Long Term Causes * Social, Cultural Divide between North and South * Economic Divide between North and South * Political Divide between North and South: Collapse of Political System: Inability to Compromise * Slavery *
Causes of the Civil War:
Long Term Causes
(from Colonial Times) * 1. Social and Cultural Divide between North and South * North: more urbanized, more diverse, more developed, more advanced infrastructure / transportation / communication systems, more cosmopolitan, more dynamic, more religious, greater emphasis on education, families….. * South more rural, less diverse, less urbanized, less developed, plantations dictated social development…. * Causes of the Civil War:
Long Term Causes …show more content…
* A Sectional Party was emerging (only above Mason-Dixon line) while a National party, the Democrats, (and Whigs) was splitting * At first the Republican party was a one idea party - opposed the Extension of slavery into the territories / opposed the Kansas Nebraska Act: wanted to keep slavery out of the territories, and to restore the Missouri Compromise * But the South saw it as Abolitionist…added to the divide….added to the tensions * It added / adopted other policies as time went on – Higher Tariffs, support for Internal Improvements / American System, Homestead Act to give Western land for free or at a low cost, support of a Northern route for transcontinental railroad. * 5. Two suspect – rival territorial legislatures in Kansas Proslavery one based on fraud (outside voters) at Shawnee: an Antislavery one based on illegality at Topeka…….How? Kansas was settled earlier than Nebraska. North hoped it would be free territory, South was counting on it becoming slave