who started the civil war in the united states
American Civil War The American Civil War (commonly known as the "Civil War" in the United States) was fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The result of a long-standing controversy over slavery, war broke out in April 1861, when Confederates attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina, shortly after Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated. The nationalists of the Union proclaimed loyalty to the U.S. Constitution. They faced secessionists of the Confederate States of America, who advocated for statesâ€™ rights to perpetual slavery and its expansion in the Americas.
Origins of the American Civil War As a panel of historians emphasized in 2011, "while slavery and its various and multifaceted discontents were the primary cause of disunion, it was disunion itself that sparked the war."[4] Pulitzer Prize winning author David Potter wrote, "The problem for Americans who, in the age of Lincoln, wanted slaves to be free was not simply that southerners wanted the opposite, but that they themselves cherished a conflicting value: they wanted the Constitution, which protected slavery, to be honored, and the Union, which had fellowship with slaveholders, to be preserved. Thus they were committed to values that could not logically be reconciled."[5] Other important factors were partisan politics, abolitionism, nullification vs secession, Southern nationalism, Northern nationalism, expansionism, economics and modernization in the Antebellum period.
American Revolution Support for the conflict had never been strong in Britain, where many sympathized with the Americans, but now it reached a new low.[72] King George III personally wanted to fight on, but his supporters lost control of Parliament and no further major land offensives were launched in the American Theater.[65][73]
Origins of the American Civil War Historians debating the origins of the American Civil War focus on the reasons why seven Southern states declared their secession from the United States (the Union), why they united to form the Confederate States of America (simply known as the "Confederacy"), and why the North refused to let them go. While most historians agree that conflicts over slavery caused the war, they disagree sharply regarding which kinds of conflict—ideological, economic, political, or social—were most important.[1]