Why did the american civil war begin?
The Union imposed taxes of imports and exports, known as tariffs. Since the Northern States mainly manufactured domestic products, they were aided by these taxes since it raised the price of foreign goods. The Southern States found this unfair, since they depended exports of cotton to make their money, they then used that money to import goods from other countries. This lowered the profits they could make, and it also made them pay more for common household goods. In response, Confederate troops attacked Fort Sumter, the center of tariff collection for the South Carolina shipping area. It was also in response to an increase in Federal troops on the way to the fort, which the Northern states had previously promised against. The Confederates felt their economy had been cheated, and that the north was showing unnecessary aggression by increasing troops numbers. A better term is The War Between The States, or The War For Southern Independence. A civil war is a war in which two political fa
Some pretty good non-exclusive answers here, let me add one other factor. The actual trigger may have been the election of Lincoln. Some in the south used the words personally objectionable about him, apparently due to things he said during his campaign and the Lincoln Douglas debates. I didn’t understand what they meant until Nixon was elected. There was no way I would take orders to kill people from Richard Milhouse Nixon. As far as I was concerned, any attempt to draft me to serve under him and take his orders would have triggered a civil war between me and him. This is why I oppose the use of the draft and regard it as a much riskier proposition than most people realize. Incidentally, among Lincoln’s more questionable actions was the creation of the Nation’s first draft.
The opening cause of secession, was because many states felt like the Federal government was overextending its power- trying to dictate what States could and couldn’t do. For example, let me put it in todays terms. I’m sure you are failure with Jessica’s law, a mandatory 25 years for child rapist. Now, imagine the Federal government voted on it, and it passed. The North said “Ok, this applies to all states, you are to instate it right away” The South says ” Hold on, we will vote and decide if we should amend it before signing it into law in our state” The North responds “No, you are to follow this law- effective imminently” And finally the south says “No, we have our rights as states of this union- if you do not respect them, we will leave this Union” So war breaks out, between the power of the Federal government, and the power of State government.
