The American Civil War is the only civil war in American history. The two sides involved are the United States of America in the north and the United States of America in the south. The war began with the shelling of Fort Sumter by the Southern Union and ended with the victory of the Northern Union. At the beginning of the war, the north fought for national unity, and later it evolved into a revolutionary war to eliminate slavery.
In fact, the economic factors and social changes at that time were not enough to lead to the outbreak of the American Civil War, but those stupid politicians artificially incited and exaggerated the contradiction between the North and the South. The American Civil War could have been avoided.
Due to racial differences, black slaves in the south could not be self-sufficient. They live in the planter's house, which can not only maintain a stable life, but also get some education. To some extent, slavery in the south is much superior to the lifestyle in the north, and it is no different from free workers in the north. But what the United States and the Party really cared about at that time was not whether slaves were free or not, and whether their lives were happy or not. What the North and communist party are really worried about is the expansion of the rights of slave owners in the South.
Especially after the Mexican War, the United States gained a large area of new territory in the west. If slavery continues to spread to the west, making the newly joined states slave-holding states, then the power of slave owners in the south will pose a great threat to the rights of the North and the Party. At the same time, in order to establish a powerful political party, the * * * Party tried to use the moral dispute of slavery to suppress the southern planters, thus consolidating their position in the central government.
As early as before the Civil War, in fact, only a few northerners supported the abolitionist movement, and most northerners did not agree with abolitionism. Businessmen in the north are worried that the abolition of slavery will intensify the contradiction between the north and the south and affect the trade between the north and the south. Nationalists also regard the abolitionist movement as a dangerous factor threatening federal unity. Although they thought slavery in the south was evil and immoral to some extent, they were still bystanders of the abolitionist movement and did not actively participate in it.
However, the promulgation of 1850 Slave Escape Act aroused the strong dissatisfaction of the people in the north with slavery in the south. The new fugitive slave act requires northerners to arrest fugitive slaves. During this period, northerners witnessed some tragic events that escaped slaves chose to commit suicide because they didn't want to be enslaved any more. Margaret Ghana, one of the slave girls, killed her young daughter herself because she didn't want her children to suffer the same pain and abuse as her.
In the American Civil War, every six slaves were liberated, and one white soldier died. The bloody Kansas is an obvious example. Supporters of southern slavery and opponents of northern slavery flocked to Kansas to vote. In the end, violence only made more people bleed, but the contradiction was not solved.
The basic rights to be safeguarded in the North and the South are different. Southern States emphasize state power, and each state has the right to freely choose its own political system and economic system. The federal government has no right to interfere, while the north emphasizes the rights of the central government and holds that national unity is above everything else.
1860 within one month after Lincoln was elected president of the United States, seven slave-holding states in the south, led by South Carolina, successively seceded from the Union, without giving Lincoln any time to make peace with the south. Southern states believe that Lincoln's election means the demise of slavery, so they must leave the union and safeguard their rights.
However, it should be emphasized that although Lincoln did not approve of slavery, he was not an abolitionist. Like most moderates and Republicans, he only opposed the expansion of slavery to new territories in the west, not to completely destroy it.
In Lincoln's mind, federal unity is above everything else, and Lincoln thinks that it is unforgivable for the southern States to split the motherland in order to preserve slavery. At first, the war in the north was mainly because the south left the union and betrayed the motherland, not to liberate slaves. Therefore, no matter from the long-term factors or short-term incentives, the American civil war is inevitable.
Why didn't the north and the south want to solve the contradiction through bloody war, but war broke out in the end?
On the eve of the American Civil War, the South was always on the defensive and did not take the initiative to intensify contradictions. The northern capitalists used the moral problem of slavery as an excuse to incite people's emotions, overthrow the plantation forces in the south and save themselves. At the same time, northern Renye Fang gradually realized that slavery was an evil system, and the new Slave Escape Act completely disappointed northerners. Slavery not only showed no signs of natural extinction, but became more stable, forcing northerners to resist the behavior of southerners.
In addition, southerners emphasize state power, while northerners emphasize that the rights of the federal government are above everything else, which is irreconcilable. When Lincoln was elected president, the southern states seceded from the Union one after another, and there was no room for compromise between the North and the South. The contradiction intensified to the extreme, and the American Civil War broke out.