The Civil War grew out of longstanding tensions and disagreements about economic policies, cultural values, the extent and reach of the Federal government, and, perhaps most importantly, the place of slavery within American society. Its four-year conflict not only preserved the nation created in 1776, it transformed it. The old decentralized republic in which the Federal government had few direct contacts with individual citizens morphed into one that taxed people directly, drafted men for army service, established a national banking system and currency, seized and confiscated billions of dollars in private property, and freed 4 million slaves.
Defense of “states’ rights,” Southern resentment of perceived northern criticism and condescension, and the fear of Federal coercion were all factors in secession and the decision to go to war. But these were not the main reasons that seven slave states left the Union during the winter of 1860-1861. The real reason was the South’s refusal to join a nation that questioned the morality and legality of slavery. The war that resulted was a bloody, brutal struggle in which the Old South fell apart, slavery ended, and America became a major industrial power.
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