Slavery & The Civil War

One of the major influences on the shaping of the American economic system that would foster divisiveness in the country was the industrial revolution. The advent of the industrial revolution in the 19th century marked a major turning point for the United States. Prior to the Civil War, the industrial revolutionÆs effects were most readily apparent in the urbanized areas of the North, where the climate and agricultural conditions had precluded agricultural production on the scale enjoyed in the South. The North became the locus of development for the factories and manufacturing facilities that employed new technologies, while the expansion of the railroad system into the West opened up new territories. This westward expansion was greatly facilitated by the railroads, which linked the mining o

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contentious issue varied from state to state. Each state was replete with its own political history, class divisions, and economic interests. Freehling argued that disunion won the day primarily because of a minority among minorities in the South, the southern slave holders. However, these slave holders were interested in economic losses and not slavery on any significant level. Strong supporters of the republican approach compromised on issues of statesÆ rights to tax citizens and to maintain their own governmental systems. The creation of two houses in the legislature was an additional compromise between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists, as were the rules on how each state would be represented numerically in the national legislature (with 2 senators for each state and a variable number of representatives based on population). These early compromises were ineffective in the long run, creating a situation wherein civil war emerged as a direct effect of poorly executed and maintained ideological compromises on issues as seminal as slavery itself. Gallagher and Nolan maintain that after the Civil War the South tried to use the myth of the ôLost Causeö to maintain that the Confederacy was doomed from its inception
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3725
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)

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