The Civil War: an Inevitable Conflict

The bloodiest time in history for America was during The American Civil War; a time when Americans fought against themselves for their own rights in which they believed they were entitled to. To many it would be considered shocking and absurd to say the Civil War was something that could have avoided – and they’re right. The Civil War was an unavoidable and ultimately inevitable conflict that was essential to the evolution of our nation. The differences between the North and the South, economically and politically, were majors players on why the two divided halves of the America could not prosper together at that time; that and the fact that they had previously tried to compromise also makes the Civil War the inevitable and undeniable conclusion of this melting-pot of problems brewing between the two sides. Excellent introduction

There were many differences between the antebellum North and South regions of America, and many of these were economical. The most obvious of which is that the North was, for the most part, industrial; while the South on the other hand was economically dependent of the production of staple crops (primarily cotton). The production of cotton in the South with the advent of the cotton gin soared, causing an increase of labor required; this lead to a dependency on slave labor in the south. Slavery was something the North often looked down upon and also held little or no value to them. How could a nation survive with no conflict when there were two very distinct sides that held opposing economic ideals and beliefs?

In terms of politics, there were polarizing differences between the North and the South with their ideals and philosophies. Political parties at the time right before the start of the Civil War often catered to either the North or the South specifically; for example there was the Republican Party which was first organized in 1854 in opposition to Stephen Douglas’s introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Act