Slavery: The Primary Cause Of The Civil War

“Slavery was embraced, almost without question, by nearly everyone save [but] the slaves themselves” (Boritt 11). Slavery, without a doubt, is the primary cause of the Civil War. With the South’s economy being so dependent on the use of slavery, it was difficult for them to get rid of such a practice. This led a division of the North and South, in which the North believed slavery to be immoral. However, the south begged to differ, with no explicit evidence to claim slavery as illegal, they used every loophole they found to make themselves seem ethical. Therefore, tensions arose from their difference of opinions which ultimately lead to the Civil War.
Pre-antebellum period, the South was a very fertile and large scale area with an agrarian
In a sense, it technically made slavery legal. According to our textbook, “The Constitution gave the federal government the right to abolish the international slave trade but no authority to regulate or destroy the institution where it existed under slave law” (Brands 312). Our Founding Fathers thought that slavery was not supposed to be a permanent addition, but rather would become extinct on its own. Even during Colonial America, “there is not one single law which recognizes the rightfulness of slavery in the abstract” (Darling 11). The constitution stated slaves would be returned to their owners, but with the North believing slavery was unethical, they refused to capture and return the slaves. Thus, a rift between the two, North and South, was created and the rift would lead to the
Lincoln had a very pro-North approach, and was mainly concerned with putting an end to the expansion of slavery. Though he knew that he could not completely dissipate slavery, he did his best to preserve the Union while also trying to put a cap on slavery. To further bolster his campaign, he formulated the Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation would allow slaves to become free no matter what state they were in. The South did not want Lincoln to be elected so they decided to ban his name from the ballot as well as even mentioning the Republican Party. That being said, with the election of Lincoln, the south believed that their needs would not be heard. The preceding presidents from Jackson to Buchanan were either Southerners or sympathizers of the South (they either wanted to continue slavery or keep the compromise working) which allowed the South’s needs to be catered to whatever they desired. For example, when Zachary Taylor was elected, William Seward was his “voice” in his ear. Seward made Taylor believe there was a higher law than their own—God—and God said to not compromise on slavery (Brands 248). With the power change, the South would have a hard time enacting laws that favored in their best interests—it would be easier for the North to enact anti-slave laws with a large majority of the seats within the Senate as well as the House of Representatives.