How Did The Civil War Affect The North's Economy

Blood. Glory. Tears. One could only describe the American Civil War as the division of a country through four years of violence. With their countrymen fighting against them, it is no wonder that the Civil War was the bloodiest war in American History. The Civil War lasted from 1861 to 1865. Before this war, America’s social, political, and economic strains had been rising for years. Southern slave owners were pushing into new territories, attempting to swing new states to become slave states, with Northerners’ patience wearing thin. In America’s quest for more land, westward expansion only fueled the fire that divided the country even further. Concepts such as popular sovereignty were very unpopular amongst many citizens. There were several

Eventually, tensions ran too high, and the country took sides and fought in the bloodiest war in American history. An economically disproportionate nation, combined with the divided social attitude concerning slavery contributed to the dawn of the Civil War.
The first issue that contributed to the start of the Civil War was the economic divide between the North and the South. The North had experienced a manufacturing boom, quickly urbanizing and developing flourishing cities and factories. The very core of the Northern economy was progress. It mainly consisted of making and exporting goods, meaning it was worth more than the South’s. In Documents 8C, the pictogram depicts how the North’s economy is more technologically advanced than the South’s due to the number of railroads. In Document 8A, the chart illustrates the vast difference in state and territory wealth, due to the deviation in the value of manufacturing from the North to the South.

As a result of the withstanding social differences over the issue of slavery and the economic imbalance between the North and the South, tensions skyrocketed and in due time, lead to the Civil War. The economic differences contributed to the war because it robbed the South of their most reliable source of labor: slaves, and threatened the collapse of their economy. The social divergences contributed to the war by reaffirming the beliefs of the country on the subject of slavery by introducing new bills that only segregated them further in their social standings. The Civil War was the most costly endeavor in American history, with hordes of lives lost, and a country broken apart, both literally and metaphorically. While the Civil War left the country torn, it was imperative that it took place to resolve the many political, social, and economic issues that plagued the country. America was founded on the basis that all men are created equal. But, if America went to war mainly over the enslavement of human beings who merely look different based on their skin color, then did America honestly believe that all men were created