What+caused+the+Civil+War?ka

What caused the Civil War? The Civil War started because of the topic of slavery. Slavery caused the North and the South to have many conflicts and fight each other to the point of where people died for slavery. All the events caused the North and the South to become two separate nation. The Civil War's real start date was 1861 but it was provoked by many other events going back to 1820 with the Missouri Compromise and leading up to the firing of Fort Sumter. The Missouri Compromise started out the bad feelings toward each other in the direction of the Civil War. It stated that slavery was not to be allowed the 36' 30 line in a territory or state except for Missouri. The South got the bad end of the deal because there is more land to be settled north of the line than south of it. So the North would in the end get more free states. After the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850 was put into effect. It stated a compromise of allowing California to be a free state and for the Fugitive Slave Law. The North got out of the deal having California to be a free state. This caused a tip to the North in the Senate so they now had the majority. The South got the Fugitive Slave Law. This stated that the Northerners had to return a slave if they came upon one and if they didn't they could be faced with punishment. These two sides to the compromise caused many conflicts between the North and the South. The North did not want to comply with the South on the Fugitive Slave Law and the South disliked the North's majority in the Senate. When Uncle Tom's Cabin was published by Harriet Beecher Stowe, it caused a polarization of the North and the South. This means that they became more and more distant and against each other. The book stated that slavery was bad and that even good slavery was bad. The book sold many copies and over 300,000 copies were just sold in the North. That is a lot seeing that it was not as populated back then and not all of them were totally against slavery. It sold many copies around the world and exposed it. It caused the North to become more anti-slavery and the South just said it was all a lie and wanted the North to stay out of it. Next came the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This opened new slave territory. It was that Nebraska and Kansas were open to popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty said that the people in the territory could choose if they wanted to be a slave or free state. It essentially got rid o f the 36' 30 line. This act caused a uproar called "Bleeding Kansas". This was when people from Missouri flooded into Kansas to vote or force the citizens of Kansas to vote for the state constitution to include slavery. Even if they voted for the constitution to not include slavery there would still be slavery because the current slave owners would still be protected. So there would still be slavery. Later on in 1857, was the Dred Scott Case. Dred Scott was a slave that was living in the North with his master. His master died and he got a new master. Scott then went to court saying that he should be free for he was living in the North for many years and his master died. The Supreme Court ruled that he was wrong and essentially defended slavery. It also ruled that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional. This basically made it so that no compromise in the future could draw a line saying where slavery could be and where it couldn't be. In that same year, the Panic of 1857 occurred. This raised the tariffs for a relief plan which made the South mad. It again benefited the North and the South had to pay for that protection. One of the biggest causes that happened fairly close to the Civil War was the election of 1860. Lincoln was elected president. The only reason he was elected president was the Democratic Party was split. It was split because Steven Douglas said that slavery would eventually die out. He said this to the state of Illinois just to get the votes of the citizens so he could beat Lincoln at the senator seat. So Lincoln became president and many of the Southern states seceded from the Union starting with South Carolina. It is wondered whether this act was legal. They fought that saying that it says right in the Declaration of Independence that the government was supposed to protect the people and if they did not then the people had the right to change it or abolish it. The last act that lead up to the Civil War was the Fort Sumter affair. Lincoln basically provoked the Confederacy to shoot the first shot and then the North could say that they fought back in response to it and were only protecting their country. Lincoln sent in supplies and reinforcements into the South to the fort and the South realized they had reinforcements. The South shot at them and it became an armed conflict. This was the first fighting of the Civil War. The Civil War could not have been prevented because of the issue of slavery. Slavery caused all of the conflicts that were talked about. It all started with the Missouri Compromise when they tried defining where slavery could and couldn't be. Slavery was such a contrastable and touchy topic that it split the North and the South. If there was no slavery the North and the South might not have been so split and might have actually got along a whole lot better.