Civil War Thesis

Civil War Essay

“The coming of the war”

In 1858, Illinois Senate Candidate Abraham Lincoln paraphrased the (New Testament) when he remarked,” A house divided against itself cannot stand,” Lincoln, referencing to the widening political, social and economic differences between the industrial, abolitionist North and the agricultural, slave South, would come to lose that election, but subsequently win a presidential term two years later. Immediately after his election in 1860, eleven Southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America. This attempt at forming a new country was not the cause of a single action, but rather came from multiple events going back to the country’s founding.

Since the formation of the United

The plantation owners relied primarily on slave labor for an economic profit, however by the 1800’s, Northern factories pumped out the same goods at almost double the regular rate. Not to mention that Northern politicians were able to pass heavy taxes on imported goods from Europe, traders so that the South would have to buy materials from the North. Moreover, Southern exporters sometimes had to pay higher amounts for shipping their goods overseas and pay unequal tariffs imposed by foreign countries on some of their goods. The unfairness grew even more ill when several “panics” occurred including one in 1857 that affected Northern banks more than Southern ones. Southern bankers found themselves plagued with high payments to save the Northern banks from financial losses caused by poor investments. Not surprisingly, these taxes coupled along with the unequal tariffs greatly increased tensions with Southerners. After those tariffs were passed Southerners felt that the Federal government was passing unfair laws that specifically targeted them. They believed that individual states had the right to ignore or “nullify” any law that the Federal government passed.

Books were also published, notable works being “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe and “Twelve Years a Slave” by Solomon Northup. The South believed that the Abolitionists were attacking their way of life and that the Federal government wasn’t doing enough to stop their “property” from running away. Southerners were also concerned at the fact that new states entering the Union did not permit their citizens to own slaves, because the more “free” states that entered the Union, the less Southern influence would be present in the Federal legislature. Religion however was also an important influencing factor in the slavery controversy at the time. Churches were the main hub of social and intellectual life in the South. That was where people communicated, where they learned about the world and their role in it, and where they received moral guidance. Southern clergy defended the morality of slavery through an elaborate scriptural defense built upon the infallibility of the Bible, which they held up as the universal and objective standard at the time. As Northern opposition towards slavery rapidly grew, the three major Protestant churches split