What were the underlying reasons for the Civil War?

Question

The US Civil War, sorry forgot to specify

Yes, I had a history class, but I like to hear what people think the reasons were. There are some great answers on here. I thought most people would just say slavery.

Answer 1

GEEEZE! I can't believe all these people that know nothing about US history!

The War between the States was over money. The RRs were owned Yankee robber Barron's, they owned the freight companies that shipped the farm goods from the RR docks too.

Southern farmer shipped their goods to market using the RR. The fees charged for selling their goods off the RR docks when combined with the shipping fees took all the farmer profit. When the farmer tried to ship his goods to another warehouse the freight companies took all their profit.

This led to anger for many farmer and turned to violence. The violence got the Yankee RR owners to seek government suppression of the violent farmers. This led to succession of the South.

The succession took 1/3 of the money from the US government and the government claimed the South had no right to secceed. The US government sent troops to enforce their demands. This led to fighting between the soldiers and the southern farmers.

The fighting made the US governemnt declare War. The War between the States was begun. The southerns had formed a government and feilded an army to fight the US government.

The North was driven back past the Mason/Dickson line and the fighting stopped for a short time while the North regrouped. The South had no intention of ever destroying the North, so the southerns returned home.

The North invaded again, and were driven back again, and fighting stopped for a short time again. The North couldn't take being so soundly defeated, and attacked in much greater force.

The North blockaided the southern ports and cut off southern supplies. After 3 1/2 years of more fighting and the detruction of the south the north finally had a victory, if you can call that many killed a victory.

Answer 2

Economics, here is the problem the south had. The very rich farmers had spent a lot of money on their slaves. These were not so much people as they were assets. The abolition of slavery would mean that the south would lose its most valuable asset and the one they had invested the most money in ( slaves ) without any supplemental income from the government. When you start taking money out of the pockets of the wealthy elite then you have grounds for war. There were many other factors but I think this was at the core of it because the south viewed it as a direct attack on their economy and they had no idea how they would function if slavery was abolished. They are seeing their entire culture and way of life about to change because a bunch of city folk up north think slavery is wrong, they think that the way southerners live is wrong, and regardless of personal feelings about slavery the southerners of all circles do not like this. Nobody, especially Americans, like to be told what to do and be criticized and this atmosphere led to more and more escalation, animosity and war. Thats just my view on it.

Answer 3

Primarily states rights. We didn't have the Civil War SOLELY over slavery, although slavery was a big part of the problem. There were also trade conflicts; the British put tariffs on their trade with the South (not sure whether this happened before or after the war began) because the British didn't support slavery.
And to clear one thing up: many people in the South did not support slavery; Robert E. Lee himself freed his own slaves as soon as he inherited his plantation. He said that if the North had not taken such an agressive and overbearing stand against the South, slavery would have gradually disappeared, and we would not have to resort to war.

Answer 4

Didn't you have a history class? If you're not from the USA forgive that comment. The main reason for the Civil War beside slavery was economics. The South believed and in some areas still believes that it couldn't survive economically without slavery. The North being more industrial was already well ahead of that curve and was capable of economic survival because of the nature of the business there--industiralization gave rise to less need for slaves to be productive (the North didn't use people--slaves). Growing cotten and tobacco the South's life blood is very labor intensive and requires many people...It's a similar situation to the farm worker issue presently...Difference is farm workers are exploited, not slaves...just not given their due. PEACE!

Answer 5

Under American history, THE UNFAIR POLITICAL SYSTEM at that time that Bush is trying to revive.

1. Allowing slavery or not is a state to state dispute.
2. Only white men had voting rights
3. There was a dispute in the extent of the power of the federal and state government
4. Economic policies and LOSING national income with unequal distribution of wealth.
5. Smaller states were taken for granted being less represented
6.The policy of isolation of US from the rest of the world.
7. Heterogeneous identities

The consensus of the civil war are:
1.Anti- slavery laws.
2. Definition of jurisdiction between federal and state governments
3. Larger states want a legislature based on the population
Smaller states want a legislature with a uniform number of representatives from each state.
THIS IS WHY WE HAVE A SENATE for the wish of small states and HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES for large states. You can trace this from the Civil War
4.Economic and Foreign policies were given to the agreed Congress
5. Voting rights were extended.

Note:
The Civil War is only 1861-1865, while the reconstruction is from 1865-1877. Power of Congress made the president weak at that time. Emergency situations like the Great Depression transferred power to the president and now Bush is rumored to be "CREATING' an emergency situation.

Answer 6

THE PROBLEMS THAT LED TO THE CIVIL WAR are the same problems today ----big, intrusive government. The reason we don't face the specter of another Civil War is because today's Americans don't have yesteryear's spirit of liberty and constitutional respect, and political statesmanship is in short supply.

Actually, the war of 1861 was not a civil war. A civil war is a conflict between two or more factions trying to take over a government. In 1861, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was no more interested in taking over Washington than George Washington was interested in taking over England in 1776. Like Washington, Davis was seeking independence. Therefore, the war of 1861 should be called "The War Between the States" or the "War for Southern Independence." The more bitter southerner might call it the "War of Northern Aggression.

Answer 7

Anyone who says it was not slavery is deluding themselves. The ONLY difference between the Constitution of the Confederacy and the Constitution of the United States is that the Confederate Constitution guarantees slavery. All of the states that seceded said at the time that they were doing so to protect slavery. Seccession happened when Lincoln was elected because Lincoln was against extending slavery to the new territories. That meant that slavery was eventually doomed because until that time the South was careful to make sure that there were an equal number of slave states and free states. All of the national debates of the 1850's and 1860's were about slavery. The Missouri Compromise, the Kansas-Nebraska act, the Dred Scott decision, the debates about the Fugitive Slave Act. It was all about slavery. Southern revisionists will say that they just wanted to preserve states' rights against the federal government. If that is true, why did they support a strong fugitive slave law, which allowed the federal government vast powers to capture fugitive slaves? They only wanted states' rights when it started to look like the federal government was not going to protect their right to keep slaves.

Answer 8

The biggest reason for the Civil War was the same reason for EVERY war. Money. The South was making a pretty nice profit growing cotton, but they relied on slaves to do it.

Answer 9

Slavery.

Answer 10

money sooner or later its always money cause land and control of it means money and power think of the term landlord then slavery was a reason but the real reason was money just like today