It was the greatest
war in American history. Three million fought - 600,000 died. It was the
only war fought on American soil by Americans, and Hundreds of books,
movies and documentaries have been created about this war.
The American Civil War in U.S.
history, was a conflict (1861-65) between the Northern states (the
Union) and the Southern states that seceded from the Union and formed
the Confederacy . Also known as the War between the States, the War of
the Rebellion (the official Union designation), the War of Secession,
and the War for Southern Independence. The name Civil War, although much
criticized as inexact, is the most widely accepted.
In the days of the American Revolution and of the adoption of the
Constitution, differences between North and South were dwarfed by their
common interest in establishing a new nation. But sectionalism steadily
grew stronger. During the 19th cent. the South remained almost
completely agricultural, with an economy and a social order largely
founded on slavery and the plantation system. These mutually dependent
institutions produced the staples, especially cotton, from which the
South derived its wealth. The North had its own great agricultural
resources, was always more advanced commercially, and was also expanding
Hostility between the two sections grew perceptibly after 1820, the year
of the Missouri Compromise , which was intended as a permanent solution
to the issue in which that hostility was most clearly expressed the
question of the extension or prohibition of slavery in the federal
territories of the West. Difficulties over the tariff (which led John C.
Calhoun and South Carolina to nullification and to an extreme states'
rights stand) and troubles over internal improvements were also
involved, but the territorial issue nearly always loomed largest. In the
North moral indignation increased with the rise of the abolitionists in
the 1830s. Since slavery was not adaptable to much of the territorial
lands, which eventually would be admitted as free states, the South
became more anxious about maintaining its position as an equal in the
Union. Southerners thus strongly supported the annexation of Texas
(certain to be a slave state) and the Mexican War and even agitated for
the annexation of Cuba.
The Compromise of 1850 marked the end of the period that might be called
the era of compromise. The deaths in 1852 of Henry Clay and Daniel
Webster left no leader of national stature, but only sectional
spokesmen, such as W. H. Seward , Charles Sumner , and Salmon P. Chase
in the North and Jefferson Davis and Robert Toombs in the South. With
the Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) and the consequent struggle over bleeding
Kansas the factions first resorted to shooting. The South was ever alert
to protect its peculiar institution, even though many Southerners
recognized slavery as an anachronism in a supposedly enlightened age.
Passions aroused by arguments over the fugitive slave laws (which
culminated in the Dred Scott Case ) and over slavery in general were
further excited by the activities of the Northern abolitionist John
Brown and by the vigorous proslavery utterances of William L. Yancey ,
one of the leading Southern fire-eaters.