Avery
Benning
Prof.
Young
The
New Jim Crow
9
February 2017
What Actually Cause the Civil War
In prior years I always learned that the
civil war happened because Abraham Lincoln the 16th president wanted
to end slavery throughout the United States, but the south did not. In on of
his account he says, “I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about
in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that
I am not, nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes…”
(Singer. 2) Lincoln did not want to end slavery he didn’t even see African
Americans as every being equal to white men. We also learn the south was keen
on keeping up the production of cotton so they needed as many slaves as they
could in order to succeed. The north did not produce cotton and they thought
that slavery was unbeneficial and just not right so they wanted to do away with
it. Although some of this might be true I have learned in class, from the
readings and in the videos that this is not the whole truth and that there are
other factors, which lead to the civil war.
To understand the civil war we have to
understand the differences between the north and the south. The north was
called the industrial north because of all the machines that were being
produced. The north was really big on trading their goods with others such as
Britain; so in order to make their trade easier new steamboats were invented.
What would normally take a few months to trade would now only take a few weeks.
The north believed that slavery would die out eventually and that it was wrong
and unbeneficial to own slaves and make them do work. The north was more
focused on producing weapons and new inventions to make their lives easier and
trade more efficiently. The north was known as the American system of
manufacturing, which caused them to have a strong economic system.
While the north was using their machines
for economic stability the south was using slaves. The south was known for its
agriculture and their production of tobacco, cotton, and rice. Since nobody
wanted to do the hard labor the slave owners put the slaves to work. Slave
owners dominated the nation politically, economically and socially. They
thought nothing of it and wanted to produce as much as they could. In 1791, Eli
Whitney invented the cotton gin, which made it easier for cotton to be picked
apart from its seed. With this new invention the demand for slavery increased
tremendously, but because the transportation of slaves was already illegal the
plantation had to keep all the slaves and make then reproduce so they could
have a lot.
There are numerous reason as to why the
civil war started it is apparent that as children we were not taught the full
truth about what actually happened. We are only taught the basic top layer
which does not hold up. As the video mentioned, there is an acronym SCAR, which
stands for slavery, constitution, absolutist, and republican all of these are
reasons as to why the civil war started and killed over 600,000 people.
