Another Civil War

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Socioeconomic reasons for the causes and outcome of the

Civil War Analyzing the causes and the eventual outcome of

the American Civil War can be a difficult task when you

look at all the issues at once. The fields of the political,

economic and sociological differences between the Union

and the Confederacy are were we find the bulk of the

answers as why the two regions of the United States

separated. When trying to discuss the Civil War we must

first explain why the Confederate states seceded and just as

importantly, how they were defeated. When trying to find the

causes and the outcomes of the Civil War, I've chosen to

bypass the political reasons and would rather discuss the

areas of economic and sociological conflict. It is hard to

discuss one of these aspects without showing how closely it

is tied into the other. Economy is the child of sociological

conditions and in turn sociological conditions predict an

areas economic success and potential. Because of this strong

interrelationship between the two, the word "socioeconomic"

is best suited to describe this important area of conflict

between the North and the South. Almost a question of

civilization versus barbarism the war between the North and

the South showed America who held more power and

whose way would lead us into a future for all Americans.

The North and South were divided along an invisible

economic line. States in the North were more industrialized

than states in the South. In the South, cotton and tobacco

provided the economy. These plantation crops created an

economic situation based entirely upon agriculture. This was

in stark contrast too the heavily industrialized Northern cities

in America. Slave labor provided the workforce on the

Southern plantations and along with crops were the

backbone of Southern economic power. Slave labor, which

turned the wheels on the vast plantations growing tobacco

and cotton, created an entirely different socioeconomic

climate then the one found in the North. The inherent conflict

between the progressive, industrialized, urbane North and

the plantation lifestyle, made possible by cotton, tobacco

and slave labor, ultimately revealed a nation sharply divided

along socioeconomic lines. The Civil War or "the war

between the states", was the inevitable outcome of a

developing nation uncertain as to whether it should remain

progressive and industrialized or genteel and slowmoving.

Unquestionably, the tobacco economy of the South as well

as its cotton products were of vast importance to the entire

nation. Still, the social structure of plantation life with its

legacy and dependency upon slave labor, would not be

tolerated by Northern states for much longer. A continued

cry for emancipation and abolition by president Lincoln and

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