The chief and immediate cause of the war was slavery. Southern
states,
including the 11 states that formed the Confederacy, depended on
slavery
to support their economy. Southerners used slave labor to produce
crops,
especially cotton. Although slavery was illegal in the Northern
states,
only a small proportion of Northerners actively opposed it. The main
debate between the North and the South on the eve of the war was whether
slavery should be permitted in the Western territories recently acquired
during the Mexican War (1846-1848), including New Mexico, part of
California,
and Utah. Opponents of slavery were concerned about its
expansion, in part
because they did not want to compete against slave
labor.
Economic and Social Factors
By
1860, the North and the South had developed into two very different
regions.
Divergent social, economic, and political points of view, dating
from colonial
times, gradually drove the two sections farther and farther
apart. Each tried
to impose its point of view on the country as a whole.
Although compromises had
kept the Union together for many years, in 1860 the
situation was explosive.
The election of Abraham Lincoln as president was
viewed by the South as a
threat to slavery and ignited the war.
During
the first half of the 19th century, economic differences between the
regions
also increased. By 1860 cotton was the chief crop of the South, and
it
represented 57 percent of all U.S. exports. The profitability of cotton,
known as King Cotton, completed the South's dependence on the plantation
system
and its essential component, slavery.
The North was by then firmly
established as an industrial society. Labor was needed,
but not slave labor.
Immigration was encouraged. Immigrants from Europe worked in
factories,
built the railroads of the North, and settled the West. Very few settled
in
the South.
Political Factors
In the early
days of the United States, loyalty to one's state often took precedence over
loyalty to one's country. A New Yorker or a Virginian would refer to his
state as "my
country." The Union was considered a "voluntary compact"
entered into by independent,
sovereign states for as long as it served their
purpose to be so joined. In the nation's
early years, neither North nor
South had any strong sense of the permanence of the
Union. New England, for
example, once thought of seceding, or leaving the Union,
because the War of
1812 cut off trade with England.
As Northern and Southern patterns of living
diverged, their political ideas also developed
marked differences. The North
needed a central government to build an infrastructure of
roads and
railways, protect its complex trading and financial interests, and
control
the national currency. The South depended much less on the federal government
than did other regions, and Southerners therefore felt no need to strengthen
it. In addition,
Southern patriots feared that a strong central government
might interfere with slavery.
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