From 1783 to 1859,

Tensions between the U.S. North and South which led to The American Civil War



From 1783 to 1859,

Tensions between the U.S. North and South which led to The American Civil War

Introduction

The American Civil War is considered as the deadliest of all American wars. It was the first war on the American continent and perhaps on the entire globe too that was fought in a modern way. This war was purely restricted the American soil. The reasons of the war are many. Many tensions arose between the north and South of US which finally led to the war. Slavery was the prime reason of the tensions between the Union and the southern slave states that wanted secession. The tensions between the north and the south came to the surface when Abraham Lincoln was elected as the 16th president of America in 1860. The seven slave states of the southern US declared secession from the Union and formed a Confederation of States. They formed this Confederation even before Lincoln had joined his office. The war was an outcome of the struggle to preserve the Union. The path to war had tensions and complicated issues that involved aspects of culture, economics, politics, religion and society.

Discussion

The rift between the North and South of Us was because the two areas developed in different ways. The North had become industrialized, whereas the south depended on agriculture for its economy. The civil war was between the industrialized and the less industrialized.

The Cultural Tension

The Indians in America or Native Americans had an absolutely different culture. They were hunters. They were very different from the emigrating Christian people who then became the rulers of the land and considered that they had a prior claim to the land. The cultural variation caused great disruption in the land. The idea of Manifest destiny, the expansion of European American populations, put pressure on the Native American lands. In 1830, the Indian Removal Act allowed the government to shift the native to the west of the Mississippi River. The great freedom that was granted to the Americans by Deceleration of Independence was not given to these natives. The prominent among the natives had to remind the Americans that they are men indeed. They are also performing all those activities that are being performed by the white Americans.

These people were treated by the Americans in a manner as if they were not made up of the same material as the white Americans. They were considered, not just savage but less human. They were considered so savage that needed to be civilized. Making them civilized would also not help them as “Do what you will, an Indian will still be an Indian”.

America did not belong to the black people. This was the general idea of the white in those times, especially the whites of the south. They made the black suffer. They made them slave and forced them to toil in their plantations. The slaves who escaped were, by law, ...