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Al- Barrak 1 Slavery/Political Problems Which one caused the Civil War? Or was it both?! Nawar Al- Barrak Mr. Greer/ Ms. Quark Social Studies/ Language Arts 19 March 2006 Al- Barrak 2 Nawar Al- Barrak Mr. Greer/ Ms. Quark Social Studies/ Language Arts 19 March 2006 The Civil War: Was it caused by slavery? Was slavery a more direct cause to the Civil War than states' rights? I think that slavery was of a more direct cause to The Civil War than States' rights. Slavery was the main issue that caused differences between the North and South because the upper half of the U.S. opposed to slavery. After the Revolutionary War and after the U.S. created the Constitution, America had the right to make its own laws. A law soon banned slaves from being imported to the U.S. (Gay10). Many Southerners grew angry and started smuggling slaves to places where it was still legal to have them. Soon, there were abolitionists who teamed up with black leaders and helped free slaves. They even set up an anti-slavery society (Gay 9-10). In the South, people had fewer cash crops than slaves. The Southerners did not want to join a union were they would ban slavery because they needed them in order to grow more crops to sell for a profit. It was soon clear to Northern delegates that they had to guarantee slavery in order to keep the states from going into battle (Collier 10-11). After the Constitution guaranteed slavery in the Southern colonies, the Northern colonies grew more hatred towards this topic. Northerners didn’t want slavery to be permitted in the middle lands (which would soon belong to all of America). This ended up in political battles over slavery in new states. The whole thing ended up in a compromise which no side liked but stopped them from more compromise. Other may disagree and say that slavery wasn’t the main cause of the Civil War, rather it was states right that caused the war. Many people barely even owned a slave: "The average American had very little interest in slaves or slavery. Most Southerners were small farmers that could not afford slaves. Most Northerners were small farmers or tradesman that had Al- Barrak 3 never even seen a slave!"(Leidner). When others say that slavery wasn’t the main cause of the war, they use this quote to back them up because it says that most people in the 17001800s have never even seen a slave, so how can that be a reason for any war? Another historian also says that "there are obviously many more factors involved in this conflict then the politics of slavery. Was the confederacy, as a nation, pro-slavery? Yes it was. Does that mean that the men fighting for the new nation fought because they did not want to see slavery ended? No. the overwhelming majority of the men who fought [for the south] never owned a single slave. To say that they went away to fight a war for someone else's right to own slaves is not logical and not accurate" ("Day of Defeat Forums"). It is true that it's not logical for the southerners to go to war over slavery, they went to war because they were mad at the tariffs being set on them and that the state didn’t have a right to stop or do anything about it ("Day of Defeat Forums"). The causes of the Civil War don't have a 'simple' reason. There are series of conflicts that happened between the north and south to cause the war (Golden). What motivated the southerners to go to war though were mostly based on states' rights. Even though the southerners went to war thinking it was about states' rights, they still had many conflicts based on slavery. It was one thing that, alongside state rights, motivated them to go to war. The leaders did not want to discuss this topic with the southerners because they knew most of them didn’t own slaves. It divided up the north and south and became the most explosive issue in the nation. People started moving to new territories and started voting on whether or not it can be a 'free' or 'slave' state. This issue brought many conflicts among the nation and soon led to violence in many parts of the country (Gay). The south wanted to spread slavery into the new territories so that when the new states are created they would be slave states. The north wanted the exact opposite for its economic society. They wanted to decrease the spread of slavery to the new territories in order to support their moral issue and Al- Barrak 4 to try and control the southern's political power (Leinder). After Abraham Lincoln became president, his dislike of slavery was much known. If Lincoln attempted to change the arrangements and ban slavery, southern colonies would leave the Union. But Lincoln didn’t want slavery to spread, so in 1860, 7 states from the south left the Union and started to form their own nation (Collier 13). After the secession, Maine re-entered the Union as a 'free' state and Missouri as a 'slave' state, slavery and politics became mixed. The southerners then called for a balance. They wanted a slave state for every northern free one. After a long time, this got fixed with the Compromise of 1850, which unfortunately, did not remove tensions between the north and the south (Vandiver). After the secession, southern politicians began to convince its people that the northerners were threatening their culture and way of life. The northerners were trying to convince their people that the south would be insulting their government if they ever seceded. Although they were both saying the truth, they weren't saying the whole truth. Leaders form both sides knew if they told their people the war was about slavery, no one would agree to fight in the war (soon to come) (Leidner). The Civil War was mostly about slavery, but had a mixture of politics involved in it. The politicians blamed the war on, states' right! Yet, slavery did cause many different things, most of them leading to the Civil War. One thing it caused was nationalism which was part of the conflict between the South and North. If slavery had never existed, the war would have never happened. Slavery meant using Africans to work without any wages or money, and what I also meant by more direct in my first claim was that if it was never for slavery, the war wouldn’t have happened. One historian had said that "slavery was the sole cause of the war," and added, "if the Negro had never been brought to America, our Civil war could not have occurred"(Collier 10). Slavery however wasn't the only cause of the war. There were many economic and political differences mixed in that big conflict between the north and the south (Collier 10). When the armies were first Al- Barrak 5 formed before the war, only a small minority of the soldiers would say they were going to war on the subject of slavery. However this may be true a historian had quoted: "had there been no slavery, there would have been no war. Had there been no moral condemnation of slavery, there would have been no war"(Leidner). Slavery as we can see here was a big part of the Civil War, and was the underlying factor in other conflicts between the North and South. Conversely, people may state that taxes and the states' rights to nullify them where more of a cause for the war than slavery was. For over 2 decades, the U.S. was caught in a crisis where states wanted to leave the union and many other conflicts interfered with that as well. This all started when the U.S. government decided to tax the southerners on industrial goods that were imported from Europe. South Carolina where affected most by the tariff because they were buying most of their goods from Europe (this eventually led to secession in 1861). This was the first step the government took to anger them. The people of the south got very angry at the rising taxes set by the government. They soon passed the Nullification Policy. This stated that if there was any federal law that hurt South Carolina, they would ignore it, and that's just what they did. President Andrew Jackson then set out a bill called the Force Bill which said that the government had the right to send troops to any state that disobeyed federal law. In 1883, a senator from Kentucky named Henry Clay came up with a compromise that both sides agreed with. Everything was smoothed over with a compromise. Even though everything was fixed, the politicians always talked about seceding and they always looked for an excuse to, they finally did secede in 27 years ("Day of Defeat Forums"). That was another step the government did to anger the south. Even though I have just stated the opposite of what I'm trying to prove, I still think that many of the politicians went to war over slavery and what it was doing to the nation. Many people may ask "was the war about slavery?" and they would get the answer that said Al- Barrak 6 "absolutely. If there had been no disagreement over the issue of slavery, the south would probably not have discerned a threat to its culture and the southern politicians would have much less likely to seek their right to secede'."(Leidner) Another good question people may ask is why didn’t President Lincoln let the southerners secede peacefully? It wasn’t illegal and South Carolina didn’t want to go to war. The answer is that it's because 70-80% of the money of the U.S. government came directly from the south's taxes (Leidner). Lincoln stated that if they let the south go and govern themselves, how would he fund his government. The U|.S. government would base 70-80% of its income. Lincoln promised that he would force the states on paying the tariffs and place troops in Fort Sumter. This started a small fight between them (troops, and South Carolina). This opened many peoples' eyes and led a few more countries to secede after South Carolina did. This all happened because fort Sumter was believed to be south Carolinas property ("Day of Defeat Forums"). Even though Lincoln set out troops to the south, he still didn’t want to go to war, just like many other moderate politicians. They all wanted slavery to die a slow inevitable death. However, both the southerners and northerners wanted to go to war over this topic to fight for their rights and for what they believe in. the leaders in all the states then had to make slavery an indirect cause of war, because their people think they are going to war over the topic of states' right. (Slavery caused the problem of states' rights). The south thought that the north was threatening them, while the north thought the south was insulting them (Leinder). Slavery obviously caused many conflicts between the north and the south, it may not have been the only cause for war, but it was definitely the biggest and main cause of war, even though the people thought that it was a background issue. Slavery was the main cause for the Civil War, and was more direct to the war than states' right or any other issue. Al- Barrak 7 Works Cited Collier, and James Lincoln Collier. The Civil War 1860-1865. New York: Benchmark Books, 2000. ---. Slavery and the Coming of the Civil War. New York: Benchmark Books, 2000. "Day of Defeat Forums- Causes of the American Civil War." 2004 <http://www.dayofdefeat.net/forums/printthread.php?s=5148706364d8 540b2 a40 153cddb28857&threadid=31852> Gay, and Martin Gay. Civil War. New York: Twenty-first Century Book, A division of Henry and Holt company inc. 1995. Golden, Randy. The Civil War, Georgia's point of view. 2006. <http://ngeorgia.com/history.why.html> Leidner, Gordon. "Causes of the Civil War: A Balanced Answer." 2006. Great American History. 11 Feb. 2006 <http://members.tripod.com/~greatamericanhistory/gr02013.htm> Vandiver, Rank E. "Civil War, U.S." Academic American Encyclopedia. 1996 ed.