An Essay on The Causes of The Civil War

            As the North’s and the South’s socio-economical systems began to differ, sectionalism formed and started the sparks that ignited the Civil War and later Reconstruction.  The causes of the Civil War start as far back from the early 1800s when it was evident that the North and the South were differing economically and socially and go to 1860 when the South threatened secession if Lincoln was elected. The goals of the Civil War for the North became evident once the Confederacy formed; bring back those who seceded and later, emancipate the slaves in the South.  For the Confederacy, it was to gain its independence.  The nature of the war became inhumane as the values that were given to the soldiers were forgotten and thrown aside. Once the war was over, what was left was a separated nation in a battered state due to the fighting.  The aftermath of the war caused a belief that there needed to be things done to now unify the nation again.  Reconstruction was the attempt to bring the South back into the Union but in the process the South was humiliated and treated poorly as the North tried to rebuild their governments.

            During the time of the early 1800s, the North started to modernize and their socio-economical system began to differ from that of the South.  The North farmed but they also began to use factories and began to urbanize.  Also, many immigrants traveled to the United States and the majority of them stayed in the North and worked in the factories.  The North turned away from slavery as it was less profitable in this new socio-economical system.  The South during this time stayed the same, maintaining its ways in the slave trade. As the differences began to become evident, the North and the South became critical of each other and started sectionalism. An early example of this is when the North wanted to protect their businesses and goods so they placed tariffs on the foreign goods.  The South made constitutional arguments against the tariffs saying that tariffs were suppose to better the nation and these ones were simply bettering the North.  Southerners felt that they were paying more for their products and making the North richer.  The South also feared that by placing tariffs on goods from other countries they would place tariffs on the goods that the South traded with them.  As the tensions of sectionalism grew in the ‘30s and ‘40s, there were major splits among the Protestants.  There were, for example, Southern Baptists and Northern Baptists.  Also during that time, colleges grew in the South so that Southerners could attend college and not have to listen to Northern ideologies.