Undeniably economic differences, social differences, as well as State versus Federal rights all played a critical role in the circumstances that led to the Civil War. As the South was so dependent on the plantation economy to survive, slavery was interwoven in the culture. By the time the war began, there were more than 4 million slaves in the South (Olsen 49). Slaves were needed for a cheap source of labor to support the plantation economy of the South. In contrast the North was heavily dependent on their large influx of immigrants, which was not available in the south, for its labor pool. The mostly German and Irish immigrants were a cheap labor source for the Northern industries, who could pay these workers remarkably low wages because
