History Paper

Hey guys, I finished the first two pages of my comprehensive eight to ten-page paper today, would anyone mind giving it a once-over and commenting?

Much appreciation. Thanks guys.

Title Pending

Just as any other war, there were very many things going on at the time of the Civil War that contributed to it. Many factors affected the war in various ways, but no one was attributable to the entire thing. The political background at the time was complicated. The issue that is commonly said to have started the war was slavery. Despite popular belief slavery is not the main subject that started the war; it was an attributing factor. State secession was the biggest, foremost reason the Civil War of America began, and it started for a variety of reasons.

The causes of the Civil War are still being discussed today. It’s a historical fact that the first known “battle” was the siege of Fort Sumter by forces organized by South Carolina. But what had caused the war to start is debated among scholars even today. Many parties think that slavery was the biggest issue at hand; others think it was states rights, and both are correct. As any war, a variety of things contributed.

You really have to see it from the South’s perspective to understand why secession was so appealing. The South had fewer cities and population density. They relied on plantations and agriculture for their economy to grow and develop. Slave ownership was crucial to drive these plantations and create economy. The North’s population was growing rapidly, and manufacturing was how their economy developed. With little immigration into the South, work was harder to come by. With such a slave-driven economy, the growth of the Republican Party and abolitionism was threatening their economy and a way of life. Several politically active southerners made their opinions known during the era of the Civil War. Among them was J. Mills Thornton III. He believed that “Alabamans were prepared to believe the worst when Lincoln was elected.” This shows some of the beliefs and worries for the Southern way of life regarding slavery before the war.

Aside from slavery, the general ideology of the North was rapidly changing from that of the South. As the Republican Party grew more prominent in the North, hostilities grew. Southern beliefs that states’ power shouldn’t be so limited in relation to the federal government were pitted against the Northern beliefs that the federal government should be greater. The North didn’t necessarily believe in the federal government over state’s rights, but were growing angrier with the South using state’s rights as an excuse to condone slavery and traffic them from state to state. Tensions increased as the states continued to argue over this. As J. Mills Thornton believed, Abraham Lincoln’s election would spell bad news for the South. When he was elected in November of 1860, the South was in an outrage. This was essentially the start of the Civil War.

The South had believed it was doomed. It was a minority in comparison to the North, whose population had been growing rapidly. They knew that they had less people, and that the North’s political ideology was different than their own. Because of this, they were bound to never win politically, and thus fought for state rights. South Carolina had been the biggest anti-North presence thus-far. During the 1851 constitutional conventions, South Carolina didn’t even have the option to not secede. Instead, they had one to “not secede without collaboration of other states.” Lincoln’s election enraged the state so much, that they decided to become proactive. South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union on December 20th 1860. They besieged Fort Sumter April 12th 1861. This marked the first act of the American Civil War. Fort Sumter was captured without battle-related deaths the next day.

So yeah. It's not complete. It's supposed to be eight pages. To ensure that time, care, and effort is put into the entire writing process, our teacher has us do it bit by bit and spreads it out over several assignments. It's a stress-reducing, quality-producing process that works pretty well. Anyway, it's a rough draft of the first two pages, keep that in mind. Thanks guys.

its well written, I can't comment on the quality of history as I have never studied the period myself...one piece of advice - you need to get a title NOW - the title always guides...

I like the way you've written it so far - and even though I know absolutely nothing about American history, it doesn't really get boring. Good work.

The only thing I would change is the the first part of the first sentence; I would say 'Just like any other war', or 'As with any other war'. These just seem to make more sense to me.

Good luck with the rest!

I wasn't expecting anyone to know anything about the historical content or accuracy itself. I know that probably less than half of ZU is from America. And I also know that about less than half of Americans know anything about the American Civil War (a survery found that half of Americans couldn't even tell you a date).

But much appreciation on the comments, and thanks for the suggestions

O--(^_^Q)