Civil War Dbq Essay

In the mid 1800s the United States was separated into two opposing forces. This separation was know as the Civil War. After not recognizing the Southern Confederacy as its own nation, the American Civil war began in 1861. The reasons for this secessions were from the causes of Political, Economic, and Social problems.

The South, which was known as the Confederate States of America, seceded from the North, which was also known as the Union, for many different reasons. The reason they 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. The South wanted to become an independent nation. There were many reasons why the South wanted to succeed but the main reason had to do with the North's view on slavery.

In America in the 1840s and 1850s the north were growing industrially and relying on factories while the south was still rural and all about agriculture the two were growing apart. There became the debate over slavery and the north saw it has morally wrong while the south saw no problem with it. In the 1860s the south finally seceded from the union when Lincoln became president. In effort to try and help with issues there became many compromises like the compromise of 1850. While some believe the civil war started over “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” there is historical evidence that shows that the real causes for the secession of the southern states and the starting of the civil war to force them back into the union, were overwhelmingly the caning of

Following the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, many southern states feared that the government would begin to enforce more federal laws that would override many state laws, such as slave ownership. This potential rise in federalism led many southern states to contemplate secession from the union. The first state to officially secede was South Carolina on February 4th, 1861. They were followed by six more states, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, who would eventually make up the Confederacy. Although the Constitution has no clause allowing secession, it also does not have a clause forbidding it.

Other causes of the civil war, included differences between northern and southern states on the idea of slavery, as well as trade, tariffs, and states’ rights. The North due to having the better advantage over

The issues that eventually led to the secession of the southern states had been brewing for a considerable amount of time. Most people want to say that the reason for the war was slavery, while yes that was an issue it don’t start the war and wasn’t brought up into a little ways in to the war. One of the biggest issues that truly led to the states seceding was the debate over States’ rights. There had been a debate for years on if the federal government had the right to pass laws reversed laws already in place at state level, going far back as 1798.

‘Abolitionists were attacking slavery, there was nothing else we could do.’ The extreme measured that they went to were unnecessary to achieve their goal. Secession from the Union only made the Union realize that the South was truly afraid of what might happen if the Abolitionists succeeded in their objective of effacing slavery form the nation. On top of all of that, it was the South that started the fight between these two new powers known as the Confederate States of American and the United States of America.

When president Lincoln got elected in 1860, however, the southerners felt intimidated and believed his election threatened slave labor, thus, they exited the Union. As mentioned earlier, their secession was peaceful and its only purpose was to preserve the southerners’ way of life. The Union, on the other hand, realized that their secession was not as simple as the southerners have thought, they knew that if they did not return to the Union, it would cause deep conflict in the near future. Before the secession, the country was already torn over the issue of slavery which weakened the nation, when the states left the union, the dividing of the nation was even greater and the Union was now at a great risk of having foreign invaders invade the country. At that time, the president did not realize how serious the Confederate states were, he thought he could easily convince them to come back with a compromise.

Several conflicts led to the Civil War. One being the expansion of slavery. Abraham Lincoln, and many others in the Union, wanted to stop it from spreading and end it entirely; this feared and angered the southern states so they seceded from the Union. They formed the confederate states of America with Jefferson

Secondly, Southern states seceded from the Union because of political disagreements. “Many Southerners favored secession as part of the idea that the states have rights and powers which the federal government cannot legally deny. The supporters of states’ rights held that the national government was a league of independent states….”(Document 5). This means that the Southerners seceded from the Union because they wanted their rights to leave the Union

The South seceded from the Union in 1860 when Abraham Lincoln’s presidency rose. South Carolina was the first state to secede with others that followed to create the Confederacy. States with a higher percentage of the state’s population that had slaves left earlier and states geographically farther from the Union seceded earlier as well. The Confederacy believed in the power of leaving the Union since they voluntarily joined the Union. The South was afraid that Lincoln was going to abolish slavery once he was president so left quickly.

The South’s Secession The south seceding was a big turning point in history. It marked a new chapter, and not a very good one. The south seceded with a number of “grievances”. These “grievances” included a number of disagreements on major issues.

The Southerners believed that this overpowering and hostility would lead to the destruction of the South, so they wanted to secede before any of that took place. According to Albert Gallatin Brown, a Mississippi politician, the North was “accumulating power and it meant to use that power to emancipate [the South’s] slaves” (Document 2). With the North having a large population and Lincoln being president of both the Union and the United States, the South believed that they would be overpowered and would have to give up slavery. Before Lincoln’s election, the North and South were already split because of controversy over slavery. When it was time for Republican Lincoln’s election, however, the North dominated the South because it had more territories and a larger population.

The Civil War resulted due to the division and the gradual collapse of the Union between the two sections. It can be argued that both the North and South were distinct regions. However, both regions initially displayed nationalism in various ways at the beginning of the Civil War. Southern nationalism allowed the Confederates to justify their secession and independence. The formation of the Confederacy and the established Confederate Constitution in February 1861, nationalism validated their status as an independent country.

Two fundamental questions normally surround the history of any war: whether the war was inevitable and if it was necessary. These same questions emerge any time during debates regarding the American Civil war. The most cited cause of the Civil war is the secession of certain southern states that formed the Confederate States of America in January 1861. Thomas Bonner writes "Civil War Historians and the "Needless War" Doctrine" arguing that Southern Carolina seceded in 1860, followed by six other states by January the following year. A deep analysis of the events leading to the war indicates that the Union and the Confederates had profound ideological, economic, political, and social differences.