what is the main reason why there was an American Civil War?

Question

10 pts to the bestest answer!

Answer 1

Causes of the American Civil War: A Summary

There were a series of significant events which greatly affected States' Rights, the Union, African Americans and accelerated the American Civil War. These historical events are commonly referred to as the "Causes of the American Civil War" and are listed without significant order: States' Rights (Bill of Rights and the 10th Amendment), High Tariffs, Nullification Crisis, Missouri Compromise, Kansas-Nebraska Act, Manifest Destiny, Dred Scott Case, Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Bleeding Kansas, Crittenden Compromise, John Brown, and President Abraham Lincoln's election (Lincoln didn't receive a single Southern electoral vote).

Answer 2

The main reason for the civil war was a whole lot like the immingration bill which just got stuffed. The people in the Northern States were free states and there was a lot more industry in the northern states. The Southern states were slave states and more plantation and crop depending than the northern. Slaves were a cheap form of labor just like ill legal immingrants are today. When Lincoln was elected the southern states split because they knew Lincoln planned on ending slavery. The southern troops open fire on Fort Sumpter on April 12-1861 and started the Civil War. On january 1-1863 Lincoln released the Emmancipation Proclamation which stated that all slaves shall be free. The war end when General Lee surrendered on April 9-1965 to General Grant.

Answer 3

The MAIN REASON was State's rights. The South felt that the federal Govt was becoming too corrupt and the power should be left more to the State. The North was on the side of the Federal Govt should have the control and hold things together. In the end the breaking point was over the issue of slavery. The South felt that the new territories should get to decide if they wanted to allow it or not, where the North/Feds decided they would pick and it would be kind of an equal thing. The problem was the Feds decided which ones WOULD and WOULDN'T.

BTW thing to keep in mind as far as Lincoln NOT getting a single Southern Electoral vote is that there were FOUR(4) Canidates. The Northern Republican, the Southern Republican, the Nothern Democrat, and the Southern Democrat.

Answer 4

the immediate cause of the Civil War and the seccession of the lower/deep south way thye electoral victory of Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 elections. Abraham Lincoln was a member of the Rebublican Party which was the successor of the Free Soil Party, which had run in the 1856 elections. The platform of the Free Soil Party, which the Republicans had for the most part adopted, included government give-away of land in the west (homesteading) and the preventing the expansion of slavery into the west. The latter was not because of racial sensitivity so much as out of economic concerns. The Free Soil Party appealed to the working white poor in the north, who did not want slave labor as economic competition as they moved west (think anti-immigration arguments today - it's sort of the same thing - they did not want to compete against cheap labor.) The deep south feared that if the ideology of the Free Soilers/Republians was implemented, they would lose power in the Senate, where the number of slave-state and free-state Senators had been finely balanced since the Compromise of 1820. They ultimately feared the eventual legislative exitinction of slavery if the number of free-states added to the Union outnumbered the number of slave-states.

This is it in a nutshell - I took and entire semester graduate seminar in college dedicated to this very question.

Answer 5

contrary to what most people say or think, slavery was not the cause of the civil war. many leaders of the confederacy were morally opposed to slavery, including General Robert E. Lee. The issue was that the centralized government of the united states (in the eyes of the confederacy) did not have the right or the power to dictate what the individule states did or did not allow, or make decisions on their behalf.

What people often often don't remember to factor into this debate is that the founding fathers of the united states were rabidly opposed to centralized power and wholly dedicated to a weak excecutive with the states themselves having almost complete and total control over their own affairs, save for foreign policy and the maintinence of the military. At the time of the outbreak of the civil war, the revolution was the very recent past. Not much longer ago than WWII is to us today. There were still plenty of people alive at the time who had personally known the founding fathers. Thus the strong attatchment to the feeling of states rights was far fresher in the minds of the people than it is today. Anyone who is familier in a serious way with the founding of the united states knows that all of our founders would be rolling in their graves if they could see how much power the office of the president holds today. For about the past 50-60 years, the president of the united states holds far more power than King George III of Great Britain, who we rebelled against to avoid just this kind of centralized power.

Anyway, the point is that the southern states felt that the north and the federal government were usurping the rights and powers of the indivudule states to govern themselves. So they followed the US constitution's provision allowing for the rejection of an unjust government and seceded in a block to form the confederated states of america. the north, though richer and more industrial, relied on the agriculture and production of the southern states for their income. So they felt the need to preserve the original union and invade the confederacy to bring it back under the control of the united states of america.

just to offer a bit of a clarification, this may make me sound like a racist southern rebel that sports the confederate flag on his pick up, but i'm actually a life long northerner from NJ and not at all racist or rebellious to the union.

Answer 6

Contrary to popular belief, owning slaves was not something the majority of southerners were able to do. The plantation owners owned the most slaves, middle class had maybe one or two. Common people were the majority in the south, and they were not wealthy enough to own slaves. Also, there were many white slaves. It is not a much talked about subject, however, many Europeans were able to come to the US by selling themselves into servitude usually for 5-7 years for steerage.
To answer your question, however, many northerners detested slavery. They wanted industrialization. The discovery of the cotton gin was one of the 1st steps to lightening the burden on slaves/slavery. Southern plantation owners didn't want to give up their "free" labor because the alternative was to pay someone or do the work themselves. The plantation owners were mostly powerful people with money and backing. Also, southern Baptists, believing in the BIBLE told that certain people were to be owned by white man.
So, with such a powerful issue and the economy that was involved in their lifestyle, the south wanted to secede from the rest of the union however, Lincoln could not allow that. There could never be 2 separate countries. With the firing upon Ft Sumter, the wheels were set into motion for the Civil War.
In conclusion, your top 5 main causes for the War were 1. ignorance 2. pride 3. economy 4. religion 5. politics. We've not come very far, have we????

Answer 7

The Southerners -- at least the wealthy, property-owning ones who had the vote -- wanted to retain their "right" to treat other people as property. When it looked like the Federal government was going to not allow slavery in new states, they tried to secede, or withdraw from the Union, and form their own country. The Feds didn't want that to happen, as it would weaken the economy, which depended a great deal on the cotton trade.

Answer 8

It's an 'American Civil War' because the damn Yankee's won.
Had Confederate States of America defeated the forces of President Lincoln this conflict would likely today be called:
'War Between The States' or 'Unwarrented Aggression
of Federal Government Upon State Rights'.

Answer 9

Simple. It's because Americans like wars.

After squabbling with the English - who eventually got bored and buggered off back home - the Americans had no-one conveniently located to fight with. The Canadians weren't interested in a punch-up to pass the time, and they'd pretty much wiped out the native peoples, so the Merkins decided to keep themselves amused by arguing amongst themselves.

The whole "slavery" thing was just an excuse. Nobody really cared one way or the other, they just fancied running around shooting guns for a bit.

And things haven't changed since then. Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, half a dozen South American countries, Cuba and of course the big stand-off with those pesky Russkies (who had equally big guns and equally bullying tendencies, so there was a risk of losing, therefore no fighting ensued.)

Iran will be next, unless Gordon Brown takes the UK out of America's pocket, in which case I expect we'll see Yank Tanks trundling past Buck Palace very, very soon.....

.

Answer 10

Actually it wasn't slaves like a lot of the people on here keep saying, in fact the north was perfectly fine with the south keeping slaves. That was just something that they stopped them from doing when they won. They simply thought 'hey I bet those slaves would fight for us if we allowed them to be free once we win' there were other reasons, and there were things other then that for the slaves as well. But the main reason for the war was not to free the slaves like so many people think.