Beginnings Of The Civil War

Topic 1 Precis Paper

The causes of conflict for the Civil War are numerous and can be traced back to almost one hundred years before the war ever even began. The argument over whether the states should hold power or whether or not the government should have all the power is something that was fought over during the framing of the Constitution. This is just a side of human nature. Everybody wants to hold power but not everyone can. The problems start when people realize that they have the right to this power and then begin to plan how they are going to take that power and hold onto it.

The arguments that begin with the Federalists and Antifederalists are what keeps these two sides from ever reaching a compromise. Sure, the Constitution helps protect some of the states rights with things such as the 10th Amendment which states that the powers not given to the states by the Constitution or prohibited by the Constitution to the states are reserved for the states or for the people. This is a big step at the beginning because this basically says that if the Constitution doesn't say anything about a certain subject, the states can grant themselves the power in that situation. It is my belief that the Federalists did not really understand what they were allowing initially but they made quick efforts to try and take that power away from the states. The case of Fletcher v. Peck made sure that the states' powers and laws would be carefully watched over by the father figure federal government.

And that's what all this seems like in my opinion. The Federalists saw a national government as a way to act like a father to the states. If the federal government did it's job like the Federalists wished, the states would have to explain all of their ideas and decisions to the government and then the federal government would have to decide whether or not that was up to what it wanted. It's all one big power struggle that cannot be compromised and eventually with new generations joining in the argument and becoming more and more hostile to the other side it was only a matter of time before one side decided the only way to settle the matter was to go to war.

Another large cause of conflict was the argument in the country about slavery. As stated in class, we are all led to believe that the North was this great opponent of slavery and they fought the Civil War with ending slavery being their main reason for fighting. And as we all know, this is complete crap. The hypocrisy of the North is almost infuriating. Yes, the South was using slavery