The cause of civil war Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

The cause of civil war - Essay Example Generally the northerners and southerners had totally conflicting outlooks and values. The south was rich in agriculture and agricultural related output while the north was more of an industrial hub. The north was also a cosmopolitan area in both religion and nationalities (Hewitt and Lawson 104). The north was not willing to tolerate slave and slavery actions of the south states and undertook measures such as starting the abolitionist movement that aimed at ending slavery across America. The south was angered by northerners’ actions and values of protecting escaping slaves and wanted to impose the rights of states to own slaves (Hewitt and Lawson 111). Slavery among other factors made America to reach the great American tragedy since 1861, slavery was a state’s rights, and provided for in the state laws. By 1860, cracks were clear in the American society and it was no longer a homogeneous society, but instead one that had different outlooks and different values. This was vitalized by the emergence of the north and the southern divides that formed the two sides of the war (Hewitt and Lawson 173) Economically, the use of slaves in cotton plantations by the south states and northern abolitionist movements created tensions between the south and north. Four out ten people in 1860 were slaves providing labor force to the rich agricultural south and this formed the strong foundation of the southern economy (Hewitt and Lawson 165). All southerners viewed any attempt by the federal government to control the rights of slave owners as a catastrophic threat to the southern economic system. The northern merchants benefitted from the demands of the south for shipping the cheaply produced cotton abroad and the southerners also benefitted from the imports of consumption goods by the northerners (Hewitt and Lawson 133). Politically, the north and south read from different scripts with the