Slavery Was The Cause Of The Civil War Essay

The Causes of the Civil War

In the 1800’s there was much turmoil over the debate of slavery and whether it was inhumane or not. Slavery caused the nation to separate into 2 factions; the north, who believe in abolishing slavery and the south who thought that slavery was a “benign institution” as quoted by Ulrich B. Phillips. There is much debate whether slavery was the prominent cause of the Civil War. Contrary to popular belief, slavery was not the ultimate cause of the Civil War; in fact the economic, cultural, and political differences between the North and South played more prominent roles in the instigation of the Civil War and influenced the beginnings of slavery. In the 1800’s the United States was booming and had many exports it shipped out to different countries around the world. The North’s economy was based upon industrialization; the building of ships, the
It influenced and molded their views on slavery and whether it was inhumane or not. The social status and way of life of both the North and South were separating them. As Allan Nevins wrote in his book, The Ordeals of the Union (1947-1971), “the North and South were rapidly becoming separate peoples…the fundamental assumptions, tastes and cultural aims of the two regions” were unmistakable causes of the Civil War. The fear that slavery would spread into the North and “threaten the position of free white laborers, as mentioned in Eric Foner’s Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men (1970), was one of the main reasons why Northerners opposed slavery. The assumption that the South created, as mentioned in Eugene Genovese’s book, The Political Economy of Slavery, “that the slave system provided a far more humane society than industrial labor” separated them from the North. The two different cultural outlooks of the both the North and South caused them to separate into two factions, causing the start of the Civil