American Civil War For Dummies. Keith D. Dickson

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Chapter 1

      How Did the War Happen?

      IN THIS CHAPTER

      Since the founding of the United States, different sections of the country had interests and priorities that competed with the interests and priorities of other sections. These conflicts had always been resolved through politics (usually some form of congressional dealmaking).

      However, beginning in the 1850s, the political process for resolving these disputes became less and less effective. The differences between sections of the country were so great at that time that the survival of the union of states was in danger. Peace depended upon compromise and conciliation between congressional leaders representing each section. This chapter examines the sectional differences between the North and South that led to such a dangerous situation and provides some background to the controversies that led to the Civil War.

The Big Picture: War and Politics

Wars have many causes. No one should ever forget that wars are fought for political reasons and objectives. Essentially, people or nations go to war to protect a vital interest, to defend territory from an aggressor, or to achieve a moral purpose (such as defending the innocent and punishing an evil). The Civil War included all of these rationales. Each side used all three justifications for fighting the other during the four years of war. And, interestingly enough, each side had a strong, valid, substantial reason for doing so.

      What’s a civil war?

      The setting: 1850–1860

      To understand the causes of the Civil War, you must be aware of some important events in American history — from roughly 1850 (the Missouri Compromise) to 1860 (the election of Abraham Lincoln) — that culminated in the secession of seven Southern states. These are milestones that will illustrate how specific events during this decade raised fears and created perceptions that made Americans so angry at their countrymen that they were willing to kill each other as a result.

      WHAT DO I MEAN BY NORTH AND SOUTH?

      To keep things clear, here is what this book means when speaking of North and South in regional or sectional terms:

The North and South: Two Different Worlds

      Until the expansion of the population into the rich lands of the lower South, in the first decade of the 19th century, slavery had been a dying institution. The North had slaves but freed most of them (except New Jersey) because the institution was too expensive and too inefficient to maintain. In the South, too, slavery was viewed as an institution that had no future. But this all changed with the industrial revolution that swept Europe and the states of the North. Textiles were the dominant product of new factories, which depended on enormous quantities of a raw material — cotton. As the demand for cotton rose on the world market, Americans began to look for opportunities to profit by getting in at the entry level. This meant putting as much land into cotton production as possible. The expansion of the frontier into the lower South and across the Mississippi River where the soil was rich and the weather ideal for growing cotton led many Americans to settle in this vast open region to stake their fortunes and achieve the American dream of independence and wealth. Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas rapidly became states between 1812 and 1836, even as the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan in the Midwest were added to the Union. Great fortunes were made and the U.S. economy thrived with the export of cotton to European (and Northern) factories between 1820 СКАЧАТЬ