Secession and Civil War

One of the many factors that led to the American Civil War was the debate over whether states had the right to secede from the Union as defined in the Constitution. The South argued that slaves in...

The reasons for joining either the Union or Confederate Army were complex and often personal. Union soldiers, for the most part, did not join the army with the expectation that they were fighting...

The causes of the civil war have been a point of contention lately. First of all, its causes were economic. The North relied on the South's agriculture for its industrial wealth. When you add to...

There are two major reasons for this. After 1857, compromise was no longer possible because the Supreme Court had forbidden it. The ruling in the Dred Scottcase had said that Congress had no right...

The armies of both the Confederacy and the United States were made of largely working-class young white men. This was especially true after both sides enacted a wartime draft, but allowed the rich...

The fundamentally different perception of John Brown in the North and the South reflected the deep divisions in America before the Civil War. Such divergence might also bring to light how America...

The South had some geographic advantages in the Civil War. One of those advantages was that the South knew the land very well since most of the fighting was in the South. The South knew the lay of...

There are many reasons why the North won the Civil War over the South. For one, the North had more heavy industry than the South, which had remained largely agricultural leading up to the war....

The American Civil War was one of the bloodiest conflicts in national history, with the total number of casualties estimated at around 620,000 soldiers. In this war, the northern states (also...

In the 1830s, South Carolina responded to the tariff in two ways. First, they asserted that they (and other states) had the right to nullify laws made by the national government. Second, they...

In short, the southern states reacted to Abraham Lincoln's election by seceding from the Union. A number of the southern states had already threatened to secede if Lincoln was elected. By the time...

For the South, the election of Abraham Lincoln was the worst-case scenario in the election of 1860. In the 1850s, the relationship between the North and the South had worsened. With the publishing...

The Northern states had a huge inbuilt advantage over the South from the very start. Their final victory was virtually inevitable before the first shot had even been fired. For one thing, the North...

I would place the US Navy as the number one advantage, with the manufacturing capability as second and the population advantage as third. The existence of a Navy meant the Union could blockade the...

In many ways, her diary would likely have stayed the same. In the diary, she outlines the events of historical battles and class struggles and decries racism, sexism, and abuse of power. Regardless...

Northern voters warmed to the Republican Party, as it was implacably opposed to the extension of slavery. This issue had been a running sore in American politics for some time, and no white...

In what President Lincoln would call "the last full measure of devotion," I think that the Civil War resolved the issue of slavery. From the results of the Civil War, the act of slavery was...

The Civil War (1861–1865) was fought over the issue of slavery. But Abraham Lincoln was cautious about publicizing his strong opposition to slavery. One reason for Lincoln's carefulness was he...

Lee uses fairly direct language to describe war. Language such as "anarchy" is how Lee describes the war that will be brought on by succession. When he anticipates what will happen with secession...

In general, the Confederacy was technologically weaker than the Union forces. The Union possessed more than twice the length of railroad trackage that the South had, and while the northern...

The Union had more resources. It controlled the factories, and had the raw materials and the resources to turn them into weapons and uniforms. The South had limited manufacturing resources. The...

By the 1860's, North and South were so polarized that there wasno middle ground. It is important to note that both sides were firmly convinced of the justice of their cause and the fallacy and...

Maryland was in a unique position as the United States broke into civil war. The primary divisions in the Civil War were regional, between the Northern and Southern states. These regions had...

African Americans played an important role in the Civil War. At the very beginning of the war, African Americans weren’t allowed to fight for the North. However, that changed, and by 1862, 10% of...

Though slavery became the symbol over which the Civil War was fought after Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, prior to that, the grounds for war were not so much slavery as that the North fought...

The Civil War (1861–1865) was much lengthier and bloodier than most people had expected. Both the North and the South expected a quick victory. The first big battles—at Bull Run (1861) and Shiloh...

There are numerous factors that led to the South's defeat during the Civil War. Here are three of the bigger ones that contributed. First, the South was defending a larger area. They had much more...

There were many factors which played a role in shaping the Confederacy's defeat in the Civil War, and I'd hesitate to winnow things down to just three. However, for the purposes of this answer, I'd...

When the Civil War began with the secession of Southern states from the Union, Lincoln was quite willing to allow these states to continue slavery if it would preserve the Union—in other words, if...

The best answer to this question is clearly D. All of the above statements are definitely true. Of course, there is no way to objectively define “long, destructive and violent,” but the Civil War...

The North and the South had different names for the Civil War. The South called the Civil War the Second War for Independence. Northerners referred to the Civil War as the War of the Rebellion....

The major advantages of the North were that most of the manufacturing interests of the nation as well as most of the railroads were in the North. The North possessed 93 percent of the nations heavy...

One important event that became a catalyst for the anti-slavery movement was the 1852 publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin. It galvanized many in the North to demand the immediate liberation of all...

Charles Sumner's views on Bleeding Kansas created conflict because they inspired Sumner to make a speech on the Senate floor in which he bitterly criticized some Southern senators. A member of the...

Despite its much smaller population—9 million to the North's 23 million—the South began the Civil War with an army almost equal in size to that of their Northern opponents. Not only that, but the...

Basically, the issue here concerns whether the things that Lincoln did were justified by the fact that there was a war going on. There were a number of things that Lincoln did that would surely...

Initially, the North went to war with the South because of slavery. The South, whose economic back bone was agriculture, solely utilized slave labor in its venture, unlike the North where...

First, I'll start with the advantages the North possessed, as they are the ones who won the war. The North had more capital to buy munitions, buy foodstuffs, and recruit soldiers. The North was...

Secession was probably the only course South Carolina saw available to it if it's culture and lifestyle were to be maintained. Prior to formation of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln had been a...

One of the major causes of the civil war had to do with the expansion of the United States and the conflict over whether new states would be admitted to the Union as slave states or free states....

The period after the Civil War was an important period in terms of technological innovation in the United States. The telegraph existed before the Civil War, but it proved invaluable in moving men...

There are different levels of objectives that each side had in this war. On the highest level, the objective of the Confederate States was to become independent. They wanted to break away from the...

The South didn’t react well to the election of Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860. The South was convinced that Lincoln was going to end slavery, even though Lincoln had said he wasn’t going to...

The North had a number of advantages over the South. First, the North was a country recognized by other countries of the world. It would have an easier time getting loans from other countries...

The Northern Strategy to win the war was designed by Gen. Winfield Scott, and was known as the "Anaconda Plan." This called for a blockade of the Gulf and Atlantic Coasts and also the capture of...

The New York draft riots of July 1863 reflected social tensions in Northern society. The Civil War created additional problems that exacerbated these tensions. The rioters were mostly poor Irish...

Geography was very important during the Civil War. Because Washington, D.C. was surrounded by southern states, it was essential that President Lincoln keep Maryland in the Union after Virginia...

The election of Abraham Lincoln did cause the outbreak of the Civil War, but only in the immediate sense. To think of what this means, think of a person who smokes, is terribly obese, and never...

The debate over federalism did not contribute to the Civil War, it was the cause of the Civil War. Sectional differences between the north and south had existed long before the Civil War however,...

Of the choices that you have given here, the last choice is without question the correct answer. The war, particularly at the beginning, was always about preserving the Union. We often see the war...