American Civil War Turning Point Analysis

The American Civil War was a grave turning point in the history of North America. It was a conflict that pitted the Northern states of the American union against the Southern states. The war raged for four years, from 1861 to 1865, and was marked by some of the fiercest military campaigns in modern history. The civil war was a terrible rift in our nation, fought between the northern states, known as the union, and the southern states, known as the Confederate States of America. The people’s opinions were so divided over the issues of the civil war. Eventually, the south succumbed to the north and surrendered on April 9th, 1865 but not before the war had caused 618,000 deaths. This horrible not only fought because of the issue of slavery but
also a cause of social and economic differences as well as states’ rights.
One of the main issues that would spark tensions between the states that eventually would lead to war was the argument of states’ rights. The South would vigorously argue throughout the years before the war that the federal government’s authority was not above that of each individual state. This would mean the federal government was in violation of what the founding fathers created it to do. Many historians believe that this response was elicited by the fact that the Northern population was growing so quickly that it would soon have control of the federal government. Before 1860 many of the presidents that had been elected were pro-south or they were indeed from the south. With the north controlling the federal government it would mean pro-north presidents would be elected and with this comes the addition of free soil states which would effectively end the South’s equality with the North in the senate. The South’s dwindling political power would lead many of the states to begin to ponder why they were still a part of a Union that was not working in ways they believed were equal to both the North and the South. Another act that the South would have attributed to their decline in political power was the tariffs that were placed on them. The Tariff of 1828 was put into effect to protect rising American industries by taxing foreign goods to make them more expensive. This would lead eventually to one of many crises in this region in which some states even talked about secession for the first time. States’ Rights would again come into play with the acquisition of new territories such as New Mexico and new states being admitted to the union like Utah. The federal government faced with mounting pressure issued the Compromise of 1850 which allowed those states to decide for themselves if they wanted slavery or not.
The second major issue that further caused a divide between all of the states was the various economic factors and the way the vastly different Northern and Southern economies worked. In the times before the Civil War you could already see the increasing disparities between Northern and Southern economies. The North benefited from its Industrial Revolution and became an economic powerhouse. Many large cities would be established and over a quarter of northerners would be living in these urban areas. Factories would spring up all over the north numbering in the thousands. This would eventually lead to a fall in laborers working in the agricultural sector, about a 30% drop. Immigrants would also tend to migrate to the North rather than the South due to more job opportunities and easier transportation. The north featured over two thirds of the railroad tracks in the country. About seven out of every eight immigrants would settle in the North which gives the North a huge population advantage over the south and an ever growing workforce. In sharp contrast the south contained no large cities other than the great city of New Orleans. Only one tenth of the population lived in urban areas and it was not favored to live in cities because transportation was very difficult. This was because in contrast to the North the South only contained 35 percent of the nation’s rail road tracks. Around the 1860’s is when things began to get rough for the South as their economy stalled and the North boomed and prospered. The South contended bitterly that this was only due to the protective tariffs placed on the South which essentially funded all these Northern improvements. From the year 1789-1945 the North received about 5 times more money for their projects than the South did. The North used this money to enhance their roads, harbors and rivers. The South resented this greatly because they had basically subsidized Northern profits by paying higher prices for goods due to the protective tariffs placed on them. Another issue that arose is that the Northerners were amassing huge profits from selling cotton. This angered southerners greatly and further pushed the gap apart between North and South.
Another main issue that would spark tensions between the northern and southern states was their differing views on slavery. In the North the most prominent idea in peoples mind during the period before the war was the idea of free labor. They believed that it emphasized economic opportunity in the northern states. Many anti-slavery movements would soon begin in the northern states and gain great momentum within the 1830’s and 1840’s. What these movements aimed at doing was to change the way people worked and lived which would help the working class adapt to new demands of their new and continuously expanding society. This view was sharply contrasted in the south where slaves were an integral part in the continuing production of their various raw exports. The population in the south grew much slower compared to that in the north so they needed an abundance of slaves to do their work. In the South about 40% of their population was slaves. This would also lead them to make greater profits. Slaves would not have to be paid for their work so the plantation owners would prosper. Another point that would cause an already big rift between northern and southern states to grow was that of religion and what it says about slavery. Religion would play a pivotal role in increasing the tensions between the North and South. In 1852, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin gave a powerful and moving voice to the Abolition movement. It shook out of complacently northerners and southerners alike, and forced a nation to look within its collective soul at the horrors of slavery and moral contradictions of the institution itself. Stowe's novel demonstrates the absurdity and contradictions of slavery.
Other problems would arise concerning slavery such as which states would be admitted as free or slave states.
Several compromises were made in order to avoid tensions rising such as the Missouri Compromise. By the 1850s compromise no longer seemed possible. The Democrats had become a party increasingly rooted in the Southern states, with the Northern political scene in a state of disarray. Out of this turmoil, emerged the Grand Old Party, also called Republican Party, in 1854. However, the repeal of act by the Kansas-Nebraska act but things remain unstable. Tensions would rise again when we acquired the new territories from Mexico. For several years it caused tensions with the South wanting slavery and the North opposed to it. Eventually the Compromise of 1850 would quell the tensions. The Compromise of 1850 and Kansas-Nebraska Acts were very advantageous to the South. In both pieces of legislation the south gained things that would aid them in their campaign to expand slavery. The advantages the south included a stronger fugitive slave law, the possibility for slavery to exist in the remaining part of the Mexican Cession, the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and the eventual plan to build the Southern Pacific Railroad. Thousands of proslavery Missourians crossed the state line into Kansas when they learned that popular sovereignty would determine the fate of slavery. They grabbed as much land as they could and established dozens of small towns. These “border ruffians”
also rigged unfair elections, sometimes recruiting friends and family in Missouri to cross over into Kansas and cast illegal ballots. Others voted multiple times or threatened honest locals to vote for slavery. Afraid that Kansas would become the next slave state, Northern abolitionists flocked there too and established their own Free-Soil towns. Both factions even went so far as to establish their own territorial capitals. Inevitably, the two groups clashed. In one incident, a hotheaded band of proslavery settlers burned the Free-Soil town of Lawrence, Kansas. In retaliation, the deranged John Brown and his own antislavery band killed five border ruffians in the Pottawatomie Massacre. Neither Brown nor any of his followers were ever tried for their crimes. Within a few months, Kansas was plagued by marauding violent factions. This rampant lawlessness and bloodshed earned the territory the nickname “Bleeding Kansas.”
In the beginning of the Election of 1860, the Democrats separated into two different parties.
The two new parties formed were the Northern Democrats and the Southern Democrats. This election was the final event that caused the South to leave the Union which eventually led to the Civil War. On presidential election, Lincoln did very well in the northern states, and though he garnered less than 40 percent of the popular vote nationwide, he won a landslide victory in the electoral college. Even if the Democratic Party had not parted, it is likely Lincoln still would have won due to his strength in states heavy with electoral votes. Lincoln did not carry any southern states. The issue of secession was being talked about even before the 1860 election, and Lincoln's election intensified the move in the South to split with the Union. And when Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861, it seemed obvious that the nation was on an directed path toward war. Indeed, the Civil War began the next month with the attack on Fort
Sumter.

These series of causes and conflicts, are what lead to what we now know as the American Civil War. The war began with eleven Southern states seceded the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. The first two years of the Civil War showed great hopes for the Southern troops after winning several victories. Those hopes soon turned to doubts after their major losses at Gettysburg and Vicksburg in 1863. From that moment forward, the Northern troops went on to conquer the south, where they finally surrendered in April 1865. The war that was once thought to be completely avoidable, turned into the exact opposite and that much worse. The civil war had the legacy of a truly modern war, over 600,000 dead, and over a million American casualties for a cause until this day stirs the American nation deeply.