5 things that led to the civil war
1. State's rights and slavery
2. The precedent set by nullification that led to secessionism
3. Slavery's role as an inseparable part of the South's economy
4. Influence from England on the Southern market
5. The election of Abraham Lincoln leading to a feeling that the south was being betrayed
It is said that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it and America has had a history of repetition. The biggest themes to have come from the period between 1607 and 1861 are expansion, enslavement, and hypocrisy. The first European settlers to come to America and successfully set up shop came here with the intention of expanding their homeland's range of power. The multiple groups of people now settled fought each other for control of the most land while also fighting the natives who had already been living there. Ultimately, the drive to rule all of North America continued until America controlled all of the land it currently does (with the exception of Hawaii and Alaska). We had been using forced labor to fuel this endeavor. First it was failed attempts to force the natives to work for us and indentured servitude by those wishing to come here. Later, it would be the crushing institution of slavery using Africans. This is also where the hypocrisy plays in. Many settlers moved to America to escape tyrannical rule either under a ruler or religion or whatever else. We then preceded to become oppressive puritans who split off into new states to escape those tyrants. Our land of freedom did this multiple times over, creating new states to escape form the old, previously free ones. To fuel our freedom, we forced people across the world to work for us, to build or new world and expand into lands we had no reason to assume was ours except that out god willed it.
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