The basic cause of the Civil War was slavery. In the South, slavery was legal and in the North it was not. The North was strongly opposed to everything that the South did and they tried to stop the South from continuing to participate in slavery. The fight of the North to stop the South from persecuting African-Americans is basically what the Civil War was. As American expanded it also caused a lot of problems, still disputes over slavery. Really only 25% of Southerners had slaves bu they manipulated the public into thinking that it was good for hem to keep the slaves, that they were helping them, but that was really not the case. These Southerners's use of free labor was what started the bloodiest war in American history.
the founding fathers
The leaders of this country really hadn't done anything about slavery. Everywhere else in the world it had just gone away so that was what the founding fathers expected it to do here. Except it didn't. There were even some people in our government who were for slavery and that made it even harder for any of them to fight against it. They issued the 3/5 clause for a while but in the long run it didn't do anything.
slave owners
Slave owners were tricky, manipulative people. They used excuse after excuse as to why they should keep their slaves. Many of them thought that the African-Americans were too stupid to take care of themselves so by clothing them and feeding them they were helping the slaves even though they weren't allowed to leave and had to work 12 hours a day. The invention of the cotton gin was a huge problem of slavery because it gave plantation owners another job that needed to be done and therefore a reason to keep slaves. They also started enlisting slave catchers. These people would kidnap free African-Americans from the North and make them slaves in the South. Importing slaves had become illegal so the value of slaves went way up and many people made a lot of money out of slave catching. The Fugitive Slave Laws were also a big help to them.
john tyler
John was our Vice President but when William Henry Harrison died, he became our president. He wasn't loyal to the good of the U.S. but he was loyal to his political party, the Whigs, as well as the the Confederacy. Wait a minute, he was a Whig but he was for slavery? Yes, so Democrats hated him but so did the Whigs because he was like a traitor to their party. Since nobody liked him, the whole Presidential Cabinet resigned and a man named John C. Calhoun was hired to replace the Secretary of State. Calhoun was very much for slavery and was a big influence on the Civil War because he put many more excuses for slavery into the minds of politicians. He was one of the slave owners that thought he was being kind but gave his slaves no free will. Calhoun was one of the major things that made John Tyler's presidency very unsuccessful.
james k. polk
James K. Polk was another president that helped lead us to the Civil War. He believed in Manifest Destiny and promised that the U.S. would reach all the way to the Pacific. The slogan for his Manifest Destiny campaign was "54-40 or Fight" which was a way of saying that they were going to have all of this territory under Canada or we'll take it by force. He admitted Texas to the U.S. when they asked and got the Oregon territory from Britain by annoying them enough with the army. He then tried the same things with the California territory. After the army came around their borders a little too much, the Mexican army fired at them and started the Mexican-American War. Polk hid the fact that we had antagonized them first and just announced that Mexico had made war on us! In 1848 we won the war with a little help from the $15 million that we paid the Mexican president. Overall, James K. Polk had another unsuccessful presidency that was very fissiparous in the dissension caused between the North and the South by the new territory.
popular sovereignity
Even over on the eastern united states, we were having trouble figuring out where to allow slavery and where not to. With the added territory to the west that made this problem even worse. So we decided to let each state vote on it, this was called Popular Sovereignty. What went wrong was that people would move to the area that was voting in order to try and sway the vote towards their side. It was first tried in he Kansas-Nebraska area. Since there was so much cheating, both sides declared that they won and set up their own separate governments. This led to fighting over the governments and an abolitionist was killed in the turmoil. Then, in revenge for that one abolitionist, a man named John Brown chopped up 5 pro-slavery men with an ax and ran away to Canada! You can imagine how much the fighting broke out after that.
charles sumner
Charles Sumner was an abolitionist Congressman who was part of the Republican party, a new group that actually did something to prevent slavery. He made a speech that insulted Senator Butler for his love of slavery an Butler's nephew, Preston Brooks, was there to hear it. It made him so angry that he attacked Sumner with his cane beating him very badly. Brooks was treated as a hero in the South for standing up for slavery and he got thousands of new canes for the one that he broke beating up Charles Sumner. Sumner on the other hand was a hero in the North and they held him seat in Congress until he got better. Once he did, he got up and reread the speech that got him beaten to prove that he wasn't going to back down in his fight against slavery.
dred scott
Dred Scott was a slave who's owner died and he was suing his owner's wife for his freedom. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court and their ruling was devastating. They compared Scott to a horse and declared that since he wasn't a citizen, because African-Americans could not be, he could not have his freedom. At the end of the case, the Supreme Court decided that no African-American could claim citizenship and that Congress had no right to prohibit slavery.
john brown
This was the guy who chopped to death 5 pro-slavery guys and then ran away to Canada, remember? So, he decided to come back from Canada and try to start a slave revolt. He broke into the southern armory in Harper's Ferry Virginia and tried to steal guns for the slaves. His plan was for the slaves to help him but no one came to his aid and he was hung for treason in the South. He became a martyr in the North and caused even more dissension between the many groups of the Civil War.
fugitive slave laws
The Fugitive Slaves Laws angered the North so much more than probably anything else that the South had done. It allowed slave catchers to go anywhere in the U.S. and catch run-away slaves seen as property. The accused slaves could not defend themselves and they could have no jury. So even if they were a free African-American and they had the papers to prove it, they couldn't stop the slave catchers in any way from taking they away. Worse, the judge that decided whether or not the slave was really a slave, was paid $5 if the slave was free and then $10 if the slave was a slave! They bribed the judges to say they were slaves so that they could make money off of free people that had just had their futures stolen from them. It was the worst part of the slave owners's manipulation.
election of 1860
The election of 1860 was the start of the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln won because Steven Douglass had split the democratic party so he was a republican going into the presidency. The south did not like that at all, in fact, they had promised to leave the U.S. if Lincoln won the election. South Carolina was the first state to leave the U.S. and the fighting began, the North trying to stop the South's aristocracy and the South trying to keep it.
the civil war
The Civil War was considered the first modern war because of the higher level of military technology. It is also the war win which the most Americans have ever been killed. Over 680,000 Americans were killed, civilians included.
The first battle of the Civil War was the Battle of Fort Sumter. The South attacked a Union fort and succeeded on April 12, 1861. A little while later in July was the Battle of Bull Run. It was a formal battle and he two armies met on an open field. Civilians took a picnic and watched, fully expecting the North to win. As the fight continued and the South began to win, the civilians were overrun and added to the casualties. This battle was a turning point for General McClellan of the North army because it made him overly cautious and got him fired. Then was the Battle of Antietam in September of 1862, the date so delayed because of McClellan's slowness to attack. Over 24,000 people were killed during that one day making it the bloodiest day in American history. The Battle of Chancellorsville was another loss for the North but General Stonewall Jackson of the South was killed which was a small with for the North. The first battle that the North actually won was the Battle of Gettysburg. It was from July 1-3, 1863. The North took more casualties than the South but they won the area where they fought and kept the South at bay.
When the North won the Battle of Gettysburg, they turned the field into a tribute to American veterans and it became a national memorial. After the battle, Abraham Lincoln made a two minute speech referred to as the Gettysburg Address. It changed the perspective of the war and helped the North win. We sent from fighting to keep the South from leaving to fighting to give the African-Americans in the South freedom.
The Wilderness Campaign was in May of 1864 and it was when General Grant of the North chased after General Lee of the South. Lee was the whole reason that the South was doing such a good job winning. Grant caught up to them in the forest and the shooting caught the forest on fire. About 30,000 people died but it's really hard to know because of how mixed up the bones were. There was no ultimate victory and Grant continued chasing Lee down.
African-Americans then began to join the war. They had wanted to fight for a long time but because the were black they were afraid that they would specifically be shot at. Eventually they did fight and the casualties were a lot higher because they ended up on the front lines and were specifically aimed for. That also degraded the South because of their grudge against the African-Americans it caused them to fall for traps a lot more often.
General Sherman or the North was a very humanitarian general. What is referenced to as Sherman's March is when he took a small army and ransacked slave plantations, releasing the slaves and adding to his army while burning down the plantations. His rampage through the plantations caused a lot of soldiers to desert the army to got and protect their plantations which was part of the South's downfall.
The first battle of the Civil War was the Battle of Fort Sumter. The South attacked a Union fort and succeeded on April 12, 1861. A little while later in July was the Battle of Bull Run. It was a formal battle and he two armies met on an open field. Civilians took a picnic and watched, fully expecting the North to win. As the fight continued and the South began to win, the civilians were overrun and added to the casualties. This battle was a turning point for General McClellan of the North army because it made him overly cautious and got him fired. Then was the Battle of Antietam in September of 1862, the date so delayed because of McClellan's slowness to attack. Over 24,000 people were killed during that one day making it the bloodiest day in American history. The Battle of Chancellorsville was another loss for the North but General Stonewall Jackson of the South was killed which was a small with for the North. The first battle that the North actually won was the Battle of Gettysburg. It was from July 1-3, 1863. The North took more casualties than the South but they won the area where they fought and kept the South at bay.
When the North won the Battle of Gettysburg, they turned the field into a tribute to American veterans and it became a national memorial. After the battle, Abraham Lincoln made a two minute speech referred to as the Gettysburg Address. It changed the perspective of the war and helped the North win. We sent from fighting to keep the South from leaving to fighting to give the African-Americans in the South freedom.
The Wilderness Campaign was in May of 1864 and it was when General Grant of the North chased after General Lee of the South. Lee was the whole reason that the South was doing such a good job winning. Grant caught up to them in the forest and the shooting caught the forest on fire. About 30,000 people died but it's really hard to know because of how mixed up the bones were. There was no ultimate victory and Grant continued chasing Lee down.
African-Americans then began to join the war. They had wanted to fight for a long time but because the were black they were afraid that they would specifically be shot at. Eventually they did fight and the casualties were a lot higher because they ended up on the front lines and were specifically aimed for. That also degraded the South because of their grudge against the African-Americans it caused them to fall for traps a lot more often.
General Sherman or the North was a very humanitarian general. What is referenced to as Sherman's March is when he took a small army and ransacked slave plantations, releasing the slaves and adding to his army while burning down the plantations. His rampage through the plantations caused a lot of soldiers to desert the army to got and protect their plantations which was part of the South's downfall.
the final surrender
Everything that had happened against the South in the last two years of the war when the North started winning all the time, built up against the South. They finally surrendered in 1865. General Grant and Lee met up at Appomattox Courthouse and wrote down the peace agreements. The South got to keep their horses, the officers kept their pistols but no one else and the soldiers got food enough to get them back home. The North got what they wanted, the South back in the U.S. and they abolished slavery. The took away General Lee's plantation and made it into our National Cemetery. It is for military personnel and presidents and includes the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. It honors all of the people who have died serving our country that we have not been able to name.
And so ended the American Civil War.
why do you need to fix a problem when it's small?
It is important to fix a problem while it is still fixable. A lot of times, when a problem gets too big, it's impossible to fix and then there's no way out of the storm to come. In the Civil War, when the founding fathers saw slavery as a small problem that would solve itself, they did nothing about it, throwing a sheet of seeming unimportance over slavery while the problem grew bigger and bigger underneath it and when it was finally too big to fit under that concealing sheet, it was too big to stop. It caused the bloodiest war in American history because it was a problem that got out of hand. So with that heartening example, problems can be very big problems if you let them, so the solution to your problems is really just to keep them down to that one word without adding the more destructive one in front of it.