginning of 1830s refused to allow mails containing abolition pamphlets to the Southern states. Teachers from the North who were suspected of having even the slightest tinge of abolitionism were expelled from the South. Literature on abolitionism was also banned from the South. To the Northerners, slavery was the antithesis of a good society and aa threat to their fundamental values and interests.

The Arguments
Many Southerners still hold that the war was not entirely on the issue of slavery but it was about money. The proponents of this argument believe that the South was more economically viable than the North due to its plantation and good relationship with England, its best customers. They therefore argue that the reason why the South joined the war was because of patriotism, enlightened political philosophy and idealism as compared to the North which joined the war on the grounds of patriotism and economic betterment. When Lincoln was elected the president of the Union, it made the situation worse as the South felt that having the Republican in power meant favoring the Wealthier Northern side.

Both the North and the South believed that they were right in their arguments. The South needed the slaves to work in their plantations for economic purposes while the North wanted to abolish due to the inhumane treatment that they received. Though slavery played a great role for the start of the war, it cannot be said to be the core reason for the Civil war (Pease, 923-927). The main problem rose from the need to establish a central federal government. This is because during that period, the state governments were powerful and held most of the power. Therefore the people of the states did not see themselves as the United States but as part of it. The North wanted a central federal government which the South did not want. This can be said to be the main reason for the war. The policies championed by the federal government in terms of taxes and abolition of slave trade are what made the South to secede.

The taxes paid on goods from other countries were a cause for quarrels. The South felt that these taxes referred to as tariffs were unfair to them and they felt that these tariffs were aimed towards them because they imported more goods than people from the Northern states. There were also other taxes that were imposed on the Southern goods exported to foreign countries and this was not employed on goods from the Northern states of equal value. The banks in the Southern state were charged higher interest rates on loans borrowed from the banks in the North. With the expansion of the Northern manufacturing industry, the North had no option but to look upon the South for the markets of its manufactured goods. This is because the Southerners were rich from the lucrative plantation business. But to the Southerners, it was cheaper and more affordable to buy goods from abroad. Besides, due to the differences in economy, the policy on tariff became controversial. The North preferred protective tariff for their manufactured goods while the South opposed this kind of tariff. This was because of their agricultural economy and the protective tariff would have provoked foreign retaliation and consequently reduce international trade with Great Britain. The protective tariff would therefore have been a burden to the slave states and a benefit to the North states.

Was the war inevitable
The Civil war was an inevitable war just like many other wars in history. It is in the nature of man to fight before he negotiates. Negotiations results from wars. In one way or the other, the American Civil war was bound to happen. This is because of the differences that existed between the North States and the South States. The American society grew in complexity after independence. This complexity was brought about by the shifting from small scale to large scale farming, migration in both sides of many white Americans and the slaves, and the rebirth of slavery and slave trade as a viable economic venture. These factors led to a sharp conflict of interests in terms of economy, social class and regions manifested in party politics. The economic differences between the North and the South increased significantly during the first half of the 19th century. The South depended on the cotton plantation while the North was mainly a manufacturing Center.

The war started after the slave states seceded. The arguments given for the secession vary. The fear of modernization by the South states is given as one reason for secession. The rapid modernization of the North was a threat to the South as the North was becoming more powerful economically. While the South was clinging to the rural traditional values, the North was developing and embracing new modernization urban values. This difference in values meant that the war was inevitable. The federal government concentrated its powers in Washington D.C and this together with increasing population made the North more power while the South lost political power because the population did not increase as rapid. This made the need of the Southerners to demand for freedom from the central government in Washington increase.

The patterns of living also diverged between the North and the South. This led to differences in the political ideas. The North favored a central federal government that would build infrastructures i.e. roads and railways, protect its trading and financial interests, and therefore control the national currency. The North championed for the federal government to have more powers and they were for a loose interpretation of the Constitution of United states. The South was completely opposite. The South wanted powers to be confined in individual states whereby each state had its right to make its laws. The South was not for internal improvements in terms of good infrastructure sponsored by the government. Because the South did not depend on the federal government, it did not any need to strength it. The Southerners also feared that a central government that was powerful would interfere with slave trade and maybe abolish it. Therefore they were not after such interference as their economy depended on slavery. Therefore due to these factors, a conflict was bound to happen and therefore the war was inevitable.