The Civil War was one of the bloodiest and costliest wars in all of America’s history, which had a combined 620,000 deaths from both the Union, the North, and the Confederates, the South. The Civil War took place in 1861, which was the year of Lincoln's election, and ended in 1865. The war started with General Robert E. Lee succeeded from the Union which was run by General Ulysses S. Grant, which was when the fighting commenced. The three causes of the Civil War were slavery, states’ rights, and secession. One of the most dominant causes that had an impact on the Civil War was slavery, which was the southern states source of income from plantations using human labor. White plantation …show more content…
“The larger cotton plantations usually owned around fifty to several hundred” (Calore, 13). The slave count quickly shot up from two million to four million. These individuals were being purchased for the purpose of labor from the slave trade. Abolitionists, people who thought slavery was wrong, wanted to make it illegal throughout the United States because they believed that it was a crime and not fair to the citizens. Fredrick Douglass, John Brown, Harriet Tubman, were some of the historical figures who wanted to abolish slavery. Bourke 2 States’ rights had a cause in the Civil War due to the Confederates believing that the government was taking their power. The argument of power had been a problem for a long period of time because the southern states always thought they had less. “Within America’s first dozen years, the limits on states’ rights had become and would remain a defining issue” (Leigh, 11). The Confederates thought that the government was taking their power away and wanted to leave to maintain their deserved rights and to be able to keep slavery. The South was convinced that they were entitled to the right of human labor because they had little strength, and once the Emancipation …show more content…
The secession of the Confederate States of America from the Union had a deep impact on the Civil War because the southern states believed they had reduced power and Abraham Lincoln was being elected into presidency. When Lincoln won Brown versus Lincoln, the southern states knew slavery would then be abolished, their source of income lost, and they would eventually lose the purpose and existence of plantations. Soon after, Lincoln was elected into office and the southern states knew they wanted to leave because he would abolish slavery, and human labor was a major source of income for the South. South Carolina was first to leave because of the North’s opinion on slavery, which caused the other eleven states to follow. “Starting with South Carolina, eleven states would eventually leave the United States and form a new country called the Confederate States of America” (American Civil War/ Causes of the Civil War”). They formed the Confederate States of America to protect their own rights, such as slavery and tariffs so the North could not take away these privileges. Some border slave states, including Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland, did not succeed, but the South has much sympathy for their citizens. Bourke 3 Lincoln then sent soldiers to try and bring the states back