In 1860, the nation was locked in a Civil War. This tragic war, which lasted from 1861 to 1877, was mainly caused by the diverging society between the North and the South. The war divided the country between the North (Union) and South (Confederate). There were many factors that led to the war and the chief ones were political, social, and economic differences between the North and the South. Slavery was a major issue that triggered the American Civil War. Basically the South wanted and needed it and the North did not want it at all. The South was going to do anything they could to keep it. Slavery and slave trades had become a big part of the South’s economy. The slaves were needed to work on plantations which helped the South prospered. During the 19th Century, the North worked hard on abolishing slavery, which they thought was a disgrace to the Union. The South relied strongly on the slave trade and when the North spoke of abolishing it, the South spoke of forming there own country. These slaves were very valuable to the slaveholding planter class. They were a huge investment to Southerners and if taken away, could mean massive losses to everyone. The South especially needed more slaves at this time because they were now growing more cotton then ever because of the invention of the cotton gin. Within that time period of 50 years the number of slaves also rose from about 1,190,000 to over 4,000,000. The plantation owners in the South could not understand why the North wanted slavery abolished that bad. Slavery formed two opposing societies and could not have been abolished with out the Civil War. The North was very industrialized and had a stable economy in comparison to slave-dependant South. During the mid-1800s immigration to the North greatly increased. Although this exploitation was extremely cruel and much like the treatment of the slaves in the South, the Northern economy profited immensely. Southerners ...
