Causes of the american civil w
Causes of the american civil wSectional tension increased during the mid 19th century bringing America into a civil war. There were a few important factors that helped to increase tensions in both the North and the South. Some of these factors were the Anti-Slavery movement, Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Fugitive Slave Law, John Brown�s raid at Harpers Ferry, Uncle Tom�s Cabin, and the election of Abraham Lincoln into Presidency.
There were quite a few events that caused tensions in the North. The anti-slavery movement greatly influenced the north�s feelings toward slavery. Writers like William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote on the topic of slavery and helped lead the movement against it. In his newspaper, The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison shared his wish for complete and immediate abolition: "tell a mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen -- but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present."
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 angered the North because it voided the Missouri Compromise that they agreed to 34 years prior. The Free States felt they were undermined. The Fugitive Slave Law fueled the anti-slavery feelings in the North. It was probably one of the most important causes that bought on war. The law said that if slaves escape from the North, northerners are responsible for assisting in his capture and return. This brought many questions to people�s minds. Do slaves not have freedom in a "free state" where slavery is outlawed? Now the northerners were more connected with slavery -- it was much closer to home for them.
Many factors caused tension in the South as well. One of these is Harriet Beecher Stowe�s Uncle Tom�s Cabin. Southerners felt that the book was nothing more than abolitionist propaganda. They felt it was an attack on the South as a whole, not just on slavery. Southerners believed that northerners treated their factory workers no better than they treated their slaves. An excerpt from the last paragraph of Uncle Tom�s Cabin: "Not by combining together, to protect injustice and cruelty, and making a common capital of sin, is this Union to be saved --...
To view the complete essay, you be registered.