Why is the war between the North and the South called the Civil War?

Question

Why is the war between the North and the South called the Civil War, if technically, it was a war between two different countries? It was between the United States of America and the Confederate States of America, since the southern states secceded and formed their own country.

Answer 1

War does not determine right or wrong, war decides who is left.

When the South formed the CSA, the Union couldn't allow them to leave. Since the North eventually won the war, history was written by the winners.

Answer 2

If the South would have won the war would have been called a revolution, much like the American Revolution. However the North won the war and therefore they wrote the history books, they stopped a rebellion and brought the South back into the Union. Therefore it was a civil war between countrymen from the same nation.

Answer 3

A war between different factions within a country, whether or not one section succeeds, is called a civil war. Thus, the War Between the States is also known as the American Civil War. Another well known example of civil war occurred when supporters of the English Crown (the Cavaliers) and supporters of the English Parliament (the Roundheads) fought two civil wars between 1642 and 1649.

Answer 4

Winners write history.
Since (by Northern reasoning) states cannot secede from the Union, the Confederacy were states in rebellion and not an independent country.

The Civil War was not really about slavery as a moral/economic issue as many believe, but about state's rights. The South thought that states had to right to ignore federal laws that they didn't like, and (obviously) to withdraw from the Union if they felt it was necessary. The Northern position was that the Constitution makes the federal government supreme.

Answer 5

The secession was taken pursuant to hostilities, immediately prior to which both sides were very definitely part of the same country, connected by infrastructure, trade, language, government, etc. In that there was no constitutional basis to just pick up your marbles and go home, the act was of doubtful legality. Therefore, the war -also known as the "war between the states" -was just that, a "civil" war.

Answer 6

The terming of the War as the "Civil War" comes from the more modern and popular romantic notion of "brother against brother." During the War it was rarely, if ever, referred to as a civil war. Modern historians have tagged it as the Civil War and it has stuck. For those who study the War it is more properly, and officially known as the War of the Rebellion as that is the title given to it by the US War department in it post-war reports and the collection of Official Records titled The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion (the most significant source of primary resource to any [CW] War student.)

Answer 7

it is because it was not a war between two different countries. the united states never recognized the independence of the states that seceded they categorized it as a rebellion. therefore it is a civil war.

Answer 8

The South had no factories to supply weapons or ammunition, and its railroads have been small and not interconnected, meaning that it became confusing for the South to go foodstuff, weapons and adult adult males immediately and over long distances. he North, on the different hand, had sufficient foodstuff and sufficient factories to make weapons for all of its squaddies. It additionally had a radical rail community that could desire to transport adult adult males and weapons immediately and value effectively. From Shmoop

Answer 9

because they started out as one country, then split, so yes a civil war was taking place........brother against brother, american against american........no matter what flag was being flown