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Angela Jong

December 17, 2008


APUSH essay

Assess the extent to which slavery was the main cause of disunion and the civil war.
[typed word for word from what I wrote. No real edits. ]

Historians have continually argued over the complex factors that led to the US Civil War.

However the major factors leading the disunion of the North and the South were

essentially derived from the concept of this “peculiar institution” of slavery.

The first and most fundamental issue that rose from slavery was the question of

the morality of slavery. Several events had raised the awareness of the general public

concerning the “evil” of slavery. One was the reformist sprit that had been stirred by the

2nd Great Awakening. Secondly, the various abolitionists like William Garrison who

participated in lectures with the Lyecum Group. Thirdly, various writers were compelled

to take a stand against slavery. An example is Harriet Breecher Stowe’s, Uncle Tom’s

Cabin, that reached millions of people and Abraham Lincoln even dubbed Harriet Stowe

as the lady that started this war. Overall, by the 1680s, most of the Northerners felt they

had an obligation to follow a “higher form of law” as advocated by William Steward, a

senator from the North.

The second issue was the problem of balancing sectional powers As new

territories were gained from the Mexican War, the question of admitting free or slave

states were brought to the spotlight. In the late 1840s, California sought admittance as a

free state caused by the influx from the Gold Rush leading to the necessity of law and

order. The south wanted California as a slave state in order to preserve the precious

balance between the North and the South. Fortunately, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster were
able to construct a rocky Compromise in 1850 that temporarily ended the disputes by

creating a stronger Fugitive Slave Act and giving a 10 million dollar compensation to

Texas for the compensation for the land taken from them. However this dispute over

slave and free states would not end. The South would continually attempt to gain more

slave states through attempting to conquer Cuba and would lead to the third cause of the

Civil War.

The third cause to the civil war was an extension from the territorial disputes over

sectional problems. The dilemma over slave and free states would lead to the passage of

the Kansas-Nebraska Act advocated by Stephan A. Douglas with the concept of popular

sovereignty. Popular Sovereignty brought forth another set of problems because it

motivated the abolitionists to create an Immigrant Aid company to help antislaveryites to

move to Kansas. The South responded by taking the city of abolitionist city of Lawrence,

Kansas, rigging ballots and setting up a puppet government. They also constructed the

Lecompton Constitution that favored slavery. Overall, the North and the South created a

mini civil war over the disputer of slave and free states. “Bloody Kansas” and John

Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry convinced the South that secession was the only answer.

Although the civil war was not initially declared as a war to end slavery, it was

the root of many factors leading to the disunion and eventual United States civil war.

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