What Was The Cause Of The American Civil War
American Civil War
Introduction
The American Civil War is always remembered as central event in the history of the United States of America. The revolution of 1776 to 1783 resulted in the creation of the America but what kind of nation the America would have, was determined by the civil war of 1861 to 1865. There were two basic questions that were needed to get answered and remain unanswered even by the revolution. These questions raised the unanswered thought that whether the United States was to be a dissolvable union of independent states or an indissoluble nation with a sovereign national government and whether the American nation, result of a declaration stating that all men were created with an equal right to freedom, would continue …show more content…
to exist as the largest slaveholding country of the entire globe.
History
The American Civil War was started because of rigid differences between the liberated and slave states over the authority of the national government to ban slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. In 1860, when Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a stage pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the Deep South get separated and created another new nation which was named as the Confederate States of America. The arriving Lincoln government and most of the Northern people refused to distinguish the legitimacy of secession. They feared that it would harm the reputation of democratic state and create a serious example that would ultimately fragment the no-longer United States into several small, squabbling countries.
Causes of Civil War
A common hypothesis that put light on the cause of the American Civil War was that the North was no longer keen to stand slavery as being part of the foundation of US society and that the political authority brokers in Washington were trying to remove slavery all through the Union.
Hence, the fight for the abolishment of the slavery throughout the Union proved as the key factor for the civil war in America near many people. However, it is not as simple as this and slavery, while a major issue, was not the only issue that pressed American into the ‘Great American Tragedy’. By April 1861, slavery had become inextricably entangled with state rights, the influence of the federal government over the states, the South’s ‘way of life’ etc. – all of which plays a vital role to the causes of the American Civil …show more content…
War.
Election of Abraham Lincoln
The “wedge of partition” caused by slavery split large Protestant sects into Northern and Southern branches and dissolved the Whig party. Most of the Southern Whigs of America joined the Democratic Party, one of the few remaining nationwide institutions. The new Republican Party, successor to the Free-Soil party and to the Liberty party, was a strictly Northern fact. The critical point was arrive at the presidential election of 1860, in which Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of Republican Party defeated three opponents, Stephen A. Douglas (Northern Democrat), John C. Breckinridge (Southern Democrat), and John Bell of the Constitutional Union party. The victory of Abraham Lincoln was the signal for the secession of South Carolina and that state was followed out of the Union by six other states, which includes Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Without any delay the question of federal belongings in these states became important, especially the forts in the harbor of Charleston. The Northern Democrat President, James Buchanan, who was either truckling to the Southern proslavery group of his party and genuinely attempting to prevent war, followed a indecisive course.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was the sixteenth president of the United States and was elected during one of the most significant periods in the American history, which was the American Civil War. Before being elected as a president in 1861, Lincoln served in the Illinois governing body and lost an election for the U.S. Senate competing Stephen A. Douglas. However, his severe campaign earned him a nomination for the presidency. Being the first Republican president ever in the history of America, Lincoln led the Union to victory in the Civil War and ended slavery in America.
With his firm conviction, Lincoln declared South Carolina 's secession unlawful and assured to go to war to defend the federal union in 1861.
During the four years of the American Civil War, the president steered the North to win and authored the Emancipation Proclamation, which dealt a harsh drive to the institution of slavery in the U.S. By nature, the President Lincoln was a kind and soft-spoken man who used words cautiously but to great effect. His vividness was captured in the Gettysburg Address, in which he movingly related the ongoing Civil War to the beginning principles of America, all in less than two minutes. On 14th April 1865, as President Lincoln was watching a performance of "Our American Cousin" at Ford 's Theater in Washington, D.C., he was gunshot by John Wilkes Booth, who was an actor from Maryland obsessed with avenging the Confederate defeat. President Lincoln died the next morning. The assassinator Booth escaped to Virginia. Eleven days later, cornered in a burning barn, Booth was lethally shot by a Union soldier. Nine other people were found guilty and involved in the assassination plan and as results four were hanged, four imprisoned, and one acquitted. Lincoln 's murder on 14 April 1865 detached his politically moderate authority from the national stage, providing path to a more fundamental form of
Reconstruction.
The Phase of Reconstruction
At the end of the civil war, one great American president, Abraham Lincoln was murdered and another was imprisoned. The state of indecision gripped both North and South part of America. Families everywhere were grieved on the deaths and maiming of innumerable young men. Four million Americans who had been enslaved were free. A whole social system and much of the South 's wealth had been smashed. For the very first time, many Americans get familiarized and tasted the bitter taste of total defeat.
The actual route of reconstruction was really begun during the war as President Abraham Lincoln experimented with policies to re-establish Union-held areas of the Confederacy to their "proper relationship" with the federal government. However most of the people took the term Reconstruction holding meaning about the period of federal interference in the South from the end of the war until the removal of troops in 1877. This was a puzzling and conflicting time in which all the former Confederate states were readmitted to the United States. Also, African Americans were elected to political office for the first time.
Impacts of the American Civil War
Announcement of Liberation
On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln declared all slaves in “enemy territory” liberated. Of course, those who owned slaves in “enemy” territory overlooked the order and slaves in Border States were not included.
The Division of Virginia
In the year 1863, citizens in the western section of Virginia, who opposed secession, petitioned the U.S. Government for statehood. West Virginia became the 35th state on June 20th, 1863.
Large Deaths in the Civil War
The American Civil war is known as the deadliest war in the American history. Well over 600,000 people died in combat, from disease, or as a result of the Civil War.
Reconstruction
The time period right after the Civil War was ended is known as Reconstruction. During this difficult era, the Southern states were steadily admitted back into the Union and the areas shattered during the war were rebuilt.
Large economic and political opportunities
The Civil War placed the groundwork for the speedy postwar economic growth and industrialization of America, encouraged by such federal initiatives as the transcontinental railroad, homesteading in the West, land grant colleges (such as Virginia Tech, Michigan State, and Texas A&M), and a national paper currency recognized as the "greenback." The South, devastated by war, shared little in the economic growth of the nation as a whole until but offered a wide range of economic and political opportunities for ambitious Northerners and Southerners. Scalawags and Carpetbaggers were slang terms used to portray such opportunists.
Jim Crow Laws
The consequence of the American Civil War left many in the South baiter toward the addition of African Americans into the American society. Jim Crow laws were those destined to penalize and banish African-Americans in a “legal” manner.
America as a World Power
Just after a few decades of the American Civil War, an American nation consolidated by Union victory jumped onto the world’s arena and became world power.
Bibliography
Civil War Trust. (2013). Retrieved January 12, 2014, from Civil War trust: http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/biographies/abraham-lincoln.html
Mcpherson, D. J. (2013). A Brief Overview of the American Civil War : A defining time in our nation 's history. Retrieved January 12, 2014, from Civil War Trust: http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/civil-war-overview/overview.html
Towner, B. (2011, June 1). AARP. Retrieved January 12, 2014, from AARP: http://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-06-2011/civil-war-changed-american-life.html
Introduction
The American Civil War is always remembered as central event in the history of the United States of America. The revolution of 1776 to 1783 resulted in the creation of the America but what kind of nation the America would have, was determined by the civil war of 1861 to 1865. There were two basic questions that were needed to get answered and remain unanswered even by the revolution. These questions raised the unanswered thought that whether the United States was to be a dissolvable union of independent states or an indissoluble nation with a sovereign national government and whether the American nation, result of a declaration stating that all men were created with an equal right to freedom, would continue …show more content…
to exist as the largest slaveholding country of the entire globe.
History
The American Civil War was started because of rigid differences between the liberated and slave states over the authority of the national government to ban slavery in the territories that had not yet become states. In 1860, when Abraham Lincoln won election in 1860 as the first Republican president on a stage pledging to keep slavery out of the territories, seven slave states in the Deep South get separated and created another new nation which was named as the Confederate States of America. The arriving Lincoln government and most of the Northern people refused to distinguish the legitimacy of secession. They feared that it would harm the reputation of democratic state and create a serious example that would ultimately fragment the no-longer United States into several small, squabbling countries.
Causes of Civil War
A common hypothesis that put light on the cause of the American Civil War was that the North was no longer keen to stand slavery as being part of the foundation of US society and that the political authority brokers in Washington were trying to remove slavery all through the Union.
Hence, the fight for the abolishment of the slavery throughout the Union proved as the key factor for the civil war in America near many people. However, it is not as simple as this and slavery, while a major issue, was not the only issue that pressed American into the ‘Great American Tragedy’. By April 1861, slavery had become inextricably entangled with state rights, the influence of the federal government over the states, the South’s ‘way of life’ etc. – all of which plays a vital role to the causes of the American Civil …show more content…
War.
Election of Abraham Lincoln
The “wedge of partition” caused by slavery split large Protestant sects into Northern and Southern branches and dissolved the Whig party. Most of the Southern Whigs of America joined the Democratic Party, one of the few remaining nationwide institutions. The new Republican Party, successor to the Free-Soil party and to the Liberty party, was a strictly Northern fact. The critical point was arrive at the presidential election of 1860, in which Abraham Lincoln, the candidate of Republican Party defeated three opponents, Stephen A. Douglas (Northern Democrat), John C. Breckinridge (Southern Democrat), and John Bell of the Constitutional Union party. The victory of Abraham Lincoln was the signal for the secession of South Carolina and that state was followed out of the Union by six other states, which includes Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Without any delay the question of federal belongings in these states became important, especially the forts in the harbor of Charleston. The Northern Democrat President, James Buchanan, who was either truckling to the Southern proslavery group of his party and genuinely attempting to prevent war, followed a indecisive course.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was the sixteenth president of the United States and was elected during one of the most significant periods in the American history, which was the American Civil War. Before being elected as a president in 1861, Lincoln served in the Illinois governing body and lost an election for the U.S. Senate competing Stephen A. Douglas. However, his severe campaign earned him a nomination for the presidency. Being the first Republican president ever in the history of America, Lincoln led the Union to victory in the Civil War and ended slavery in America.
With his firm conviction, Lincoln declared South Carolina 's secession unlawful and assured to go to war to defend the federal union in 1861.
During the four years of the American Civil War, the president steered the North to win and authored the Emancipation Proclamation, which dealt a harsh drive to the institution of slavery in the U.S. By nature, the President Lincoln was a kind and soft-spoken man who used words cautiously but to great effect. His vividness was captured in the Gettysburg Address, in which he movingly related the ongoing Civil War to the beginning principles of America, all in less than two minutes. On 14th April 1865, as President Lincoln was watching a performance of "Our American Cousin" at Ford 's Theater in Washington, D.C., he was gunshot by John Wilkes Booth, who was an actor from Maryland obsessed with avenging the Confederate defeat. President Lincoln died the next morning. The assassinator Booth escaped to Virginia. Eleven days later, cornered in a burning barn, Booth was lethally shot by a Union soldier. Nine other people were found guilty and involved in the assassination plan and as results four were hanged, four imprisoned, and one acquitted. Lincoln 's murder on 14 April 1865 detached his politically moderate authority from the national stage, providing path to a more fundamental form of
Reconstruction.
The Phase of Reconstruction
At the end of the civil war, one great American president, Abraham Lincoln was murdered and another was imprisoned. The state of indecision gripped both North and South part of America. Families everywhere were grieved on the deaths and maiming of innumerable young men. Four million Americans who had been enslaved were free. A whole social system and much of the South 's wealth had been smashed. For the very first time, many Americans get familiarized and tasted the bitter taste of total defeat.
The actual route of reconstruction was really begun during the war as President Abraham Lincoln experimented with policies to re-establish Union-held areas of the Confederacy to their "proper relationship" with the federal government. However most of the people took the term Reconstruction holding meaning about the period of federal interference in the South from the end of the war until the removal of troops in 1877. This was a puzzling and conflicting time in which all the former Confederate states were readmitted to the United States. Also, African Americans were elected to political office for the first time.
Impacts of the American Civil War
Announcement of Liberation
On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln declared all slaves in “enemy territory” liberated. Of course, those who owned slaves in “enemy” territory overlooked the order and slaves in Border States were not included.
The Division of Virginia
In the year 1863, citizens in the western section of Virginia, who opposed secession, petitioned the U.S. Government for statehood. West Virginia became the 35th state on June 20th, 1863.
Large Deaths in the Civil War
The American Civil war is known as the deadliest war in the American history. Well over 600,000 people died in combat, from disease, or as a result of the Civil War.
Reconstruction
The time period right after the Civil War was ended is known as Reconstruction. During this difficult era, the Southern states were steadily admitted back into the Union and the areas shattered during the war were rebuilt.
Large economic and political opportunities
The Civil War placed the groundwork for the speedy postwar economic growth and industrialization of America, encouraged by such federal initiatives as the transcontinental railroad, homesteading in the West, land grant colleges (such as Virginia Tech, Michigan State, and Texas A&M), and a national paper currency recognized as the "greenback." The South, devastated by war, shared little in the economic growth of the nation as a whole until but offered a wide range of economic and political opportunities for ambitious Northerners and Southerners. Scalawags and Carpetbaggers were slang terms used to portray such opportunists.
Jim Crow Laws
The consequence of the American Civil War left many in the South baiter toward the addition of African Americans into the American society. Jim Crow laws were those destined to penalize and banish African-Americans in a “legal” manner.
America as a World Power
Just after a few decades of the American Civil War, an American nation consolidated by Union victory jumped onto the world’s arena and became world power.
Bibliography
Civil War Trust. (2013). Retrieved January 12, 2014, from Civil War trust: http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/biographies/abraham-lincoln.html
Mcpherson, D. J. (2013). A Brief Overview of the American Civil War : A defining time in our nation 's history. Retrieved January 12, 2014, from Civil War Trust: http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/civil-war-overview/overview.html
Towner, B. (2011, June 1). AARP. Retrieved January 12, 2014, from AARP: http://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-06-2011/civil-war-changed-american-life.html