Causes of the Civil War

In the early eighteen hundreds the united states was clearly divided into two sections. There were northern states that were considered the free states, and the southern states which were considered the slave states. In the north there were no slave owners but that does not mean they are all against slavery. The smaller companies in the north were benefiting from slavery because, they were receiving their crops thats could not be grown in the north. Cotton was a huge crop that directly profited northern companies. Some of the northerners did not want to abolish slavery because they could see the economical benefits from it. The majority of northerners hated it and talked and wrote about the inhuman side of it and how it must be put to an end. They talked about how bad it makes our country look and how brutal it is to treat these people like this.

In the south life was very different, most of the money was generated from agriculture. Most of the southerners were farmers and slave owners. The south needed a lot of land to make the cotton. Since cotton production was so big the south needed the slaves to keep up with the supply and demand.  

Southern slavery was brutal and deadly. It was not uncommon for slaves to work from dawn to dusk, and then do their cleaning and cooking on there own. Frederick Douglass once said, “To be accused was to be convicted and to be convicted was to be punished”. The vast majority of African Americans lived and died as slaves. The slaves resisted slavery in many ways, they would break tools, burn down houses or try and even kill their owners. Since the slaves started to revolt and fight back, other slaves started to catch on and also would revolt. The white southerners started to become scared of their slaves, they were nervous that the slaves could fight back at any time.

The abolitionist movement quickly progressed in the north. They started constructing the underground railroad which was designed for slaves to escape from the south to the north.

In the eyes of the southerners, the abolitionists had the wrong idea about them. Southerners defended slavery because they were so heavily invested in it, and the vast majority of their income was directly generated from slaves. They not only said that it made their economy better but they were also saying that slaves made the overall country better. The south felt that they were doing a good thing because they were building the country up for the better. They even thought that they were helping the African Americans.

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With the country growing rapidly and new states being added very often, the balance of slave and free states was threatened to be corrupted. In the Kansas Nebraska act of 1854 congress let the people decide whether they would be a slave or a free state. This was not a smart idea because all the people had different views on slavery, which caused a lot of fighting and killing.

When Dred Scott lost the case the Supreme Court decided that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, the reason its not constitutional is because it does not allow people to decide whether they want slavery or not. This caused all the laws and rights that held the country so close together to go right out the window. Since this meant the people could choose it just began to cause madness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blNSI2taJr0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OICSXYMB7M