The Primary Cause Of The American Civil War

It is a prevailing myth that the civil war was fought to preserve states’ rights and the fact that people cannot seem to agree on which states’ rights were in danger further supports the idea that this was not the primary cause of the American Civil War. Schweitzer argues the idea that the issue of states’ rights was driven by slavery but “The issue was not slavery per se, but who decided whether slavery was acceptable”. This interpretation implies that the issue in the south surrounding states’ rights was federal control of American states. From this it could be assumed that the south opposed federal control because it often acted out of favour of Southern interests. This however is untrue, the majority of the major events involving federal

States had the right to support slavery or abstain from it, according to the constitution and some believe the South seceded because of this. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 supported the desire of the South to uphold the ‘peculiar institution’ and actively disregarded common disapproval within the North. It cannot, therefore, be rationally argued that the South seceded and embarked on the American Civil War based on the fact they felt thegovernment was oppressing and abusing states’ rights. Both the Dred Scott Decision and the Fugitive Slave Act promoted growth in abolitionist opposition to the extent whereby abolitionists were helping Southern slaves to escape through railroads. It is evident therefore that the South seceded to escape the abolitionist movement developing in the North as cause of federal abuse of Northern states’ rights- It seceded in protest of the North’s freedom to oppose the Southern slavery institution. The liberty of Northern states to embark on the abolitionist movement was what caused the South to secede thus supporting the idea that slavery was the leading cause of the American Civil

The North held dominance merely through the sheer vastness of territory that compiled it. By 1860 the original 13 states had expanded westwards and increased to 33 states, 23 of which comprised the North. This caused divisions since the size of the North in comparison to the South meant the trade balance fell in favour of the North. Some people may argue that the industrialisation of the North was a key reason for the secession and establishment of the Confederacy that led to the Civil War. This argument is flawed however since the North was not yet industrialised (it was industrialising) and was hence still predominately rural; Colonel Ty Seidule advocates that both sides were predominantly agrarian. He states that one of the few differences between the Northern and Southern agrarian economy was that “Northerners had to pay their farm hands who were free to come and go as they please whilst Southern plantation owners exploited slaves over whom they had total control.” The Southern economy was not too dissimilar from the North since cotton farming, the most prominent form of farming in the south, made up over half of America’s total exports. The two economies were not vastly different and that was not the reason America divided. The issue of economics could be argued to have fuelled the slavery divide since the expansion of the American