Was Slavery the Cause of the American Civil War?

American History: A Reflection

The American civil war has been one of the most interesting topics among scholars and historians in the modern times. Slavery, as James McPherson noted, was one of the key reasons why the Northern States went to war. Slavery in the later part of the 19th century had proven to be a hot topic because of its social, political and economic implications. Slavery was then a powerful interest in that many people in the opposing Southern States where of the notion of perpetuating, strengthening, and extending slavery in their region, even if it meant war. Therefore, the issue of slavery became an aspect of disunion between the northern states and the southern ones. this is largely because it was an integral aspect of the social and economic dimension of the state.

As a result, many of the Southern States preferred to secede to have their own economic independence, spearheaded by slavery. Therefore, slavery became the reason why the Northern state went to war, with the interest of extending the abolishment of slavery where they were of the idea that all men were created equal. However, the Confederates held the belief that people of color were subordinate to the superior race of white men. As a result, the Northern states went to war to prevent the spread of slavery, which led to the Southern States to opt to secede and the election of Abraham Lincoln and his Emancipation Proclamation speech, which made the southern states reason that representation of their pro-slavery policies would be hampered.

The Northern soldiers went to war because they had vowed to end slavery with the belief that emancipation was unconstitutional, and it was an illegitimate venture by the southern states which could not be let to win. Many of the Union soldiers did not hold the notion of ending slavery in the early years of the war, rather, there prominent conviction of participating in the war was to preserve and restore the Union. However, in the later years of the war, abolishment of slavery became an integral part of the reason why the Northern Soldiers fought the war. This would then amount to the liberty of both the white man and the person of color alike. Therefore, the Union soldiers engaged in the war for humanitarian reasons which was with the intention of ending the backwardness and ignorance of the southern proponents of slavery. This is especially because they believed that slavery had killed all prosperity and enterprise of the American people. Restoration and preservation of the Union, and the abolishment of slavery by ending the inhumanity and cruelty of the system as the reason why the Northern soldiers went to war.

Frontier fighting was especially in the modes of fighting which ensued were because of the issue of loss of subordination in the society. Paternal authority in the country had been lost and the mistrust of the national authority had taken root among the American people. In this case, the lower class of the American whites would be jealous of the republican counter parts, who they would consider as equals despite the social and economic inequality. As a result, people who held into menial jobs such as gamblers or hunters found the organized large-scale farming, regular work, organized labor divisions to be alien to their lives. The same was applied to the secession by the Confederates who had gone into war to preserve the economic position of slavery. The Northern states and their economic activities had led to the rise of the modern capitalism which was not known in the South, and as a result, the South had tried to resist it. taking into consideration of the social and family structures which had evolved between the Northern and the Southern states, war was inevitable.

With the south taking the gentlemanly attitude, while the North evolving into having violence as part of their daily lives. In this case, just as the frontier fighting, the Confederates, and the Union were fighting to preserve what they held dear, one side believing in the strategic economic significance of the slave institution, while the other disavowing the notion of disunity of the American nation. The war was a significant of the resistance on the mixing of different cultural structures, such as the display of leisure and opulence, while the Northern states had made violence part of their daily lives. As a result, an all blown out war was the only means in which each section would preserve or assert authority to their counterparts.