Civil War North Vs South

What do the words “civil war” make you think of? For many people these words represent a fight of good against evil, and in the case of the American civil war, the war over slavery. But these assumptions about the American Civil War aren’t always true. The Civil War was fought from 1861-1865, after 7 states seceded from the United States in January 1861. These 7 states grew to 11 and were known as the Confederacy or the South. They were fighting the North, known as the Union. The Civil War is commonly thought of as the fight to end slavery although this is not exactly true. The North and South had very different economies and culture, and the real causes of the Civil War are more complex than just one issue. The factors that most contributed
The North and the South developed at different rates, so their economies developed differently as well. The North had more European immigrants, and they used this to further their economy. James R. Arnold, a military historian, said that, “More and more immigrants, especially from Germany and Ireland, came to the Northern cities to do the same work. The North’s economy depended on industry and manufacturing. This also made the North different from the South.” This is an example of the different development of economy between the North and the South and illustrates how it split them. The North utilized the flow of immigrants to further an industrial economy that made them even more isolated from the South in terms of issues. Meanwhile, the South continued to rely on a traditional agricultural economy because of their access to slaves. And instead of slavery leading to differing economies, it was really differing economies that led to debate over slavery. G. O’mur, author of “Causes and Effects of the American Civil War”, says that, “Differing economies in the North and South led to differing opinions about slavery. By the late 1700s, the North was a center of trade and was building an industrial economy. There were some slaves but also thousands of free blacks. The Southern states still relied on an agricultural economy.” The North no longer had an
Many important historical compromises ended up contributing to the Civil War. A famous example of this is the three-fifths compromise. On the issue, O’mur says, “The number of representatives each state sent to the House of Representatives depended on the state’s population. This presented a problem for many Southern states that were largely populated by slaves. Without counting the slaves (often thought of as property rather than as people), they would have fewer representatives and less voting power. These states worried that antislavery states would gain power in Congress. A compromise was reached that counted each slave as three-fifths of a person.” This shows that political decisions were actually a cause of the civil war because the South disagreed with the North that their slaves should not be counted as people, even though many Southerners did not consider slaves to be people. Because the Southerners were able to get more political power by counting slaves, they were angry when the North decided on the three-fifths compromise. The North was also angry as they wanted power in Congress to be spread equally, and they knew that the South’s views on slaves were not those being stated in Congress. Political decisions like these separated the North and the South even more. Political decisions that affected the start of the Civil War date back as far as to the writing of the Constitution. O’mur