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Civil War Timeline

What caused The Civil War?

The Civil War was not caused by one single act, opinion, or decision, but by many of those all blended together. The South and North believe the war started for different reasons, but they both may necessarily be correct or incorrect. Three of the main reasons our of many reasons are the South wanting to preserve slavery and their slave society, the fear among the people, as well as Political fear. The North's reasoning for the war is mostly opposing or just different than the South's.
The South's reasoning for the war happening is much different than the North's reasoning because they have different views on slavery. For example, the South defends the Constitution and the North defends the mob rule and anarchy. The South and North also have opposing opinions as to why succession occurred, which helped add to the list of reasons why The Civil War occurred. With the South believing that secession occurred partially because of the South wanting to preserve and protect their slavery and slave society and the North going against the idea of secession completely caused the two different society's to bump heads and caused controversy. For example there is an excerpt from a northern soldier and he says to his wife: "A pure love of my country and of the principles I have so often advocated before the people- another name of Honor that I love more than I fear death- has called upon me and I have obeyed." This is an example of how the Northerners felt about the civil war and why they fought in it. Most Northerners believed that they were protecting their country and that the South was going against it. They felt threatened and as if they had to protect themselves and their country. Also the difference in the work or labor forces led up to the North and South arguing as well. The South believed that slavery was much better for the people because they had absolutely nothing to worry about and had everything for them from their masters. They believed that after a hard days work the slaves were happy to know they were going to have a meal and a bed to sleep in. The North disagreed strongly and believed in free-market and competition for jobs and everything around them. They thought that the free market and competition for jobs was the best thing for their society, but it turned out to be much harder than they expected.
Back to the reason of the fear of the people in the South, Professor Blight states something that Lincoln says about this idea while in office that captures the idea: " It is a course of ultimate extinction". Going along with the idea of fear, another cause of secession that also led to the war was Political Fear. The South began to fear when Lincoln got to decide who was in Supreme Court. This feared the South because Lincoln was a Republican therefore he was clearly going to choose a Republican, which meant less political power for the South. There are many different reasons and events as to why the Civil Was was caused; Fear among the people, Political fear, and protecting slave society were just a few reasons. Also, differences in the work forces that brought up much controversy added to the cause.

Pro Slavery Argument

Although I still do not agree with slavery the lectures by Professor Blight were very educational and showed different points defending slavery. The main idea was Southern slave owners and some of their reasoning's behind why they did have slavery besides that it was the normal thing to do. The eight key points they made are; A biblical argument, Historical, Natural Rights, Economics, Necessary Evil, Slavery being harder on whites rather than blacks, Cynical/Amoral, and a Racially based argument. With these eight reasons Blight helped to explain a small piece behind why slavery had existed.

Using the Religious argument was an extremely strong argument in my opinion because back in the times when slavery occurred people were very religious and anything from or said by God was considered correct. The south used this argument often too convince the north that slavery was actually okay to have in your society. The fact of saying that slavery had always existed right when the world had begun convinced people that it was right to have. In my opinion this argument was one of the strongest arguments used because it is very believable. Another argument used is Historical reasoning. The South saying that the idea has been crucial to great civilization. Also Blight refers to Greece and Rome saying that slavery has been the engine of greatness base of all society must be a labor system. I think this argument is quiet strong too because it is easy to convince someone that a civilization like Greece and Rome was only successful because their society contained slavery. They would say the slaves do the work as the rest of the population advances society.

The argument on Natural Rights I do not think is as strong as the others because it is based off of John Locke's philosophy on natural rights, except they just turned his idea around. The way the argument did this is by saying there is natural inequality and that not everyone is born the same. Another argument that I do not agree with is the racially based one, stating that slaves were put on this earth to be slaves. Everyone was put on this earth with equal opportunity, not to be categorized by their skin color. The two arguments I could give credit to is the first two, The Biblical argument as well as the Historical one, they are the only arguments not based on opinions. I feel they are the strongest and most believable arguments that were stated in Blight's lecture.

Pro Slavery Argument (north)

It seems as if the North pre-civil war was an extremely busy yet content place to live. The Northern states were going through very large changes from the Industrial Revolution. Through the 1800 to the 1830's and 40's the North had been modernizing, industrializing, and specializing throughout the market revolution. With the Industrial Revolution occurring in made the North a much more competitive place and a free economy. The free economy that the North chose to have aloud them to make their own choices, which is great, but also made it more difficult to get jobs. Not everyone in the economy had a job there was now competition. This gave equal opportunity to everyone for a job, but made it much more difficult to get one while they have more freedom it was more difficult to get a job.

The North and the South disagreed mainly on the ways they ran their own government. The North believed in the free market and economy and equal opportunity for everyone. Also, they supported change, while the South did not. The South did not believe in the change that was going on above them in the North and it scared them because the North was their main source of income. The North's talk about not having slavery was crazy talk to the Southerners.

Justification for Mexican American war

The Mexican American War was caused by many disputing issued between the United States government, Texas and Mexico. Before 1836 Texas had belonged to Mexico, in 1836 Americans living in Texas rebelled against Mexican rule. The main issues were caused by the arguments of the freedom Texas and Mexico wanted. Mexicans and Texans waged a nasty border struggle for nine years, but continued to withhold direct intervention. By Mexico and Texas being their own free-states they were left vulnerable to be taken advantage of by America, which is what happened.

The American's acted in a very unjust way by taking advantage of Mexico and Texas. We showed very unjust behavior and used our power to have the upper hand and use the resources and knowledge we had that Texas and Mexico did not. It was not right for the American's to kick others off of their land to leave them homeless and scared for their lives.

Jackson Turner

The Jackson Turner thesis is Jackson's thoughts about the frontier the Americans created. Turner disagreed with the frontier they had placed there. While the Americans believed it gave them freedom Jackson felt as if it was a boundary that could not be passed rather than a boundary of freedom. Citizens saw this as freedom because they finally had their own land to make their own decisions on, which is freedom to them. Turner did not accept the frontier the Americans set, he fought against it.

The argument against Turner's states the general idea that the frontier land is overall extremely very useful for the people in America. Turner continually states that the land is only "free and useless" yet it is anything but that. That is untrue because people like the Natives searched for frontiers as they constantly got kicked off their lands and saw frontiers as hope and an offered up home. Mainly the argument is trying to show how that the frontier was more helpful than anything else.

In my opinion I think that Turner is wrong for thinking the frontier is a burden on America. The frontier's helped us to unite together as a country. The frontier allowed America to have the boundaries it needed to become its own nation. It was one of the first steps that they took to becoming a separate nation.