Lincoln Mind Map

Causes of the Civil War

The North and South had high tensions because of their views and economic differences. The Civil War wasn't just about slavery but also economics and preserving the Union.

The South seceded from the Union and there were many reasons why they decided to take that action. The South wanted to preserve their way of life. They didn't want to have to give up their slave society that they had been solely reliant on for years. Southerners wanted to protect their agricultural civilization and not change to an industrial society like the North. The Southerners believed that the North was money grubbing. Their way of life revolved around the dollar to the South. They also wanted to keep their tradition of Southern honor alive. They would have done anything to defend their honor. People from the South took the Civil War as a personal threat and an insult to their honor. They believed that even if they fought the war and lost, the South would still have their honor. If they didn't fight, they would lose it. The South thought they would lose everything including their livelihood if they gave in to Northern aggression. Southerners were afraid of submission to the North. They didn't know what would come of it.

Different historians thought the Civil War was caused by different things. One of the most obvious causes seen was slavery. Lincoln's original goal was not to deal with the slavery issue but to preserve the Union. Republicans (North) wanted to get rid of slavery for good. The South was fearful of this and wanted to take over the federal government so it wouldn't happen. The Northerners wanted to get rid of slavery and the South wanted to preserve it. Another possible cause of the war was economics. The two economic systems were completely different and the people in the two different systems had different views.

There were also events that happened that sparked the Civil War. Five events that were major triggers of the Civil War were the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the election of 1860, Southern succession, Fort Sumter, and Bleeding Kansas. The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise. Unfortunately, the North saw it as a plot to turn new territories into slave states. This made them agitated especially when it was passed. 90% of the South voted for the act to be passed. Bleeding Kansas was when Northerners and Southerners went into Kansas territory. Settlers from Missouri snuck in and voted illegally. They were all proslavery. The arrested and were violent with the antislavery settlers. This raised tension between proslavery Southerners and antislavery Northerners. The election of 1860 put Lincoln in office. This made the South angry because no one in the South voted for Lincoln and yet he still won. They didn't see Lincoln as a legitimate president and therefore caused them to succeed. Lincoln started the war to stop succession and to preserve the Union. Fort Sumter was the final spark and the start of the war. The Southern troops attacked a Northern fort. Fort Sumter were the first shots fired in the Civil War.

Many people could see different causes in why the Civil War happened. There were so may possibilities and tension that it's impossible to tell which was the actual primary cause.

Civil War Timeline

Pre-Civil War: The North

The Northern mentality had changed and the Southern mentality had stayed the same. The North was a free society that had turned their views to industrialization. They were no longer agriculturally based. The South not only didn't understand the shift but they feared it.

The North had a market revolution. It had turned into a capitalist economy and modernized itself. It had gone from subsistence farming to cash crops to a local market to a world market very quickly. What that meant was that people bought necessities from stores instead of making or growing them themselves. This was a huge change in mentality that the South hadn't caught up to yet. To Northerners, slavery was what was holding them back. And in the North, anyone could work for themselves or in factories. This also includes women, children, and free slaves. Because of this market revolution, the definition of childhood changed as well. Children now became a source of labor and money for families. A family with children meant extra income.

This new mentality made progress. It gave the North riches in knowledge and progress. They were starting to join the rest of Europe by industrializing. But because of all the change, immigrants started pouring in. The Northern cities were then immigrant cities. But this was progress at a major cost to the Northern citizens. They started having the same problem we do today with immigrants. They were taking all the jobs and they were not happy. The railroad was amazing progress for the North. It made travel so much easier and united North America. It was a very positive reaction to industrialization. Although the railroad was good for the North, the South felt very isolated from the rest of the country which is never a good sign.

The Northern technology is also a good thing for the North but not so much for the South. It showed a split in the country that is visible to everyone. Numbers of patents in the North compared to the South shows how the two geological territories have major differences. At this point the war is pretty much eminent.

Although the North seemed like the place to be, most people that worked in the North were not too fond of their job. The factories were bitter sweet. At first the girls that worked there loved it. They would have rather been working than in school. As time went on, their views changed. Work became boring and when the chance came to go back to school, the girls were grateful for it.

Immigrants also felt the same way as the working girls. At first everything was great but as time went on, the excitement wore off. In 1818 a women wrote to someone about how great and amazing her new life was in America. They always had enough money and food. But a man in 1834 wrote a letter saying how miserable he was in the North. The work was very hard and the land was too expensive. After time, immigrants felt the sting of hard labor and little money. Just like they do today in the United States. Northerners were equally if not more unhappy about the immigrants. They were taking the labor and land. Sound familiar?

Pre-Civil War: The South

During the lecture that we watched in class on Pre-Civil War in the South, there were nine pro-slavery arguments explained. Most people believe that slavery is morally wrong and it's interesting to hear a Southern perspective especially since we are from the North. Although I believe slavery is very wrong, the South made very good and very convincing arguments for slavery.

One of the most controversial arguments for slavery is the Old Testament of the Bible. Any time the Bible is brought into and argument it's controversial, especially on something as evil as slavery. The Bible is used to say how ancient the practice of slavery is. It uses religion to say that slavery is ok and how it was used in biblical times. The South even went so far to say the prophets defended slavery. They also quoted the Bible by saying that slaves need to obey their master. The Bible probably didn't mean it in this connotation, but it made a persuasive argument.

Slavery was also argued in a historical aspect by the South. Southerners stated that slavery was crucial to all great civilizations. Their examples were Ancient Rome and Greece. Both of these civilizations were great in their time, but eventually they fell. Although the South knew slavery was bad, they called it a necessary evil. They believed that slavery was needed if their society was going to survive. What they didn't contemplate was that their society was already started and flourishing, it was time for slavery to disappear from their community. Their argument never said that slavery had to be in constant motion for the civilization to survive.

Pro-slavery Southerners had a way of twisting words and ideas. Not only did they twist the meaning of the words in the Bible but also in the ideas of Enlightenment writer John Locke. Locke's ideas of natural rights and equality among all people were twisted to please the minds of Southerners. They proposed that John Locke's idea that everyone was equal was actually that there was inequality among all people. They wanted to support their cause by using a reputable source. In my opinion though, it didn't work. It just made it look like they were pulling things out of thin air to accommodate their guilt.

For the South, slaves were just part of the economy. They were viewed as property not people. The knew and even admitted that slavery was amoral. And yet, they still kept the slave economy strong. James Henry Hammer stated that it was legal for man to own property all over the world and that would never change. So therefore he and most of the South believed that it was legal for slaves to be owned considering, to them, they were only a piece of property.

Slavery was viewed as a necessary evil. Charles Jones, a professor at Yale, believed it was for the good of the slaves and the public for them to be held not emancipated. He made an attempt to make slavery look like it was saving the slaves. Although they didn't have to worry about shelter, food, and troubles of living on their own, they did have to worry about being physically, mentally, and verbally abused on a daily basis. Jones believes that if slaves were not held, they wouldn't survive. People thought slaves were inferior and had to be treated like children. so obviously, to the South, slaves wouldn't survive. When in reality, some slaves may have even been smarter than their owners. Without the necessary evil of slavery, the African race would have never survived.

Another absurd argument made by the Southerners was that slavery was harder on the white man. Slaves were a financial responsibility; I won't argue with that. The white owners of slaves never had to do back-breaking labor like slaves did. They also weren't abused on a daily basis for their entire lives. Slaves never had it easy in their lives. The slave owners did have to provide food and shelter for their slaves, but that was a lot easier than being a slave.

The South saw that the only problem with slavery was the too many people from the North didn't understand that it was natural and the way the world was supposed to be. They thought that even though it was amoral and evil, it was the way it was supposed to be and they just had to deal with it. This is a ridiculous argument to propose. Everyone has the power to change what is wrong. The South didn't want to change their lifestyle because it was working for them, not because that was just the way it was. The way of the world didn't have to be slavery; it could have been changed.

Another argument for slavery is the race card. Africans were seen as being inferior and having the capacity of small child. They have to be watched and governed by able-minded people. Obviously, race doesn't play a factor in the mental capability of a person. Fitzhugh also made an argument that all men are not born equal. He said "some are born with saddles on their backs and others are booted and spurred to ride them." The world shouldn't be viewed like this and it's wrong for Fitzhugh to even say it.

Slavery also completes the utopia of the world, according to the South. Slaves were just put on earth for slave owners to take care of. The purpose of government, in Southern eyes, was to turn slaves into the perfect workers. The perfect owner, perfect slave and worker, and the perfect government makes the perfect Utopian society. The Southerners didn't consider how the slaves were feeling. In no way were their lives even close to utopia. They were miserable and the people of the South disregarded their feelings. Life may have been perfect for free white men, but it was far from perfect for the African slaves.

Many of the arguments presented by the South were persuasive but others were completely ridiculous and seemed like they were just thrown together. I believe that many of these were just stated to satisfy the guilt of Southern slave owners.

Justification for the Mexican-American War

The Mexican-American War was mainly caused by high tensions between the two countries over land disputes. The United States wanted Texas and a few other territories including California. They were willing to take it by any means necessary. The United States believed it was their god given right to move westwards. Even if Mexico stood in their way.



Mexico had encouraged Americans to move to Texas. They bribed them with cheap land and tax exempts. Americans couldn't turn that offer down, so many decided to move there. Soon there were about 30,000 Americans living in Texas. They had to abide by Mexican law and therefore felt very misrepresented. By 1830, Mexico decided that American immigration had to be stopped so they banned immigration to Texas. When Polk publicly annexed Texas, Mexico wasn't happy. After that, the American government decided they wanted Texas in the Union. Mexico still considered Texas theirs even though it became a republic. The American government had secret instructions to purchase New Mexico and California. Somehow the secret leaked to the Mexican government and they didn't take it well. War was eminent at this point. While both sides were stationed at the Texas border, American soldiers were captured and killed by Mexican bandits. This gave Polk enough cause to declare war on Mexico.



Gregory Hospodor argues that the United States didn't have a legitimate claim over the territory owned by Mexico. Hospodor states that Mexico had a claim to Texas not the United States. There were two factors that supported that. They are, first that the US recognized the territorial boundaries of Mexico before the issue was clouded by the Texas Revolution; and second that the main cause of the Mexican-American War was American hunger for Mexican land. So, in Hospodor's argument, the war would have never happened if America wasn't so pushy and that we never had a right to it in the first place. Another reason why America didn't have a legitimate claim over Texas was Article Three of the Adam-Onis Treaty. This stated that the United States relinquished any claim to Texas. The US double-crossed Spain and broke the details of the treaty. From this treaty, Mexico inherited both the boundary and claim to Texas. The United States ripped that away from them in their selfish want of Manifest Destiny. "Land hunger had trumped republican sympathy and respect for the border in American hearts and minds." Mexicans felt that Americans kind of threw them off to the side and forgot their existence in their want for land. America disregarded everything for some land. Even though Mexico and the United States had a lot in common in the way they gained their independence, the US broke that common bond.

Lee Eysturlid opposes Hospodor by claiming that the United States didn't have a right to Mexican land. He believed that even though taking the land was wrong, Manifest Destiny was fulfilled so the action was justified. "But the United States' ideological vision of time, and its strategic realities, came to outweigh the niceties of treaty restrictions." Eysturlid stated that to limit the land was to limit freedom, which was what the United States was about. So it was the obvious choice for the United States to ferociously take the land right out from the Mexican citizens. He thought that not fulfilling Manifest Destiny would limit the greatness of the newborn country. He also argued that American citizens already inhabited Texas so it was rightfully theirs anyways. Eysturlid's basic argument it that because the US wanted the land, it was theirs.

I believe that Gregory Hospodor was right in saying that the United States did not have a legitimate claim to the Mexican territories. Just because we wanted land doesn't mean we can just take it. The same principal goes to a little kid in a toy store. Just because they want a toy doesn't mean they can just take it off the shelf and walk out of the store with it. That's stealing. Taking the land from Mexico is stealing as well, except on a much bigger level. Eysturlid's argument seems like a lot of junk. It's not logical at all. No one in their right mind could look at his argument and be persuaded to side with the United States and say Mexico was just overreacting. The land was owned by Mexico, the United States wanted it and took it, plain and simple. The United States stole land for their selfish want. The United States was unjust in their actions.

America believed it was their god-given right to take land from a newly independent country. They saw no problem with it as long as they were happy. Mexico wanted to fight for their land, but they were weak and couldn't win. It was taken and they had no choice but to watch it happen. Maybe the tensions between Mexico and the United States then has stayed and is still there today. Tensions with Mexico may have been passed down for generations. Now we are mad at Mexico for reasons we might not even understand. Do you think Mexico and the United States still have tensions because of the war?

George Fitzhugh and Frederick Douglass

George Fitzhugh and Frederick Douglass have opposing views on slavery. Fitzhugh was a proponent while Douglass was an abolitionist. Both were considered contemporaries an although they proposed their ideas at the same time (mid 1800's), they never argued face-to-face. One side is far more just than the other. One side of the argument is completely unethical.

George Fitzhugh was a lawyer living in the South. He presents his argument in "The Universal Law of Slavery." Fitzhugh thought of slaves as children and that they need to be governed like children. Whereas he looked at the masters like they were the parents. He believed slaves were less intelligent and would never survive in a capitalist society. They do not have the "intellectual capacity." One of his ideas stated that back in Africa, slaves would become savages and cannibals and in the North, they would never survive. Slaves, apparently, have a "defect of character" according to Fitzhugh, that makes them inferior. He tried to make slavery sound as if it was for their own good. His argument stated that slavery provided them with Christianity, support, safety, and assurance of the future. He believed slaves were “the freest people in the world.” This clearly makes him delusional. Being a slave is not freedom in any scenario. According to Fitzhugh, slaves do not have a care in the world. He essentially believed that slavery was beneficial for the African-Americans. He did not see any aspect of slavery as wrong.


Frederick Douglass was a freed slave living in the North. He had a very opposing argument to Fitzhugh and his argument is extremely emotional. Douglass wanted slaves to be freed and when confronting people about it, they never knew what to do with the slaves. He wanted people to stop feeling sorry for them and to let them liver their own lives and figure it out for themselves. He states at one point “Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us.” In other words, it is the white people’s fault that they are in the situation in the first place and they do not need their help to get out. Douglass wanted people to give slaves a chance to be free. He wanted them to have a chance to succeed in society and if they did not, then to let them fail and fall. Everyone has a chance to succeed or fail in life; he believed slaves should also have that privilege. Another thing that Douglass explains in his article, is that even though some people had ideas to send slaves back to Africa, it would not work. Slaves were no longer connected to Africa, according to Douglass. "We trace it to Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotchmen; to Frenchmen; to the German; to the Asiatic as well as to Africa. 'The best blood of Virginia courses through our veins."' Slaves were not just African anymore. They were mixed with many nationalities and sending them back to Africa would be sending them to unfamiliar territory. Slaves were American; there was no blood connection to Africa. Frederick Douglass brought up Crispus Attucks and how he died for the freedom of this country. He couldn't understand why if this country was founded on freedom, then why everyone (even slaves) were not free. Another one of his many ideas about freedom was the idea of being forced to celebrate the fourth of July. "The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not me..." Slaves were forced by their masters to celebrate their freedom. To slaves, it was a day of mourning. Douglass knew from first hand experience what being a slave really meant.

George Fitzhugh was a very intelligent lawyer. Though, his views on slavery were crazy and completely against everything this country was built for. Just because slaves were not free, does not make them any different intellectually. He looked at slaves as if they were defected or not the same species as himself. Looking at slaves as children is completely irrelevant and wrong. They could do just the same as any free man if given the chance. Putting a slave back into Africa, not only a bad idea, but they would obviously not become cannibals and savages. They are civilized beings. In no way are slaves inferior to free men. They are exactly the same. And again, slavery in no way would ever be for the good of the slaves. True, they would never have to worry about food or shelter, but they do have to worry about their children having the life they deserve. Slaves could never be looked at as "the freest people in the world." It is a contradictory statement. Slaves cannot decide what they want to do with their lives, that is obviously not freedom. As I stated before, Fitzhugh is delusional. Slavery is wrong and it should have been banned. As for Fitzhugh, he was extremely biased. He lived in the South and there, slaves were as common as anything. His argument is very well supported and very persuasive and eloquent. He had a good way of placing his words in a way that almost made me think he had some good points. He defended his argument and stuck to what he thought. He did not let people sway his point of view.

Douglass had a very emotional and personal response for the concept of slavery. He had been freed and decided to live up North to pursue the life he wanted to live. He wanted slaves to have a chance to succeed or fail in life, as well as they should. Everyone should have that opportunity. Douglass's argument is definitely more believable and logical than Fitzhugh's. And unlike Fitzhugh, he was not biased. It is not being biased if he had a first-hand account. He also had a very good point when he said that slaves no longer just had ties to Africa. It was very true that slave women were forced to have children with their masters and sending a child back to Africa that had never been there and was purely from there would have made no sense; just as he said. Douglass's argument was supported very well by emotion. It made the argument realistic instead of just words on a paper. He made the reader (especially me) feel his pain in what he had to go through and what others had to go through being slaves.

After reading these two articles, it was very clear that Douglass's made more sense and was just. Although I believe Fitzhugh's argument was worded better, his had no points or ideas that were correct. Slavery is something that this country should not be proud of and Douglass understands that. Being a slave had obviously scarred him. Douglass's ideas were a lot better and overall were supported with a lot of emotion which definitely made his article better.