During the 19th century the South was almost completely agricultural, with an economy largely founded on slavery, on the contrary the North was more advanced commercially and also expanding industrially. The central cause of conflict between North and South was slavery, but once this issue entered politics the problem had to be solved and the war was inevitable. Slavery was the most decisive issue, however other motives contributed to the start of the Civil War. It started when the southern states seceded from the union and formed the Confederacy.

I. The tariff and industrial protectionist policy

II. Slavery

In 1810 there were 1.2 million black slaves in the United States. In 1860 they were four million. The expansion of cotton production developed slavery in the south of the United States. In 1860 cotton production represented more than a half of the nation's exports. Thus the whole country depended on this production. By the early nineteenth century many northern states had abolished slavery. In the North slavery proved unprofitable. Humanitarian principles led to the appearance of the abolitionists. As new territories were settled in the West, there was the problem of considering them as slave- or non slave-holding states. The first one that raised this question was Missouri.

The Missouri Compromise (1820)

The Missouri territory was part of the Louisiana Purchase. Southerners wanted it to be a slave state, but abolitionists disagreed. They fianlly reached a compromise in 1820: slavery was allowed in the Missouri and Arkansas territories but prohibited in the western and northern lands of Missouri.

The Compromise of 1850

On January 29, 1850, Henry Clay, U.S. senator from Kentucky, presented a compromise: Of the land claimed by Texas after annexation, about 1/3 would be ceded to the U. S. in exchange for $10 million.-- money it would use to pay off its debt to Mexico. Also, the territories of New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah would be organized without mention of slavery. (The inhabitants would decide themselves later). California would be admitted as a free state. Finally, the slave trade would be abolished in the District of Columbia. To persuade southerners to agree to these measures, a more stringent fugitive slave bill was put forward.

Congress passed the measures as separate bills in Sept., 1850. The Compromise kept the nation united but unfortunately it was only temporary. The split would keep on growing until the nation itself divided.

III. Secession and War

Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States in 1860. He promised to keep the country united and the new western territories free from slavery. Lincoln's election immediately led to the secession from the Union of South Carolina on December 20, 1860. By February 1861, six other southern states (Texas, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia) had also seceded. They proclaimed themselves an independent nation, the Confederate States of America.

The Confederate States of America chose Jefferson Davis to be their president.

South Carolina Declaration of Secession (1860)

1. Attack on Fort Sumter

The first shots of the Civil War were fired on April, 12 when the Confederate states opened fire on Fort Sumter (a fortress in the harbor of Charleston). Lincoln declared war on the Confederates and called for thousands of men to fight for the Union and as for the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis did as well. Fort Sumter was eventually surrendered to South Carolina. The attack on Fort Sumter prompted four more states to join the Confederacy: Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina and Virginia. Richmond became the Confederate capital.

2. First Battle of Bull Run

On July 16, 1861, the Union army under Gen. McDowell began to advance on the Confederate troops stationed at Manassas Junction, Virginia. On July 21, McDowell attacked the Confederates near the stone bridge over Bull Run and drove them back to the Henry House Hill. McDowell was successful at first, but reinforcements within the Confederate troops resulted in a Southern victory and a retreat towards Washington by the Union army.

3. Fall of Vicksburg (July 1863)

By Spring 1863, the Union troops were drawing closer to an important Confederate fortified city on the Mississippi: Vicksburg. By the summer it surrendered to a Union army. It was a fundamental victory, since now the Union troops controlled the whole length of the Mississippi.

4. Battle of Gettysburg (July 1863)

At the end of June 1863, General Lee (the Confederate commander) and his troop marched north into Pennsylvania. But on July 1 a Union army blocked their way at Gettysburg, about fifteen miles north of the Maryland border. The fight that followed was short but disastrous: the casualties were huge.

On the first day of battle, July 1, the Confederates were better organized than the Union army. During the night, the Union reinforcements arrived, and General Meade set up a strong defensive line.

On July 3,  Lee's final assault at Gettysburg is one of the most dramatic events in American military history. The Confederate soldiers formed shoulder-to-shoulder ranks and marched towards the Union army. The Union soldiers began firing. The Confederates fell in large numbers. Beaten, the Confederates retreated back to the south, Lee retreated back to Virginia. In three days 51,000 men were killed or wounded (23,000 Union, 28,000 Confederate).

5. Fall of Richmond (April 3, 1865)

By 1864 the Confederacy was running out of many things. Transportation problems and successful blockades caused shortages of food and supplies in the South. Lee's troops were shrinking as starving soldiers left. By March 1865, General Grant from the Union army had almost encircled Richmond and on April 2 Lee was forced to march south. On April 9 Lee met Grant in a house at Appomattox and surrendered his army.

IV. Aftermath of the war and Reconstruction

The Civil War put an end to slavery. It also made clear that the country was not a collection of semi-independent states but an indivisible whole. In December 1865, Congress ratified the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery everywhere in the United States.

The Civil War caused terrible destruction at home. In the South the cities and the farms lay in ruins. 635,000 people died on both sides.

1. Lincoln's assassination (April 14, 1865)

On April 14, 1865, the president was shot and killed by a Confederate sympathizer named John Wilkes Booth. He was captured a few days later. Lincoln was succeeded by his Vice President, Andrew Johnson.

2. The 13th Amendment (1865)

This amendment to the US Constitution abolished slavery in all parts of the Union.

3. The Reconstruction Acts (1867)

When the Civil War was over, the question was how to reconstruct the nation? Reconstruction lasted from 1865 to 1877.

On Mar. 2, 1867, Congress enacted the Reconstruction Act, later supplemented by three related acts. They divided the South (except Tennessee) into five military districts and gave former male slaves the right to vote and hold public office.

Congress also passed a series of acts to deal with the question of rights: an act that created the Freedmen's Bureau (to ensure that the state government would give the freedmen their civil rights), the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

By Aug., 1868, six states (Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida) had been readmitted to the Union, having ratified the Fourteenth Amendment. The four remaining unreconstructed states (Virginia, Mississippi, Texas, and Georgia) were readmitted in 1870 after ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment as well as the Fifteenth Amendment.

4. The 14th and 15th Amendments (1868, 1870)

The 14th Amendment (1868) granted citizenship to former slaves and all persons born in the US. The 15th Amendment (1870) established that the right to vote could not be denied because of color or former status.

5. The Failure

The failure of the Reconstruction was not political but rather social and economic. During reconstruction the prices of crops dropped. Many farmers and sharecroppers could not live off what they earned. The depression caused the price of cotton to nearly drop by 50%. Furthermore without land of their own, freedmen remained dependent on white landowners. Armed only with the ballot, African-Americans in the South had little chance to effect major changes.