Slavery and the Civil War

Davidson, DeLay, Heyrman, Lytle, and Michael Stoff. 2014 Experience History Interpreting America’s Past: Vol 2. 8 ed. New York City: McGraw-Hill.By the nineteenth century the differences between the North and the South became so obvious it was almost like they were two different countries. These differences were due to their own distinct economies with the North focusing on industry and the South focusing on agriculture. The main focus however was the difference in slavery. The North and South viewed the morality of slavery differently, but the goal of preserving the union was even more important. Some people might argue that the idea of states’ rights, economic differences, and political parties were the main problems that led to the war, but forget to mention that slavery is the underlying issue in all of those points. The topic of my essay is to prove that slavery was the main issue between the North and South that led to the Civil War.
The Missouri Compromise set the issue of slave states clear by deciding which region was allowed to hold slaves. The compromise decided that states below the 36° 30’ parallel could hold slaves, while those above that line couldn’t. This settled the issue of spreading slavery for a time until the idea of manifest destiny came about. The South believed in the idea that it was America’s God given right to spread westward from “sea to shining sea” and the name they gave this was manifest destiny. Most Northerners disliked the idea and saw it as a form of American imperialism. When the Mexican War broke out, the North opposed it and the split between the North and South grew. After the war, tensions among the two regions grew even more when trying to decide if lands gained from the Mexican Cession should be free states or slave states. In the Compromise of 1850 it was decided that California would be free and the rest of the states gained would be decided by popular vote. In 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska act disregarded the…