U.s History American Civil War - 1423 Words

Omer Bhatti U.S History I Professor Ojserkis U.S History I: Final Paper In early April 1861, the attack on Fort Sumter marked the beginning of the American Civil War. However, the belligerence of both sides of the war began long before the first shot. There is a great deal of possible causes of the Civil War, and in much disagreement with popular belief the war was not solely fought about the existence of slavery. Unfortunately, there is no simple reason why the war began because there were many sectional differences between the states of the North and of the South. In many ways the Civil War can be described as a war between two different countries instead of a war between two sections of a country. Slavery was perhaps the most noticeable†¦show more content†¦Even though, the causes of the Civil War were various these articles each introduced a cause that they believed contributed greatly to catalyzing the Civil War. The most obvious difference in lifestyles between these two countries was that the South was a slave proponent and the North was a non-slave proponent. In his article, The Way We Weren’t, David Von Drehle, he states the importance of slavery in context of the Civil War, â€Å"The once obvious truth of the Civil War does not imply that every soldier had slavery on his mind as he marched and fought. Many Southerners fought and died in gray never having owned a slave and never intending to own one. Thousands died in blue with no intention to set one free. But it was slavery that had broken one nation in two and fated its people to fight over whether it would be put back together again.† (Von Dehle, 1). This statement makes clear that slavery was a major factor in instigating the Civil War. The article also mentioned that slavery’s influence on the belligerence of both regions is also distinct with the violence in Kansas, which was later properly labeled â€Å"Bleeding Kansas.† This battle displayed the fight over the acceptance of slavery since, it involved Missouri residents, called Border Ruffians,† to journey to Kansas to forcibly persuade the people of Kansas to become a slave state. This highlighted the dissension over slavery since it was so important to the