Another Civil War :: essays research papers

Socioeconomic reasons for the causes and outcome of the Civil War Analyzing the causes and the eventual outcome of the American Civil War can be a difficult task when you look at all the issues at once. The fields of the political, economic and sociological differences between the Union and the Confederacy are were we find the bulk of the answers as why the two regions of the United States separated. When trying to discuss the Civil War we must first explain why the Confederate states seceded and just as importantly, how they were defeated. When trying to find the causes and the outcomes of the Civil War, I've chosen to bypass the political reasons and would rather discuss the areas of economic and sociological conflict. It is hard to discuss one of these aspects without showing how closely it is tied into the other. Economy is the child of sociological conditions and in turn sociological conditions predict an areas economic success and potential. Because of this strong interrelationship between the two, the word "socioeconomic" is best suited to describe this important area of conflict between the North and the South. Almost a question of civilization versus barbarism the war between the North and the South showed America who held more power and whose way would lead us into a future for all Americans. The North and South were divided along an invisible economic line. States in the North were more industrialized than states in the South. In the South, cotton and tobacco provided the economy. These plantation crops created an economic situation based entirely upon agriculture. This was in stark contrast too the heavily industrialized Northern cities in America. Slave labor provided the workforce on the Southern plantations and along with crops were the backbone of Southern economic power. Slave labor, which turned the wheels on the vast plantations growing tobacco and cotton, created an entirely different socioeconomic climate then the one found in the North. The inherent conflict between the progressive, industrialized, urbane North and the plantation lifestyle, made possible by cotton, tobacco and slave labor, ultimately revealed a nation sharply divided along socioeconomic lines. The Civil War or "the war between the states", was the inevitable outcome of a developing nation uncertain as to whether it should remain progressive and industrialized or genteel and slowmoving. Unquestionably, the tobacco economy of the South as well as its cotton products were of vast importance to the entire nation. Still, the social structure of plantation life with its legacy and dependency upon slave labor, would not be tolerated by Northern states for much longer. A continued cry for emancipation and abolition by president Lincoln and