Causes of the Civil War

Most of the Southern states succeeded from the Union which started the civil war between the North and The South. The Civil War was the bloodiest wars in American history. Such events like this have many causes. The reason Sothern states wanted to succeed was because there was four decades of great sectional conflict between the two. Between the North and South there were deep economic, social, and political differences which was called Sectionalism. These differences finally threatened the existence of the nation. The debate that followed on was the different views of the states on slavery.

During the early 1800s, the Northeast, South, and Northwest sections of the United States each developed their own different ways of living. The Northeast was in the lead of industrialization and manufacturing. It was the fastest growing and the modernized section. Factories and cities were beginning to change life styles dramatically. The Northwest became the bread basket of the nation. There were mostly small farmers, but they shipped their grain to other states. The South was the major institution of slavery. Its economy was based on agriculture and there were large plantations. Therefore, some of the southern plantation owners needed a lot of cheap laboring. They based their economy on profits obtained by using slave labor on large plantations, and growing almost the all cotton need of the country. These different ways of living led to sectionalism. Many Americans felt greater loyalty toward their own regions than to the Union. Because, it wasn’t likely they could get along together.
While abolitionists believed that the federal government had the power over the territories, the Supreme Court decided that Congress did not have the right to prohibit slavery in any U.S territory with the Dred Scott Decision. A former slave Dred Scott sued his owner claiming that since he was in the Northern territory; he was free. In contrast, the ruling held that no...