The cause(s) of the Civil War - Research Paper Example

This meant a reduction in human labor. On the hand, cotton became very profitable, and many of the southern agricultural areas shifted from other crops to cotton farming, almost making the states a one crop economy, and thus requiring a lot of cheap human labor to meet the great demand and to maximize on profits. This cheap labor was readily available to the landowners in the south in the form of slaves while the north did not require them due to industrialization.2 These differences made the two areas to assume different economic ways of life, with the northern economy becoming city based while the southern continued to be plantation based.

This meant that the people in the north evolved into a culture where people of different cultures could work together while those in the south continued to hold unto slavery since they needed the slave labor. The people in the north started to condemn slavery as immoral while the south embraced the same due to their need of massive slave labor, causing friction between the north and south. The political leaders of the southern states such as Robert Barnwell and William Lowndes realized that if the slave ownership was abolished in the south, then the southern economy would probably collapse if the slaves were to be paid the high wages that white workers were being paid and thus, they vehemently opposed the idea.

Leaders in the north, some of whom were also religious personalities or newspaper personalities opposed the idea of slave ownership on the grounds of morality. Some of these personalities were like William L Garrison who was powerful crusaders for the abolition of the practice. The other issue that was instrumental in causing the civil war was the States versus federal Government’s rights issue. From the time of the American Revolution while states sought autonomy, there emerged two sides, one that advocated for states to have greater rights and the other that the federal government be granted more control.

3 Those that felt that the states should have greater rights like Thomas Jefferson and others agitated for the idea, resulting into the nullification idea, where the states sought to be allowed to have the rights to rule some federal acts unconstitutional. The federal government refused to cede to this demand, which led to the cessation of 11 states from the union of the states leading into the war.4 There also was the fighting between states that approved slavery and those who did not in newly acquired lands as one of the causes of the war.

America started to expand after the Louisiana Purchase whereby America purchased 800000 square miles of land at a cost of 15million dollars during the tenure of former president Thomas Jefferson, and also after the Mexican war.5 There arose conflict after this as to whether the new areas admitted to the union, would have slavery or would be granted freedom. Problems arose, for example, when those who advocated for slavery in Missouri known as “border Ruffians” started to come into the state to assist in forcing the state to become a slavery zone.

Conflict also occurred in Kansas which made the place be called “bleeding Kansas” because of the magnitude of the bloodshed in the quest to have this area embrace slavery. The fighting