Analyze The Reasons For The Civil War Essay

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Reasons for the Civil War The North and the South started out with many similarities. Both sides had started out as a group of colonies who had fought for their independence from Britain. However, they had totally changed their ways of thinking since those days. It seemed like they could not agree on anything. Something had to give. “The Civil War erupted as a result of intense economic, social, and political differences that mounted over four decades between the North and the South” (North and South 2016). One of the ways that the North differed from the South was their economy. The North’s land was not suitable for farming. As a result, they focused more on trade and manufacturing. They also had a more cities and a larger population than the South. This give them more representation in government. The South had a plantation based economy. The crops that they grew were tobacco, cotton, and indigo. These crops required a lot of hard work to maintain them. The South relied on slave labor to work these …show more content…

The North did not have the large farms like the South did. Therefore, they did not have a great need to own slaves. “By 1804, all of the states north of Maryland had abolished slavery. And in 1807, the United States officially prohibited the importation of slaves” (Abolition 2016). The Abolitionist movement was on the rise. The North saw slavery as being morally wrong. However, the South needed slavery in order to survive. They didn’t see anything wrong with it. John C. Calhoun said “many once believed that slavery was a moral and political evil; that folly we now see in its true light…as the most safe and stable basis for free institutions in the world’ (Schweikart 275). Fitzugh also said that “slavery in the South, scarcely differed from factor labor in the North, where the mills of Massachusetts placed their worker in captivity as sure as the fields