ABSTRACT
The American Civil War was caused by the national fight over Southern slavery. By the 1840s, slavery was generating both tremendous profits and moral outrage, and although most white Americans would have preferred not to have to think about it, the polarization of aggressive proslavery and aggressive antislavery ideologies steadily eroded the cultural middle ground on which the nation had stood since 1787. Modern scholarship continues to debate the origins of the war, and different accounts emphasize different forces, processes, and events. Culminating the increasingly fierce politics of the 1850s, the election of 1860 was an enormously complex affair that reflected divisions not only between North and South but within each region, and it featured bitter disputes about fundamental questions regarding slavery and national identity. Doubtless the founders of our government, the majority of them at least, regarded the confederation of the colonies as an experiment.
