Civil War Dbq

Many Southerns have regarded the Civil War as "the war of Northern Aggression." Even though there was significant aggression on both sides, the start of the Civil War was a direct result of aggression by the Confederacy. The South was directly responsible for the major steps that led to the dawn of the American Civil War. Conflict on the topic of slavery had been rising gradually over several decades. Secession from the Union followed Abraham Lincoln’s victory in the Presidential Election in 1860. And the final piece came when they took the first shot at Fort Sumter that started the war that will never be forgotten in American History.
It began with a large increase in tension on the subject of slavery between the South and the North. A series

Abraham Lincoln won the Presidential Election of 1860, and was soon followed by the first wave of secession, in which seven states separated from the Union to for the Confederate States of America. In his first inaugural speech that he gave on March 4th, 1861, he explicitly stated what his policy on slavery would be in the coming months and years by saying the following. "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”(Lincoln 1861) Even though Lincoln clearly explains that does not plan on interfering with slavery, a second wave of secession occurs in early 1861, just after his speech. In this second wave, four more states join the Confederate States of America. These two groups together formed an independent state that was about equal in size to the

‘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.
The start of the Civil War was caused by Southern Aggression in 1861. A small group of Union troops were stationed at Fort Sumter and were running low on supplies. The Confederacy was getting impatient with their presence in a fort that was supposed to be under Confederate control. On April 12th, 1861, they opened fire on the compound.(Civil War Trust) The Union troops surrendered up the fort two days later. No soldiers died in this extremely short skirmish, but the spark had been enough to light the fire, and the conflict between the North and the South grew into the American Civil