Primary Cause Of The Civil War

6 Pages 1570 Words

The statement, “The issue of states’ rights was the primary cause of the Civil War”, can be backed up by many facts, but can be linked back to a much a larger cause of the Civil War that begun in 1861. Other causes of the Civil War were sectionalism; which consisted of sectional interests and cultures; each region’s perceptions of the other’s intentions and the expansion of slavery. All these causes can also be linked back and are directly related to the peculiar institution of slavery. Thus, leading me to believe that slavery was the main overall cause of the Civil War, but looking more into slavery itself, the expansion of slavery was the primary cause, for the Southern states seceded as soon as Abraham Lincoln was elected President. Lincoln wanted to strip the right of new territories and states to decide on their own on the issue of slavery. A quote from the passage “Where Historians Disagree” in the textbook by James Ford Rhodes states, “if the Negro had not been brought to America, the Civil war could not have occurred” (p. 377 American History: A Survey), rings true in my ears. There could have been differences between the North and the South without the existence and argument of expansion of slavery, but not problems large enough to lead the country to a crisis as large as the Civil War. Therefore, slavery and the argument over the expansion of slavery, which led to secession, was the primary cause of the bloody Civil War, which cost America mores lives than any other war on record.
First, the roots of the issue of states’ rights versus the authority of the national government can be associated with slavery. Southern states believed that new territories should decide for themselves if they wanted to legalize slavery. Of course, this feeling was a precedent because the South wanted slavery to expand. The national government, which had a Northern majority, was mostly against the idea of giving new territories...