Economic Causes Of The Civil War Essay

For generations, historians have been grappling with what the exact cause was behind the Civil War. The two most common views among historians are vastly different in what they believe the cause was. Some historians, known as having an orthodox view, believe that inevitable factors caused the Civil War such as slavery. Other historians, known as having a revisionist view, believe that the Civil War could have been prevented and was contingent on certain events such as the election of Abraham Lincoln. The real cause, however, of the Civil War was the orthodox view that it was just inevitably going to happen since the creation of the United States due to slavery. Slavery has caused division in the United States since the country began. This division is because of economic reasons. The south was largely an agrarian culture, while in the north it was very much an industrial economy. However, the south was still very wealthy. “In 1860, southern planters still dominated the ranks of the United States ' economic elite, comprising three-fifths of the richest 1 percent of the country 's population.” This wealth was partially due to the high cotton price, but mostly caused by the free labor of slaves. Since the elite of the south relied heavily on slaves this drove most of the lower-class citizens to the north in search of a job and …show more content…
James Wilson and Roger Sherman proposed this at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. In this compromise “The population of slaves would be counted as three-fifths in total when apportioning Representatives, as well as Presidential electors and taxes.” This soon became very controversial as slavery grew in the south. This is because it gave the south more power in congress than the north had. This angered the north because the north had a higher population than the south, but due to this compromise they had little say in