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What Are The Causes Of The Civil War Dbq

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The Civil War was caused by the economics of slavery and the political control of that system, specifically being states’ rights on the federal powers of the government, the territorial expansion of the united states that led to the division of the two sides, and the election of President Abraham Lincoln which was the final event that sent the nation to war.
Debates over which powers were rightly the states and rightly the federal governments were already tense and the question of whether slavery should or shouldn’t exist in the new territories of America, added on to the already strained relationship between the two sides. Document A describes this situation as a cup on the edge of the shelf, certain things almost pushing it over the edge such as the addition of new states being free or under a slavery economy. Many compromises were formed to try and keep states’ rights as well as keep power for the government. The south wanted to assert their authority over the federal government so they could abolish federal rights they didn’t support, this was …show more content…

Though Abraham Lincoln didn’t win the vote of any southern states, the south feared that if Lincoln was to become president, then slavery would be abolished completely. So, before he even became president, the southern states seceded. This being the final event that fully tipped the “cup” over the edge and shattered it. In the southerner’s minds, it was like they were going to have laws against their “culture” forced upon them by a nonnative power they didn’t agree to, but was still democratically correct.
You can’t exactly say that a certain event was the exact cause of the Civil war because that even was triggered by the one before it and the one before that. You can only personally decide which of those events was the most important to you. There were certain events such as the ones listed, that were a certain breaking point in the time line to the

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