Real reasons behind the Civil War revised

Real Reasons behind the Civil War
Name
Institution of Affiliation
A civil war is a war that is fought by the citizens of the same country. There are several examples of civil wars that existed in the 19th and 18th century. English, Spanish, and American civil wars are examples of one the greatest civil wars to be witnessed in history. In America, the civil war was fought between the northern and southern confederate states in the period 1861-1865 to decide the survival of the independence and union of the Confederacy (Hummel, 2013). Several factors contributed to the American civil war.
To begin with, the argument on the future of slavery led to the disturbance of union. The dispute steered the secession motion that brought about a war in which the western and northern territories and states fought to retain the union. The South battled to institute southern freedom as a new confederation of states under their constitution. The Southern agrarian population used slaves to work in their plantation and perform other laborious jobs. Meanwhile, the northern states were gradually abolishing slavery. The first instance of war occurred in Kansas where the Missourians who supported slavery filled the states to assist in forcing it to be a slave state. Violence erupted in Lawrence Kansas which made it to called Bleeding Kansas. The fight was even witnessed on the Senate floor. South Carolina’s Senator Preston Brooks fought Charles Sumner, a slave proponent over the head (Kelly, 2015). With the political leaders, leading the violence on slavery debate, civilians began fighting in various northern and southern states.

The election of Abraham Lincoln sparked the civil war. Even before his presidency, seven states of Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina seceded from the Union. The states believed that Lincoln favored the Northern states and was anti-slavery (Kelly, 2015). Negotiation efforts including the Crittenden compromise and the Corwin Amendment failed. The southern leaders panicked that Lincoln will abolish and stop the expansion of the slave trade. At the House of Representatives, where the slave states had become the minority, they were facing a future as a permanent minority in the Electoral College and Senate against the gradually powerful North. The secession of seven slave states sparked the civil war.
Sectionalism also led to the civil war. Sectionalism refers to a difference in social structure, political values, customs and economies of the North and South. As the North built prosperous farms, urbanized and industrialize, the South concentrated on plantation agriculture characterized by subsistence farming for poor whites and slave labor. The issues separated the nation’s largest denominations (Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist) into northern and southern denominations. The separation contributed to the Civil War.
Lastly, Fort Sumter incident contributed to the civil war. After being aware that the resupplies were being transported from the North to Fort Sumter, the South Carolina Confederate Forces demanded the surrender of Forts. The Confederates opened fire and forced Major Anderson to surrender. It was now evident that the war had begun, and Lincoln called volunteers to stop the southern rebellion. Tennessee, North Carolina, Arkansas and Virginia declined to fight the southern states believing that Lincoln had exceeded his authority as the president. The states reversed their decision and voted for secession that accelerated the civil war (Reid, 2014). However, western Virginia vetoed the vote for secession and pulled away forming the present-day West Virginia.
Although, slavery, the election of Abraham Lincoln, Sectionalism, and Fort Sumter incident can be cited as the causes of American civil war, several reasons led to the war.
References
Hummel, J. (2013). Emancipating slaves, enslaving free men: a history of the American civil
war. Open court.
Reid, B. H. (2014). The Origins of the American Civil War. Routledge.
Martin, K. (2015). Top 5 Causes of the Civil War. Retrieved from
http://americanhistory.about.com/od/civilwarmenu/a/cause_civil_war.htm on November 21, 2015.