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Causes of the American Civil War: A Summary

There were a series of significant events which greatly affected States' Rights, the Union, African Americans and accelerated the American Civil War. These historical events are commonly referred to as the "Causes of the American Civil War" and are listed without significant order: States' Rights (Bill of Rights and the 10th Amendment), High Tariffs, Nullification Crisis, Missouri Compromise, Kansas-Nebraska Act, Manifest Destiny, Dred Scott Case, Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Bleeding Kansas, Crittenden Compromise, John Brown, and President Abraham Lincoln's election (Lincoln didn't receive a single Southern electoral vote).

The South's View regarding President Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War:

To the majority of the North, President Abraham Lincoln was a great president, uniter, liberator, and staunch American. To most of the South, however, Lincoln was a tyrant, invader, and he trampled (and even trumped) states’ rights and the United States Constitution.
One is inclined to believe that prior to the American Civil War the secession issue was settled. The constitutionality and legality of secession, however, was never addressed by the United States Supreme Court which was the only judicial and lawful arbiter regarding secession. Abraham Lincoln, moreover, never sought nor received a decision from the United States Supreme Court stating whether or not secession was legal and allowed according to the United States Constitution. By suspending the writ of habeas corpus, Southerners believed that Lincoln, again, disregarded and violated the U.S. Constitution. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and, consequently, his actions can be viewed in the 13th, 14th and, even, 15th constitutional amendments. President Abraham Lincoln stated that his goal was to preserve the Union (United States). Whether slavery was intact or abolished, Lincoln stated that either was completely acceptable in order to preserve the Union. Lincoln, at least initially, was not completely against slavery, he was not an abolitionist. He was, in other words, completely and unequivocally pro-Union. President Lincoln, moreover, didn't receive a single Southern electoral vote.

The North's View regarding President Abraham Lincoln and the American Civil War:

President Lincoln warned the South in his Inaugural Address: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you.... You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it."
Lincoln thought secession illegal, and was willing to use force to defend Federal law and the Union. When Confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter and forced its surrender, he called on the states for 75,000 volunteers. Four more slave states joined the Confederacy but four remained within the Union. The Civil War had begun.
As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy.
Lincoln never let the world forget that the Civil War involved an even larger issue. This he stated most movingly in dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg: "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Lincoln won re-election in 1864, as Union military triumphs heralded an end to the war. In his planning for peace, the President was flexible and generous, encouraging Southerners to lay down their arms and join speedily in reunion. The spirit that guided him was clearly that of his Second Inaugural Address, now inscribed on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.: "With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds.... "
On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who somehow thought he was helping the South. The opposite was the result, for with Lincoln's death, the possibility of peace with magnanimity died....Show more

1) One of the main questions that was being bandied about pre-Fort Sumter was the legality of secession. The Southerners took the position that secession was a legal reaction to an oppressive central government. The Northerners said that the Union was a compact made for all time and states couldn't leave because they didn't like things. What made things tough is that the issue had become largely sectional (North and South). The Democratic Party, which was the last bastion of national unity, split apart in 1860 over this issue. The Whig Party had already broken apart over it.

2) The South claimed that they seceded because an oppressive central government was meddling in their local issues (translation: they didn't want to give up their slaves). The Northerners said that they fought to preserve the Union. Slavery didn't really become an issue until later, at least in the minds of those actually fighting.

In essence, something had to give somewhere. There were two competing economic models which could not really work together. Slavery was the most visible symbol of the differences in economic systems. While the Northern working man may hate slavery (who wants to compete with free labor?), he didn't care a whit for the slave. Sadly, only a small minority of people really opposed slavery on moral grounds....Show more

Well I would think that the American Revolution is stated as that and not as a civil war because we were not really part of Britain but a series of colonies seeking independence. We were trying to become an independent nation as opposed to taking over Britain itself. The Civil War although composed of 2 separate nations was really between 2 factions of the same nation. The union objective was to retain the southern states that had left the union. The United States never really recongnized the south as another nation, nor (I believe) did any other nation. In the American Revolution France recognized us. Had the Confederacy won the war it might have then become a revolution if they decided to stay a separate nation and not overtake Lincoln's government. Had they taken over the other government then it would have still been a civil war. The defination of civil war is that the 2 waring sides come from the same soverign nation....Show more

The answer to your first question would probably depend on who you ask on either side, I'm a reenactor and I have heard many different questions. One answer could be about their concern on whether or not the United States would remain as one country and not two, another would be about states governing themselves and not have a main power govern all the states, and of course the issue of slavery would be mixed in there even though it wasn't the main reason for the war. The majority of southern soldiers didn't even own slaves and many northern soldiers didn't care whether they were free or not.
The answer to your second question would be basically the same, the right to state's rights and the right of independence. Nowadays you can see the same things that would cause a civil war with the government from city councils on up not allowing people to have their freedom to live the way they want....Show more

1. The Question Facing many Americans about the Civil War was, "What are we fighting for?"

2. South viewpoint: We seceded because the north isn't treating us fair. they're trying to take away our rights of having slaves! We're fighting this war to protect our rights. North viewpoint: Southerners are so obsessed with having slaves that they're fighting part of their own country to keep slavery! We're fighting for the rights of black people....Show more