Civil War Dbq Essay

The Civil War was mainly based on the different ideological beliefs of slavery between the North and the South. Almost all sectional conflicts such as the Nullification Crisis and Kansas-Nebraska Act revolved around slavery issues, which can be traced back to the earliest years of American colonization. With a Southern agrarian economy in contrast to a Northern industrial economy, the South felt threatened and felt that slavery was the only stable force that kept its economy grounded. Furthermore, prominent Southern and Northern politicians convinced the mainstream to follow their extremist and biased beliefs, further dividing the two regions. With slavery underlying the South’s desire to seek independence, state rights, and ultimately the …show more content…
The existence of slavery was the key component that initiated tensions between the North and South; if there were no disagreements over slavery, the Civil War could have been avoidable. With the contrast of an industrial and agricultural economy, the South felt threatened by the balance of power between the two regions. Because the South felt that slavery was crucial to their economic stability, succession felt inevitable to them. Moreover, Southern politicians and Northern abolitionists further aggravated the division of the two regions by exposing sectionalist beliefs to the mainstream that would otherwise have been ignored. Because slavery underlined the South’s desire to seek independence, state rights, and ultimately the continuation of southern culture, the succession was inevitable. Lincoln once said that “A house divided against itself cannot stand….this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free (Document F).” Lincoln knew that because slavery formed two opposing divisions and that slavery could never be abolished, the Civil War was