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The War Between The North And The South

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The war between the North and the South, also known as the Civil War, was caused according to Pulitzer Prize-winning author James McPherson "….because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states.”1 In this essay I will discuss the following: the primary causes of the civil War, the reasons the South decided to secede from the Union, the advantages and disadvantages each side had, the effects of the war on the home front and lastly, which side was the victor and the vanquished. Historically, the most common explanation for the cause of the bloodiest conflict in the history of North America was the incompatibility between the northern and southern economies. This is quite accurate but there are also other ancillary factors that played a significant part in pushing the north and south into war. First, was the debate over state’s rights---- which powers rightly belonged to the states and federal government ---- heated up during 1820s onward resulting very tenuous solutions--- the Missouri Compromise, the Compromise of 1850 and Kansas Nebraska Act. Second, exacerbating the tensions was the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, who ran on a message of containing slavery to where it currently existed, and the success of the Republican Party to which he belonged struck fear into many southerners. Lastly, the growth and influence of the abolitionist

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