What were the causes and origins of the American Civil War? Do you agree with this list?

Question

Can you add to the list or, perhaps, do you believe that any of the so-called causes or origins should be removed from the list? (I shall award the BEST ANSWER to the BEST argument)

Causes and Origins 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).
SOURCE:
http://thomaslegion.net/causes.html

Answer 1

I am not of the stars and bars crowd, actually I'm in Ohio

but no, it was not slavery, the list you provide is pretty spot on.

As to the person who said its bad its about money and power, of course it was, thats what this list is all about!

high tarrifs, especially. all wars are about money or dirt

Answer 2

I feel that these are all contributors to the war, but I still think all war is about money and power (which is what most money is to people).

The North simply had a better economic system- more organization , more affluency. They were more urban and manufactured by use of factories.

The South was a rural area. They had plantations or sharecropping. They thrived on farming tobacco, cotton, etc. This was not a factory based system.

The South's transportation system went east to west, not north to south. Basically that was one of the reasons that they lost the war.

Slavery was an important reason for the war, but it would have fallen by the wayside anyway eventually. I think the war is really about the North wanting to spread their economy , and the South looked like a good place to expand. More land, more factories leads to more money and the power that money brings with it.

Answer 3

Since I haven't angered nearly enough people today here goes - - - - SLAVERY SLAVERY SLAVERY was the root of all Evil, when a State argues it has an inerent right to treat people like Property, to exploit them to use them, then it is no longer an issue of States Rights but an argument about human rights, the moral issue is it o-k to enslave people? Clearly 'No' in that many Northerners who had no particular grudge against the South chose to fight to preserve the Union knowing that meant the end of Slavery in the US or A.

So fire off those thumbs down; if I don't get at least ten negatives the stars & bars crowd isn't trying hard enough...

Pax-------------------------

Answer 4

Well, the website in which you pull your list from is a southern revisionist website whose purpose is to demean the Union and glorify their antecedents and their glorious cause of human bondage.

So, NO! The cause of all of those events is plain and simple, the desire for southern plantation owners to retain the power in the Federal Govt to retain human bondage.

FYI, Lincoln received no southern electoral votes simply because he was not allowed to be placed upon the ballots in most of the southern states and no one was allowed to campaign for him through articles, mail or speeches.

whale

Answer 5

It was about slavery and the people who were alive at the time had no qualms about saying so.

Several of the Southern State legislatures wrote specific explanations of the cause of secession and they said flatly that they were doing so to preserve slavery.

Anyone how says differently today is either ignorant or a liar.

Answer 6

I would have to concur with the Slavery.

If one would consider that the slavery issue was side stepped in the forming of the US, and possibility that the federal government was left weak and impotent unable to change this institution, and as the US expanded and grew the issue of slavery, expansion of, and dissension also grew and matured.
No matter how you slice it slavery was the big question.