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All wars begin from a common root: the fight for one side? s ways of life. The causes of the Civil War were no different. Three popular hypothesis for why the civil war started are universal freedom versus slavery, agrarian versus industrial economies and the belief in the power of the states versus? indivisible union, ? but each one was a part of the other and had an equal hand in fueling the war.
They can be summed up by saying that the war was caused by two different economic systems trying to coexist under one government, a? house divided against itself cannot long stand. ? 1 An extreme example would be if the US government ruled over the United States and China; two separate ways of life whose needs could never be met under one power. The South as well as the North had a strong sense of nationalism; neither side would yield. Lincoln himself, whose goal was to unite the country, said? I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other, ? 2 expressing his knowledge that two so very different ways of life wouldn?
t be able to be governed together. At very least, one of the two side? s needs would not be met. Under certain acts passed by the partisan congress and courts, neither North or South was completely satisfied. The South? s needs were not met; they were forced to pay tariffs on imported goods from Europe so the smaller textile industry of the North could compete.
Although strong abolitionists were only 4 % of the population in the North, the South felt threatened. Men like John Brown and Nat Turner brought fear of a slave uprising to the South. Non-violent anti-slavery northerners wrote literature such as Harriet Beecher Stowe? s Uncle Tom? s Cabin, Frederick Douglass? s The North Star and Life and Times, and William Loyd Garrison?
s The Liberator. These publications and incidents set the Southerners on the defensive and some historians of today say they were a little paranoid. 3 In the North these publications only heightened their awareness of the slavery and its moral issues. Slaves were the main source of economic wealth for the South. With the invention of Eli Whitney?
s cotton gin, more slave labor was needed to produce more cotton, 57 % of their exports. Since they could not produce as much as the North, and depended heavily on imports, tariffs became more of a burden and perhaps an insult to the South. The state of Georgia wrote in its Declaration of Causes of Seceding States that one of its reasons for seceding was they had to help foundling shipbuilders in the North from foreign less expensive businesses by paying taxes brought on by Congress. they (the North) have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of lighthouses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $ 2, 000, 000 annually for the support of these objects This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States. 4 With a Congress overpowered by Northerners protecting their own natural interests, whose unfortunately were very opposite from the South?
s, one side? s needs were not going to be met. Alienated from each other in their way of life and ideas, the South felt no paternal bond to the Union but habit. With no obligation to the North and each small or large injustice felt being a straw that broke the camel? s back, the South seceded and the civil war followed.
Not due to just slavery, economic differences, or different political ideals but to two different ways of life did the civil war start. footnotes: 1 Ward, Jeoffrey C... The Civil War. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. 1990.
page 45 2 Ward, Jeoffrey C... The Civil War. Alfred A. Knopf, New York. 1990.
page 22 3 Feeling, William. The Road to Disunion. Oxford University Press, New York. 1990. page 557 4 Georgia, Declaration of Causes of Seceding States. internet: http. //sunsite. utk.
edu / civil -war / reasons . html
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Research essay sample on Ways Of Life Alfred A Knopf
