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Civil War

Essay by   •  March 16, 2011  •  1,088 Words (5 Pages)  •  1,246 Views

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Civil War

As I sat thinking about what to write about i started to realize that slavery and war were the two things that at leat keep me going and I knew i could say alot on both. I couldn't quite figgure out how i was going to join the two until i did some research and other reading and started to remember the civil war and it's purposes. I not one to into history but i came across some very interesting information which i felt could bring my points of view out quite effectively. So here it is my feelings and viewpoints on Slavery during, within, and after the civil war. The Civil War was doubly tragic because it was completely unnecessary. Slavery had been ended in other nations with the stroke of a pen, and yet in the mighty United States the country was willing to go to war over the issue of whether slavery should remain. The southerners felt that it was their constitutional right to own slaves and did not see a time when they should be required to give up that right. However, upon the election of Lincoln as President, the southerners felt threatened, and felt their slave holding rights were being threatened, and in an effort to protect these rights they chose to secede from the union. Why would any one person want to own another human being with the same intestines, some of the same feelings yet a different color for their own good . This was quite crazy if you ask me , I feel that the southerners should have felt threatened and that if what they were doing were so right why feel so threatened about doing it.The northerners and Lincoln saw the importance of maintaining a united country, set out to bring back the seceded states. Thus the Civil War began. During the civil war many Americans were either killed or wounded, this number was only surpassed by World War II. While the civil war originally began as a quest to bring the southern states back to the union. However, the goal of the war did soon change to that of abolition. While the war may have seemed necessary to the soldiers and governments who were participating, in retrospect it was unnecessary. In three separate European countries, slavery had been abolished prior to the American Civil War, and each without arms being raised. Slavery had been abolished in Britain in 1838, Sweden in 1848, and in Holland in 1863. It indeed could have similarly been abolished in the United States. However, the southerners, who were dependent on the slave institution, refused to give up their right to own slaves easily. Had the South been more progressively thinking many lives would have been saved and blood need not have been shed in the name of slavery. This is particularly true because if the south had given up their right to free labor (slavery), they would have soon received the gift of mechanical labor. Indeed they might have profited more from the use of the machines which were soon to be invented, as they did not require housing, and food. However, the southerners were deeply rooted in their institution of slavery and were prepared to go to war over their feelings. Did it ever come to mind that the slaves were to willing to got o war over their own freedom. If one were to ask that question then that would have been a war too unforgotten. Duuring this war the battlefields were transformed into shambles where during the duration of the war 634,703 union soldiers were killed or wounded, and 335,524 confederate soldiers were killed or wounded. Indeed this was the second most intense war second to World War II. In the civil war 3,846 soldiers from both the union army and the confederate army were killed per month of fighting. This

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