In my eyes the civil war was inevitable. At a time when a nation split into two and each differing so greatly there is no question that all roads lead to war. From slavery to the social, economic, and political points of view, dating from colonial times, everythin gradually drove the two sections farther and farther apart, and closer and closer to war.
Before the Civil War, the greatest regional difference in the U.S. was between the South and the rest of the nation. The cornerstone of that difference was slavery. The South kept it, while between 1777 and 1804, eight Northeasters states passed laws eliminating it. There also were other differences of economic significance. For example, the South was less urbanized than the Northeast, and there were vastly fewer foreign born people, relatively and absolutely, living in the South than in any other region, but these were less significant and were related to slavery.
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