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Civil War Dbq

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For years historians have spectulated about how the Civil War began in the first place. Some say it was slavery, others say it was many factors building together. I believe that it was two factors coming into play is what set off the war, slavery and President Lincoln’s election in 1860. The first factor, slavery, had been a big dispute in the United States for a while. Complications started building up whenever we added new states to our country. Some states were more accpeting of slavery than others. Kansas, for example, didn’t like that they were going to be a slavery state very well. the result ended with two “official” slaves in the state and ‘Bleeding Kansas’ dispute in 1856, with about two-hundred men killed in a two month period. …show more content…

Once he was elected, South Carolina seceded from the U.S. in December of 1860 becasue they knew that he would put an end to slavery. A month before his inauguration, six other southern states seceded, forming the Confederate States of America. Jefferson Davis was elected to be President and Alexander Stephens as Vice President. The capital was placed in Montgomery, Alabama and the Confederacy had a good government running before Lincoln was inaugurated. On the flip side, Linoln believed that you couldn’t just secede from the United States, he believed that it was illegal. He also didn’t want to bother where slavery already was, he just wanted to put a stop to it. The final straw that pushed the Confederacy over the edge was Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter, which waslocated in South Carolina, was one of the last forts under control of the federal government, not the Confederate government. Lincoln didn’t to confront the fort armed, yet also didn’t want the fort to be under the Confederate control. Finally, on April 12th, 1861, the Union proceeded to make advances toward the fort and once it fell to the Confederacy, that, was whenever the four-year long war, called the Civil War,

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