Causes of the Civil War

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A major conflict in the United States’ history is the American Civil War. Many causes led to the Civil War. This all happened around the mid 1800s. It was a conflict between the Northern and Southern states. Both sides had their own view on slavery, and their separate views caused contentions between the two. Both had different views on whether to expand or stop slavery growth to the West, or have slavery at all. The biggest cause was a social difference between slave and anti-slave states. Also, the growth of the abolition movement added to the turmoil. Most importantly is the land gained from the Mexican War, and what should be done with the land gained. To try and resolve the conflicts over the land, congress kept making compromises. The first major compromise was the Missouri Compromise, which was an imaginary line across the thirty-six and thirty degrees latitude. Anyone above was a free state and anyone below was a slave state. However, when new lands were added to the United States, people did not want slavery to expand and created the Wilmot Proviso which banned slavery in new territories. This outraged many people so they then decided to allow slavery to be determined in each state by popular sovereignty. However, with this idea came threats for individuals to vote for one side, and caused many fights in Kansas, hence, the Bleeding Kansas. All this social issues contributed to the Civil War. Another large contributor to the Civil War is the economic differences between the North and the South. The inventor Eli Whitney created the cotton gin. This invention revolutionized how cotton was harvested, and with the booming economical growth, many farmers switched their crops grown to cotton. With the high demand of cotton... ... middle of paper ... ... the Republic of Cambodia or government forces. United States forces joined into the fighting and some believe helped the Khmer Rouge to come out victorious and form the Democratic Kampuchea. The Vietnamese were brought into the battles and at the end there was a large sum of deaths, about 1.7 million. Still today, lasting effects of the war affect the country. Civil Wars are a part of history and part of the growth of a nation. Works Cited Civilwar.com: Causes. Wednesday December 8, 2009. http://www.civilwar.com Davidson, James West. The American Nation: Independence through 1914. Upper Saddle River. Prentice Hall. 2000. Kelly, Martin. About.com: American History. Tuesday January 13, 2009. Tuesday December 2, 2009. http://americanhistory.about.com/od/civilwarmenu/a/cause_civil_war.htm Thursday December 10, 2009. http://www.cambcomm.org.uk/history.htm.

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