The American Civil War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

The American Civil War - Essay Example According to the Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference, page 53, â€Å"Long before the Civil War, the terms â€Å"North† and â€Å"South† had acquired fixed geographic and cultural certainty for Americans. In 1767, two English astronomers, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, completed a survey that marked what had been a disputed boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland. By the early nineteenth century, the line of demarcation had become more significant; most free states were entirely north of the Mason-Dixon line (parts of Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, and Ohio fell below it) and most slave states were entirely to the south of it. Although this remains to a large extent accurate, there were some deviations from it during the war.†2 The two sections of the United States, the North and the South, were very different geographically, economically, culturally and to a large part, politically. Yet they shared many commonalities. Both spoke the same English la nguage. Both had gone through the Revolutionary War. Both groups were predominately Protestant. Both were fiercely independent. However, there were stark differences as well. Again, to quote from The Library of Congress Civil War Desk Reference, â€Å"the regional differences were striking and had become the subject of frequent comment. The ethnic diversity of New York and Pennsylvania contrasted with the ethnic homogeneity in most of the white south; the religious practices of the Puritan in New England differed greatly from those of the Anglicans in Virginia. Some 1,200 miles separated Maine in the North from Florida in the South, but slavery could make the two sections appear worlds apart. The slave system in the South and the free labor capitalism of the North produced two distinct economic philosophies that shaded Americans’ views of those living on the opposite side of the Mason-Dixon Line†.3 Some say that lack of understanding from either side caused men to will ing take up arms against each other, even against family members. Many argue that cultural and political issues propelled the nation into civil war. Indeed they certainly had their part. Politically the North was predominately Republican while the South was predominately Democrat. But as Page Smith said in his book, Trial by Fire, â€Å"The civil war took place because the Southern states felt that they could no longer tolerate their status as members of the Union.† (pg1)4 Smith goes on to discard any suggestion that economy, sectionalism or politics, had any legitimate influence on launching the bloodiest conflict in our nation’s history. He emphatically claims that the institution of slavery and, more specifically, the determination of the North to limit it and the South to extend it were the exact and specific cause of the war. In determining whether or not the Civil War was repressible this question must be asked. Would there have been a Civil War if slavery had no t existed in the United States? Stephen Oakes, in his The Approaching Fury, speaks of a major issue regarding slaves and slave states which was current