what caused the civil war?

Question

what did president lincoln have to do with it?
were there things other than slavery that started it?
please be specific
i have to know


thnx
<3

Answer 1

To the person above who called me ignorant because I say that slavery was the cause of the Civil War: Please read this through.
You have to first understand that it wasn't a series of misunderstandings that got out of hand. The secession of the Confederate states was a plan that was many years in the making. The secessionist leaders began their plans in the early 1850's, and while they certainly hopes they could pull it off without war, they prepared for that every step of the way.

SLAVERY WAS THE PRIMARY ISSUE THAT LED TO THE CIVIL WAR. "State's rights" in the South were only important insofar as it involved the right to own slaves. Revisionist historians like to use "state's rights" as a way to defend the actions of secessionists, but outside of slavery secessionists cared very little about state's rights. If you go to the books, the newspapers, the magazines, and the speeches OF THE TIME, like I have for the last 30 years, and ignore all the dirivitive crap written 100-150 years after the war, you'll find that slavery was THE issue, in the North and in the South. What right did the South fight to protect? Slavery. What were the leaders of the North trying to stop slavery. The rest were minor differences. Go to the sources, and you'll see. Yes, they used the term "states rights" from time to time, because that was the polcitically correct terminology for saying they wanted to keep their slaves. What right were they almost exclusively talking about when talking about state's rights? Slavery. Sometimes it would be thrown in with "opression" and "economics" but it always came down to slavery.

No slavery - no war, period.

You had two very opposite groups involved in this conflict. The slave states were run largely by a group of secessionists, although they weren't publicly admitting that in the 1850's. They desperately wanted to maintian their hold on the power they currently enjoyed at that time - they had enough votes in congress to demand compromise after compromise and to control most legislation. They used that power to repeal the Missouri Compromise and allow the reintroduction of slavery into areas it had previously been prohibited. They are occasionally portrayed as the downtrodden oppressed, under the thumb of the terrible North, but nothing could be further from the truth. They were strong, and they wanted to keep that power, lest their ability to promote and maintain slavery be taken from them

Meanwhile the North was largely anti-slavery, that sentiment was growing almost daily, and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise was taken as a betrayal by most people of the North. While those who favored immediate abolition were not the majority, those who demanded the stop to the expansion of slavery were.

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Acts so enraged and worried the North that adversaries gathered together to form a new political party, the Republican Party, in 1854. They considered the repeal as a betrayal of trust and a surrender to the slave powers (see the notice at the end) To those who say that slavery wasn't the main issue, keep in mind that the platform of the Republican Party (formed by Whigs, free-Soilers, Know-Nothings, Free Democrats, and other parties that dissolved their past affiliations in order to form the Republican Party) was primarily to stop the spread of slavery immediately and to eliminate it from the coutry as quickly as possible - it's why the Party was formed, and the evidence that slavery was the issue in the North as well as the South is plain in the fact that the Republican Party won the Presidency and majority control of government just 6 years after it was formed!

This signaled a ticking clock to the secessionists, because they saw the anti-slavery senitment gaining strenth and the Republican Party gaining power throughout the 1850's. They new that in 1860 their hold on power would be gone, and they had to act. They knew as far back as 1857 that they would be taking these steps a few years later. On March 4, 1857 Jefferson Davis took the oath of the Senate, vowing to uphold the Union and the Constitution with his very life, meanwhile he and other secessionist leader continues their plans of rebellion.

During the late 1850's President Buchanan and the other secessionist leaders and slavery sympathizers worked their plan. Arms were sold to secessionists, forts in the South were emptied of arms and troops, the Army and Navy were spread thin and wide so they could not respond in an emergency. The propoganda campain to keep the southern people in fear of the North and unsettled continued.

Lincoln's election in 1860 was used by the secessionists to rally support of the people, and called "the last straw." The funny thing is that Lincoln, of all the possible Republicans, was the last person they had to fear, because Lincoln had already said many times over that he would not mess with slavery where it existed. But who the candidate was didn't matter - it was time for the secessionists to act before it was too late, so they portrayed Lincoln as a radical abolitionist and an enemy of the South. Truth is, it could have been anybody. The Confederacy was planned a loong time before anyone ever heard of Abraham Lincoln in the South.

When the North refused to accept secession, and the North wouldn't make the first agressive move, the Confederacy fired - on a fort manned mostly by musicians with few weapons.

So, was it possible to end slavery without War? I'm not saying there weren't ways, but first you have to know that there were people plotting treason and betraying their oaths for years prior to 1860, and that they were not going to stop short of their goals.

The only thing that would have prevented war would be the acceptance of slavery by the United States and/or the surrender of the United States of all the states and territories it held that called itself the Confederacy. Since that would not have ended slavery, then the answer is that there was no alternative but to have some kind of conflict, some kind of war.

Slavery was the issue, it was the reason. It was a calculated plan by those who chose to protect slavery by betraying their countrymen and turning traitor - to protect slavery, and not some mythical idea of "state's rights" because the only right they cared about was the right to enslave another race.

MORE EVIDENCE THAT SLAVERY WAS THE ISSUE

Below is one of the annoucements of a meeting (1854) called to form this new party. This was from Michigan, and was one of many such announcement and meetings. It's a fascinating story:

"TO THE PEOPLE OF MICHIGAN

A great wrong has been perpetrated. The slave power of this country has triumphed. Liberty is trampled underfoot. The Missouri compromise, a solemn compact, entered into by our fathers, has been violated, and a vast territory dedicated to freedom has been opened to slavery.
This act, so unjust to the North, has been perpetrated under circumstances which deepen its perfidy [treachery]. An administration placed in power by Northern votes has brought to bear all the resources of executive corruption in its support.
Northern Senators and representatives, in the face of overwhelming public sentiment of the North, expressed in the proceedings of public meeting and solemn remonstrances [protest], without a single petition in its favor on their table, and not daring to submit this great question to the people, have yielded to the seductions of executive patronage, and, Judas-like, betrayed the cause of liberty; while the South, inspired by a dominant and grasping ambition, has, without distinction of party, and with a unanimity almost entire, deliberately trampled under foot the solemn compact entered into in the midst of a crisis threatening the peace of the Union, sanctioned by the greatest names of our history, and the binding forces of which has, for a period of more than thirty years, been recognized and declared by numerous acts of legislation. Such an outrage upon liberty, such a violation of plighted faith, cannot be submitted to. The great wrong must be righted, or there is no longer a North in the councils of the nation. The extension of slavery, under the folds of the American flag, is a stigma upon liberty. The indefinite increase of slave representation in Congress is destructive to that equality between freemen which is essential to the permanency of the Union.
The safety of the Union -- the rights of the North -- the interests of free labor -- the destiny of a vast territory and its untold millions for all coming time -- and finally, the high aspirations of humanity for universal freedom, all are involved in the issue forced upon the country by the slave power and its plastic Northern tools.
In view, therefore, of the recent action of Congress upon this subject, and the evident designs of the slave power to attempt still further aggressions upon freedom -- we invite all our fellow citizens, without reference to former political associations, who think that the time has arrived for a union at the North to protect liberty from being overthrown and downtrodden, to assemble in mass convention on Thursday, the 6th of July, next, at 4 o’clock, P.M., at Jackson, there to take such measures as shall be thought best to concentrate the popular sentiment of this State against the aggression of the slave power."

This meeting was attended by people from all parties, and they formed an election ticket of Free Democrats, Free Soilers, Whigs, and more - now all calling themselves Republican.

Zachariah Chandler, a devout Whig, said:

"Misfortunes make strange bedfellows. I see before me Whigs, Democrats and Free-Soilers, all mingling together to rebuke a great national wrong. I was born a Whig; I have always lived a Whig and hope to die fighting for some of the Whig doctrines. But I do not stand here as a Whig. I have laid aside party to rebuke treachery."

The Republican Party was founded on, and throughout the 1850's primarily existed to, stop slavery. Without slavery, there was no conflict important enough to form new parties, to bring traitors to the forefront, to cause a country to fire upon itself.

Answer 2

States rights, and a as previous responder said, the difference between the economies of the northern and southern states caused the Civil War. That's the simple answer.

To say that slavery caused the Civil War is ignorant. It was part of the argument between the states, but if that was the only argument there never would have been a war.

The reasons are very complex, and too long to write down here, but there are many resources to use to find out. There has been just as much written about the Civil War as World War 2.

Answer 3

Oh boy. I just took a college class in History for one of my GEs and there were quite a bit of reasons, however my professor said the primary reason was the two vastly different economic systems - industrial to the north and agricultural to the south in which slavery was the corner stone. Also wiki it lol.

Answer 4

Assuming that ur question is about American civil war my answer is 'slavery' was the major cause of it.

Answer 5

If you reference Wikipedia 'american civil war' it gives a good breakdown including causes.