The South which was know as the Confederate States of America seceded fromthe North, which was also know as the Union. The reason they wanted tosucceed was because there was four decades of great sectional conflictbetween the two. The North and South had between them deep economic,social, and political differences. The South wanted to become anindependent nation. There were many reasons why the South wanted tosucceed but the main reason had to do with the North’s view on slavery.
All of these issues were basically a different interpretation of the UnitedStates Constitution on both sides. In the end all of these disagreement onboth sides led to the Civil War, in which the North won.
Some of the other reason other than slavery issue, that the South disagreedon and that persuaded them to succeed the Union.The Northern statesfavored a loose interpretation of the United States Constitution.TheNorth wanted to grant the federal government increased powers. The Southwanted to reserve all undefined powers to the individual states. The Northwanted internal improvements sponsored by the federal government. This wasto add more roads, railroads and canals.
The main reason for the South’s secession was the Slavery issue. People inthe South used all kinds of reasons to sanction slavery. Many of themcould not understand why the people in the North wanted slavery abolished.
Southerners wanted to expand the use of slavery when new territories wereacquired.In 1848 the Union acquired a huge piece of territory fromMexico. This opened up new opportunities for the spread of slavery.
The last main conflict that led to succession was during the presidentialelection of 1860. The newly formed Republican party, nominated AbrahamLincoln on principles that opposed the further expansion of slavery. TheSoutherners hoped the threat of succession would force acceptance ofSouthern demands, but it did not. The existence of slavery was the centralelement of the conflict between the North and South. The only way to avoidthe war was to abolish slavery. The abolishment of slavery wasn’taccomplished because slavery kept the South running. Because slavery formedto opposing societies and slavery could not be abolished the Civil War wasinevitable. The North and South had totally opposing views.
