In the American historiography, the topic of the Civil War (1861-1865) of the North and the South is traditional and one of the most studied. On 4 July 1776, the North American colonies of England declared independence, became an independent state having highly developed social hierarchy with two varieties - the Northern and the Southern ones. The system of slavery prevailed in the South, and the system of wage labor – in the North. The conflict between these two systems is said to be the central reason for the Civil War. However, the causes of the War are too contradictory and multifaceted. The slavery considered being the key cause of the War is now being doubted, and there appear more and more opinions that it is not the central reason for the War, but one of its allegations.

History of African Americans in North America was such that, being formally free in the North, they were from the point of view of all white Americans, a lower category. The southern states were considered as a land of endless plantations and slave-owners mistreating the black slaves for fun. This is a doubtful statement since the situation with slavery in the South was not as terrible as it was described. Three-quarters of the southern states population never owned slaves, lived and worked on small farms that were smaller than 500 acres each. Southern societies encourage slave owners to free the slaves. Thus, the number of enslaved Blacks in the South is not as great as it seems to be from the definition essay topics list.

However, this situation prevailed until the early 20s of the XIX century. At this time, the slave population in America was three times greater than before the Revolution despite the actions taken towards the elimination of slavery. Thus, the groups of people voicing their strong protest against slavery appeared in the U.S. instead of separate opponents of this institution as it was before. They claimed that slavery is incompatible with the development of capitalism and the bourgeois-democratic ethic in the country. Basically, the groups consisted of the working people of the North and – to a lesser extent – the South: farmers, artisans, and later, industrial workers.

In the 1850s, pumping explosive situation around the issue of slavery increased. The synonymous with the phrase “Negro problem” were the words “inevitable conflict”. Abolitionists objectively had been becoming an integral part of the interests of the bourgeoisie of the Northern states since slavery flourished in the South, and the great landowners pinned down the country’s development along capitalist lines. Abolitionist literature and the press were of great importance for the mobilization of the American and world public opinion against slavery in the Southern states. The famous novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1852) was sold by a million copies and translated into several languages. In 1848, there was a mass political party called ‘Freesoilers’. They fight for the non-proliferation of slavery in the new territories. However, the planter oligarchy of the South was not going to concede. Moreover, it longed to extend slavery in the territory of other states, especially since the crisis of the slave plantation economy by then deepened, and in seeking new lands for salvation.

This is the reason for the South suspiciousness and evil establishment of the Republican Party which has become the mouthpiece of those years in the interests of the young national bourgeoisie, as well as medium and small-scale farmers. Its first leaders were careful to speak directly for the abolition of slavery but did not hide their dislike for the states where slavery already existed. This does not mean that all of them occupied the needs of black people that they wanted something to help him apart from the formal transfer of blacks in a different economic category. Like the planters, they believed blacks unworthy of even minimal rights, intending to give them a semblance of personal freedom.

On 6 November 1860, Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election with the majority of votes of the U.S. citizens. This was another push to the abolition movement to activate. The President was not ostentatiously against the slavery; his purpose was to unite the North and the South under the democracy system. He not once promised the Southern States not to interfere in their affairs. After Lincoln’s election as the President of the Republic, the peace ended. He wanted to unite free citizens in the free country, but this was not possible until slavery existed. From this very moment, the events were taken towards the “inevitable conflict”, and the slavery was named a cause and a motive for the rebellion.

Accordingly, Lincoln turned the emancipation of the slaves into the goal of the war since he saw this as a potential advantage – namely, by the end of 1862, when it became clear that southerners will not be able to persuade. To attract the major European powers, which almost always were sympathetic to the Southerners, Lincoln issued a decree according to which from 1 January 1863, all slaves in the rebellious states were declared free. This decree could be applied only to the rebellious states but not by those loyal to the southern states that were not going to be separated; however, Lincoln broke the European public opinion in their favor - no one has entered into a pact with the southerners; thus, the war was won.

The slavery definitely was one of the key reasons for the Civil War. However, the main area of conflicts of the South and the North was the economy, and it cannot be neglected. Southerners were sure that the Southern States are the main economic center of the country. They took out most of the products (in 1860, cotton accounted for 57% of all U.S. exports) and imported most of the imports. They believed the North was only using the wealth of the South for its protectionist customs duties, speculation in securities, as well as the monetary system. These claims were not quite fair but also cannot be considered completely groundless.

The Northerners, on the other hand, argued for a more liberal immigration policy in order to ensure the application of low-cost labor, create subsidies for shipbuilding for the development of trade, improve the internal infrastructure and transportation system, create a strong monetarist policy, and conduct high tariffs to protect industry (the last statement was not appropriate for the South population at all). They claimed that the South is dominated in the Federal Government and is responsible for the failure of a number of important laws that benefit the industrial and financial circles of the North.

In May 1860, the U.S. Congress passed a bill called the Morrill Tariff (named for the Republican Congressman and steel industrialist Justin S. Morrill) raising the average tariff from 15 % to 37 % and increasing to 47% over the next three years. However, this bill closely resembled Tariffs of Abomination, which resulted in a constitutional crisis, the threat of secession and the use of force. In 1832, the U.S. House of Representatives voted for this law: 105 for and 64 – against. Only one of the 40 southern congressmen (Tennessee) voted for this bill. With the appearance of this tariff, 87 % of total revenues were collected from the South. On the one hand, tariff defended the interests of the industrial North; on the other, it significantly raised the cost of living and trade in the South and, at the same time, reduced the value of exports of agricultural products to Europe. This created serious economic difficulties in many Southern states. Southern people were annoyed by the fact that 80 % or more of the tax revenues were spent on public works and subsidies to the industry of the North enriching the North at the expense of the South.

Morrill Tariff illustrates one of the problems of the majority democracy. Thus, the tariff issue and the issue of the States’ rights were strongly linked. They, in turn, were linked to broader issues that limited the rights of the government and a strong constitution. The Morrill Tariff brought to the South terrible political injustice, economic hardship and the inevitable crisis.

To understand the real causes of the war between the North and the South, it is necessary to “drop” into the history of 100 years and see who inhabited these areas. Southern States were colonized mainly by people of Celtic origin (western areas of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales). North is mainly inhabited by the British and the Germans. The same year the Mayflower landed the liberty-seeking passengers on the North, the Dutch galliot landed a group of African slaves in the south. Thus, the contradictions between the South and the North have existed from the very beginning because of the difference of their mentalities. The representatives of the South and the North have a different understanding of such concepts as freedom and honor. The South was an agrarian society and lived in European traditions. The North was industrial region where money ruled everything. South population lived richer, but the government was in the North. Over time, the North decided to seize control of the wealth lands in the South. To do this, it was enough to announce formally the fight against slavery. After Abraham Lincoln has become the President, the Southern States began to emerge from the union and formed their own state – Confederacy, with their own president. Obviously, this was unacceptable to the Northern States since with the separation of the Southern States, Northerners would lose a great fortune, and the economy as a whole would be in the difficult position. The aim of Southerners in this war was independence from the North, and for the Northerners – the preservation of the integrity of the country and the elimination of slavery. In addition, it was necessary for the capital of the North to expand factories and exercise control over the plantations of the South.

To conclude, the question of what to do with slavery was one of the causes of tension between the North and the South, one of the most important among many others. It cannot be said that it was the central cause of the War. The desire of the South to separate from the United States is essential and obvious since after the end of war with Britain, the necessity of the Union eliminated. The real cause of the War was hidden deep down in the relationship between the North and the South. The slavery mainly appeared to be the convenient excuse for the war. Hence, the real central cause of the Civil War was the growing tension between the Southern and Northern States on the political and economic background.