Causes of the Civil War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Causes of the Civil War - Essay Example Civil wars are common among early nations seeking growth and expansion. Almost all countries in the world has went through civil wars at one some point in their history, where some have experienced it earlier than the others. There was the Irish civil war from 1922-1923, the Lebanese civil war which lasted more than two decades from1975 to 1990, the Russian civil war which began in 1918, the Spanish civil war which happened between 1936-1939, and other countries as well. The American Civil War was a war fought between two organized groups - 23 northern (Union) and 11 southern (Confederate) – seeking power within the same country - America. The Confederacy would have been content with gaining control over part of America; the Union insisted upon maintaining authority over all of it. It was also a time when the Confederacy sought to establish itself as a separate nation. The Civil War was the culmination of forty years of intense sectional conflict and reflected deep-seated economic, social, and political differences. Historians have coined a number of titles for the war such as â€Å"War of Southern Independence,† â€Å"Brother’s War,† â€Å"American Iliad† and â€Å"Second American Revolution.† Although each of these titles merit the attention to some aspect of the struggle, still, the term Civil War remains to be most appropriate in both sense and usage; and besides, this was the term generally used by both North and South during the war. The American Civil War grew out of deep differences between the north and the south, notably over slavery – opposed by President Lincoln, but an important part of the economy of the south. Underscoring sectional differences, the labor force in the South included nearly 4 million enslaved blacks (Reader’s Digest, 1995). An important element in the war’s background was sectionalism, which may be defined as the tendency of one area within the nation to conceive of itself as being significantly different