This research paper discusses the causes of the
American Civil War. This fratricidal conflict was brought about by a combination of factors of which the most important were the following: (1) economic and social forces which intensified sectional rivalries between the North and South; (2) the issue of slavery and in particular its extension to the Western territories which became the focal point of political controversy after 1844; and (3) a systemic failure of the political center and a decline in the quality of its leadership which proved incapable after 1854 of holding the Union together against escalating pressures from extremists on both sides.
The bitter controversies which led up to the Civil War, the savage and bloody fighting of the war and its tragic epilogue have ever since plagued attempts by historians to come to grips with the causes of that war. Historian Pressly said in 1954 that "the further the Civil War receded into the past, the greater the disagreement among twentieth century historians over its causes" (224). William H. Seward, a Northern Republican, in 1858 labelled the impending conflict the "Irrepressible Conflict," an unavoidable conflict between incompatible ways of life (13). For others, especially the revisionist historians of the early 20th century, a generation of blundering political leaders had allowed the nation to drift into a needless war.
Intensification of Sectional Rivalry and Conflict 1832-1844
At the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the populations and economic strength of the North and the South were roughly comparable. By 1860, Nevins said that "in nearly all aspects of material civilization, the North had far outstripped [the South]" (Ordeal of the Union 208). The growing disparity between the rapid industrialization of the North, its rising population and expansion in the West and the less dynamic agrarian economy of the South gradually undermined the political...