Civil War Really Unavoidable Essay

“Was it really unavoidable?” “Couldn’t we have found a different solution for the problem?” “Why didn’t we end the struggle with peaceful negotiations?” These are just a few of the questions people ask when reflecting back on one of the darkest times in our nation’s history. This conflict stretched across five years, from 1861 to 1865, and is known as the Civil War. This was a time when not only the country was split, but families were separated too, as brothers fought brothers, fathers fought sons and uncles fought nephews. Roughly 620,000 Americans died during the Civil War; the number of Americans that have died in all other wars combined is about 645,000. Many people look down upon the men surrounding the Civil War for not coming up with a better resolution, but they did not have any other choice. The Civil War was an inexorable result of the increasing conflict between the North and the South.

There were two major causes for the Civil War, the first one being the most popular, slavery and states’ rights. Slavery was a big issue in the 19th century and caused much disagreement and even rioting between the North and the South. Much of the North believed that slavery was inhumane and evil. The South believed that slavery was necessary to the economy of the Union. They described it in this manner because if slavery were to abruptly stop, then the South’s sugar and cotton economy, and in turn the entire US economy, would suffer. The second cause for the Civil War was the issue of states’ rights. The southern states believed that they should be able to decide for themselves whether or not slavery would be legal in their state. They also deemed that each new state in the Union should choose whether or not it would be a slave state or a free state. The Civil War was not just a war over political issues, but moral issues as