The Civil War was one of the most monumental events in the history of the USA. Often seen as a fight for the abolition of slavery, Civil war, in essence, was unleashed largely due to economic reasons. While the North and the South both wanted to keep their traditional lifestyles, by losing the Northerners faced the idea of abandoning further industrial expansion with the help of a workforce recruited from the South. The southerners, in their turn, resented the protectionist measures introduced by the North as well as their raising of taxes for southern states. These disagreements concerning economic regimes gave rise to social tensions in both parts of the country and finally led to the Civil War.
The leading causes of the clash of two countries are based on the field of economics. In the North, in the time before the war, a strong industrial and banking spheres were established. The enterprises of the Northern clans required millions of additional workers, while slaves in agriculture could be replaced by agricultural machines, increasing profitability. Thus, to implement their global plans, the northern clans needed power over all the States. For the North, the southern model of economic management had no prospects. In order for the United States to exist as a single state with a modern economy, it was necessary to get rid of slavery. This measure was not so much about humanism as about the economy of the country. The very fact that four “slave-owning” states – Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri and Maryland – fought for the North in this war proves the fact (Lande, 2021). It should be noted that Lincoln himself was not an ardent fighter against slavery; in this struggle, he wanted to keep the union and not to destroy slavery (Lande, 2021). Besides, there were many supporters of slavery in the North (Lande, 2021). The workers were afraid of competition from hundreds of thousands of blacks who had gained freedom; some manufacturers used black labor in tobacco and cotton factories; bankers received good interest from the slave trade and investments in it.
Moreover, the dispute revolved around the issue of a tax on imported goods: the North sought to make them as high as possible in order to protect its industry with protectionist duties, and the South wanted to trade freely with other countries. By letting the South triumph, the Northerners risked losing much money, which they made on selling their goods to the South. Moreover, in this case they lost the opportunity of recruiting former slaves for their enterprises.
There were several valid reasons for the Northerners’ triumph. First of all, the Confederate army had about a million soldiers, while the human resource of the North was twice as large. The northerners also recruited many soldiers from other countries, integrating them into their war ranks. Secondly, the Northerners had a fleet, with which the trade of the Southerners was blocked (Ural, 2023). Being an agrarian area, the South largely depended on other countries for its supplies of ammunition. Once the trade routes were blocked, the Confederates’ army could not get weapons for their soldiers. Most importantly, the North was an industrial state with a developed economy for 1861-1865. The South, on the contrary, had practically no industrial enterprises. The Northerners were significantly superior to the Southerners in the production of weapons and ammunition, as well as in the development of the railway network, important for the transfer of troops and their supplies in war efforts (Ural, 2023). Finally, most northerners believed they were fighting to free enslaved people, and the realization of the noble character of their actions raised their morale.
References
Lande, J. (2021). Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s most persistent myth. Journal of American Ethnic History, 40(2), 129-131. Web.
Ural, S. J. (2023). An American Civil War master narrative: Explaining Confederate defeat. War & Society, 42(1), 72-81. Web.