The civil war is by far the most catastrophic event that has occurred in American History, simply because we were killing one another instead of being a united front. Before the civil war began, the United States were having issues they were getting divided between North and South. This issues included States Rights and disagreements over tariffs, but the major issue was that the North was always gaining everything they wanted and the South was always left with scraps. The Civil War lasted from 1861 to 1865 and caused about 618,000 deaths. What lead to the civil war can be traced back to simple things that formed in the beginning of our nation’s history. For many people the cause of the Civil war was/is “Slavery” this is sort of true, but their issues went much farther than that. Lincoln’s election, states rights, and taxation were probably the main things that led to this horrible war,
The Economy of the North and South were very different from eachother. The North had factories, while the south only had cotton plantations. The plantation owners had to rely on slave labor to have economic success. They sold their crops to cotton mills in England, and the ships returned with cheap manufactured goods produced in Europe. By the early 1800s, Northern factories were producing many of those same goods that they were getting in England, and the North was able to pass heavy taxes on imported goods from Europe so that Southerners would be obliged to buy goods from the North. These really angered the southerners. Also they felt that the Federal government was passing laws, such as these import taxes, to treat them unfairly. They believed that individual states had the right to ignore any law the Federal government passed. The south also believed that individual states had the right to leave the United States and form their own independent country. Most people in the North believed that this would make the United States a weaker country and therefore they were against these ideas.
One of the major causes of the South’s secession and the civil war, was the election of Lincoln in 1860. However, the South’s secession was a major overreaction to this political setback. Lincoln’s election fed the perception that Southern interests were losing control of the federal government, and that this government would eventually suppress the institution of slavery or outlaw it all together. However, Lincoln’s victory in 1860 was far from dominant. He only had a majority of votes up in New England. The South was tired of being mistreated and therefore South Carolina decided to seceded on December 20, 1860, exactly four months later, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and Louisiana seceded as well. After them a part of Virginia (the other part stayed loyal to the North), Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee joined them. The seceded states decided to elected Jefferson Davis as their president. The South was tired of all the compromises that only benefited the North so they decided to bombard the Union soldiers at Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861 this lead to what we know as the civil war.
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Since the North did not have the necessary equipment to win this first battle, in Fort Sumter, they had to surrender. The Confederates took this a sign of weakness, which only encouraged them more. “Both sides initially believed the war would end quickly. The Union had greater population, a larger army, and a robust industrial economy. The Confederacy, however, thought it stood a good chance because it would be fighting a defensive war with better military commanders.
