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The American Civil War was a series of political, cultural, and economic differences within the nation that when clashed, lead to a four-year period of hostility and instability. Although most media portrays slavery as the main cause of the civil war, it was really an economic competition within the two sections that created Northern determination to achieve its abolition, and Southern perseverance to maintain its institution.
It is safe to say that the need for slavery was a product of the Southern plantation economy, thus, it is then safe to say that slavery was the result of an economic rivalry that tore the two regions apart, and incited the final flame of the Civil war. After reviewing the distinct economic systems by which each of the sections lived by, it can be better understood how slavery was not the direct cause of the conflict, but rather the most intense aftermath that overwhelmed, and broke apart the country. The practice of human bondage had been in use since before the American Revolution.
During those times, the peculiar institution was so deeply established in the colonies that it did not even pose itself as a problem until the development of two separate economic systems. It must be taken into great consideration that Slavery had not even presented itself as a setback until the introduction of economic independence from England. Nearly twenty years after reaching American Independence from the British, the two regions began to experience dissimilar ways of obtaining great economical benefits.
It was at this point that the concept of slavery began to differ in its necessity for the North and the South. The liberating spirit of the revolution leads numerous states to begin the process of emancipation. Even in the southern states, where Slavery was most profoundly recognized, “the revolution’s ideological assault upon any form of human bondage made insignificant inroads. “(Hummel 10). However, in the next two decades, the amount of exports deriving from southern plantations would surpass those in any such short period of any time in American History.
Just as the South was beginning to accept the idea of emancipation, the invention of the cotton gin changed any previous thought of succumbing to emancipation. Eli Whitney’s invention wiped out any prior difficulty in the cultivation of Southern land, which brought about a cotton boom, and new ways of thinking for the South. Works Cited Page Hummel, J (1996). Emancipating slaves, enslaving free men. Peru, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company. Zinn, H (2003). A people’s history of the United States. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers. Kenneth Stampp Ed, The Causes of the Civil War, 1986. Tomes : American History Reader