Why did the US fight a civil war and in what ways did this country change after it?

The United States was a divided country long before the civil war started. The American Civil War was a civil war fought from 1861 to 1865 between the northern states (the Union) and the southern states (the Confederacy). Its causes can be traced back to tensions that formed early in the nation’s history.  From the first slave’s arrival in the colonies, slavery spread to all the settlements, differences set early in the thirteen colonies during the first years of their development. The US fought a civil war for four specific reasons; First the economic and social differences between the North and the South, second the states versus the federal rights, , third the growth of the abolition movement and finally the election of the sixteenth president of the United States Abraham Lincoln in1860.

The economic factor divided the north and the south. In 1793 Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, this machine was capable of reducing the time it took to separate seeds from the cotton, consequently cotton became very profitable and the south economy, this made the necessity to increase the plantations in the same way it made necessary the need increase slavery. This meant that the south social/work structure was based on one relation between owner and slave. The south hold onto an antiquated social order. On the other hand, the northern economy was based on industry and a city life. This disparity between the north and the south set up major differences in economic and social attitudes.

States versus federal rights was a big issue in the U.S, many appeal that states should have more right to decided their postures, other saw essential the federal rights to maintain the union .But in 1832 when Congress adopted a series of high import tariffs against the wishes of the Southern states, the "states' rights card became a popular Southern response to any unpopular national policy. This resulted in the idea of nullification, whereby states could refuse federal acts. But this law (nullification) was never approved, in result the southern states started to talk about secession.

The second Great Awakening, a widespread evangelical movement of the early nineteenth century, rejuvenated antislavery among white Americans. Convinced that slavery was a sin, not a social problem. Abolitionist believed that they could achieve their goal by persuading slaveholders because of the moral issue; in contrast slaveholders argued that the bible justified slavery and that it was part of the divine plan.  Eventually white abolition movements appear in politics around 1830’s with the idea to promoted acts that prohibited slavery. Sympathies in the north began to grow for abolitionists and against slavery and slaveholders.

In the Presidential Election of 1860, Lincoln won the presidency, he was against slavery and on his inaugural speech warned the south "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."  In response to treat that the southern states felt, in 1861 seven states of the lower South- South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas attempted to secede from the United States because of Abraham Lincoln’s election.Certainly many were consequences of the civil war in the development of the American state, the country held together and maintained the union, on the other hand there was the economic, social and political changes that helped shape the nation. At the end of the civil war the economy in the north was prosperous; its economy had boomed during the war, in contrast with the South since the war was fought entirely on its territory, the economy sustained immense damage with cities completely ruin.

A social change that resulted in the “unification of America” was the end of slavery, five million blacks were free. At no other point did so many Americans go through such change of status. The social structure change, there would never be again a relationship between a master (slaveholder) and a slave. Also the reconstructions amendments were adopted between 1865 and 1870. The 13^th, 14^th and 15^th amendments abolish slavery, granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States and provided all citizens with equal protection under the law and the last one prohibits the government from denying a citizen the right to vote bases on race, color, or previous condition of slavery. As a result Americans became more tolerant and a more united country.

Bibliografía

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Seed, C. C. (2004). The American Civil War. Greenwood press.