Fort Sumter Causes

The cause of The Civil War can be seen as a very controversial topic. I would say the battle of Fort Sumter is the first official battle of The Civil War as long as you're going by the true definition of battle, ‘a sustained fight between large, organized armed forces’. Otherwise the undeclared guerrilla war caused by the Kansas-Nebraska Act could be the first ‘battle’. Although, there were many disputes and struggles that ultimately led up to the outbreak of a war fought for slavery, states rights, and politics. After the election of Abraham Lincoln as president, South Carolina became the first state to secede from The Union. A couple months later Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and South Carolina had all seceded from The Union. The Battle of Fort Sumter began when South Carolina seceded from the Union in December of 1860. Major Robert Anderson and his 85 soldiers moved their command to Fort Sumter. By April of 1861, the confederacy commanded Robert to …show more content…
However, Nebraska was not yet a state and if they joined they would be considered a free state because slavery had been outlawed. Senator Steven Douglas wanted Nebraska and Kansas as states so a railroad could be built to bind all the states together. For these reasons, Steven pushed for the approval of the Kansas-Nebraska act in 1854. The Kansas-Nebraska act allowed white citizens to vote in favor of slavery or against it, this was also known as popular sovereignty. This led to outrage in northern states because the Kansas-Nebraska revoked the Missouri Compromise. Kansas and Nebraska are both northern states so they would have been considered free states according to the Missouri Compromise. But since the southerners wanted them as slave states, they pushed out the Kansas-Nebraska act which basically made them slave states. This led to what we know now as Bleeding