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Essay about The American Civil War Was Inevitable

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America’s transformation into the country we live in today has been formed through numerous events during its short history but the event that will split the United States into North versus South is truly one of the most defining events in American history. Through numerous events leading up to the start of the Civil War, I will attempt to show how the United States was destined for conflict and that the Civil War was inevitable. The first way I will show how the war could not be avoided will deal with the issue of slavery. Slavery should be the first mentioned because many conflicts within the United States leading up to the Civil War and the division of the United States dealt with slavery. The Missouri Compromise should also be talked …show more content…

Many of the people in the North that were of the Protestant faith believed in a different set of moral codes than the people of the South. In an excerpt taken from the textbook American Promise, the authors sum up what it was to be a Protestant at the time. “Not content with individual perfection, many of these people sought to perfect society as well, by defining excessive alcohol consumption, non-martial sex, and slavery as three major evils of modern life in need of correction” (page 376). The Protestant ideal helped form many groups that fought for the abolishment of slavery, among them the abolitionist movement. The Protestants felt that all men were created equal and this was in direct conflict with many Southern people. Many of the Northern reform groups “found their initial inspiration in Protestantism’s dual message: Salvation was open to all, and society needed to be perfected” (page 385). The North’s economy was based on textiles, shipping, and skilled trades. Their climate was not suited for the same type of agricultural products that the South produced like cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco. Northern states like New England manufactured and shipped goods like guns, clocks, plows and axes (page 399). One reason for the South’s dependence on slavery is because their economy relied on the existence of slave labor. For example, the cultivation of cotton depended largely on slave labor, with 75% of the crop grown on plantations,

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