Slavery during the Civil War - Essay Example

The gradual abolition of slavery in the North increased the ideological gap between the North and the South further. The New Hampshire constitution of 1783, for instance, stated that children were born free. On the other hand, Rhode Island made legislation that provided for the slow extension of the freedoms of the slaves (Francis 2001, 158). These northern industrialized states derived limited economic value from slave labor, unlike the agricultural south for which slavery was the lifeblood of the economy. This was fertile ground for conspiracies of impending economic domination of the North over the South to sprout.

The election of Lincoln as President in November of 1860 was also a crisis point in the slavery debate. Lincoln was against slavery although reports suggest that he kept some himself. Consequently, this led to the secession of the Deep South States just before his inauguration. His efforts to re-unite the confederacy did not stand a chance despite using negotiations, and so he resolved to call forth volunteers to fight it out with the South. In the long run, this proved to be an important and correct decision since the United States was not divided.

Lastly, the foremost among the reasons that sparked the Civil War was Lincoln’s resort to military means to reunite the Union. The war was at first expected to be a straightforward issue but the Deep South States and their allies put on a brave fight (McPherson 2000, 235). The war was at last resolved after a parade of surrenders among Confederates weakened them substantially.

By and large, the American Civil War mainly focused on slavery. However, the several disputes that surrounded it, among them the abolition of slavery in the North, the election of Lincoln, and a military resolution to secession were proxy conflicts for a much larger issue that was slavery. Lincoln is today held as a model president for the decisions he made at this crucial moment. It’s hard to argue against him either since time has proven all people are equal and they deserve at the very least the freedom to decide their own destinies.