Another Civil War :: essays research papers

Socioeconomic reasons for the causes and outcome of theCivil War Analyzing the causes and the eventual outcome ofthe American Civil War can be a difficult task when youlook at all the issues at once. The fields of the political,economic and sociological differences amid the Unionand the Confederacy are were we find the peck of theanswers as why the two regions of the United Statesseparated. When trying to discuss the Civil War we mustfirst explain why the Confederate states seceded and just asimportantly, how they were defeated. When trying to find thecauses and the outcomes of the Civil War, Ive chosen tobypass the political reasons and would rather discuss theareas of economic and sociological conflict. It is hard todiscuss one of these aspects without showing how nearly itis tied into the other. Economy is the child of sociologicalconditions and in turn sociological conditions predict anareas economic success and potential. Because of this stronginterrelationship between the t wo, the word "socioeconomic"is best suited to describe this important area of conflictbetween the North and the South. Almost a question ofcivilization versus barbarism the war between the North andthe South showed America who held more power andwhose way would lead us into a future for all Americans.The North and South were divided along an invisibleeconomic line. States in the North were more industrializedthan states in the South. In the South, cotton and tobaccoprovided the economy. These plantation crops created aneconomic situation based all upon agriculture. This wasin stark contrast too the heavily industrialized Northern citiesin America. Slave labor provided the workforce on theSouthern plantations and along with crops were the horse sense of Southern economic power. Slave labor, whichturned the wheels on the vast plantations growing tobaccoand cotton, created an entirely different socioeconomicclimate then the one name in the North. The inherent conflictbetween the progressive, industrialized, urbane North andthe plantation lifestyle, made possible by cotton, tobaccoand slave labor, ultimately revealed a people sharply dividedalong socioeconomic lines. The Civil War or "the warbetween the states", was the inevitable outcome of adeveloping nation doubtful as to whether it should remainprogressive and industrialized or genteel and slowmoving.Unquestionably, the tobacco economy of the South as wellas its cotton products were of vast immenseness to the entirenation. Still, the social structure of plantation life with itslegacy and dependency upon slave labor, would not betolerated by Northern states for much longer. A go alongcry for emancipation and abolition by president Lincoln and