Reference no: EM133327487

Question: What was the main reason that the Union (i.e. the North/United States) fought the Civil War.

In 1861 the United States fought the deadliest war the country has ever experienced, still to this day that holds true. The Civil war was fought between the north also known as the Union and the south commonly known as the confederacy. The South, technically speaking, played defense the entire war, they were being attacked by the Union for reasons that will be discussed later on. It has been said that in war it is easier to defend because unless the attacking side has a 2 to 1 ratio then the side defending will more than likely come out victorious. But in the United States Civil war we saw the attacking Union be able to defeat the defending South.

In the lecture 'Civil War' that was posted to the module, it gave four strong reasons on why the Union attacked the south. This first idea, which is known as the traditional argument, states that the war was originally for the Union to keep it all together. And then over time the motive switched when the Union started fighting to end slavery. The end goal for the Union was to bring the Union together as a non-slave holding republic. This argument is strong since the Union could have been fighting this war for themselves but then once they continued to see slavery as an issue in the United States they then switched to fight for slavery because it was the right thing to use military force for.

The second argument about why the Union fought the Civil War is an idea of the traditional value, which is that the Union was not fighting for emancipation but rather to defend the Union and that's it. Emancipation is a goal to help the slaves, and many people in the north believed that people were still very cruel to slaves in the north so how could they be fighting for slavery in the south when they still allowed it in the north.

The third idea is a tie off of the traditional value and completely opposite to the second argument. In this idea, people believe that the Union were only fighting because of slavery. Republicans in the north said that if slaves are not freed they were going to get the military to fight for the freedom of slavery. This is exactly what happened, the Republicans stuck with their word and used military forces to fight the south to free slaves. Many people stand with this idea because it is the only idea that has evidence of why they fought, because at during the war we see the Union use miliatry force to free slaves.

The last idea is an argument that the Union felt the idea of slave power and that they needed to fight against the south. This idea can be seen as effective because it uses politics and shows how the Republicans could use their political power.

Overall, these four ideas all have their pros and cons to them and that is why there are multiple ideas because if one was clearly the answer on why the Union fought the south then there would not be so many ideas. However, I think there are multiple reasons why the Union fought because I believe that there were so many people fighting for different reasons. The north was a very densely populated area with thriving industries compared to the agricultural south. That means that, with that many people there are many ideas on why they fought and each and everyone was fighting for a different reason. With that, the Union's leaders did have to have a reason to start fighting and I believe that their reason was to end slavery, their reasoning ended up coming true, slavery was abolished and that is what they set out to do. In conclusion, there are many ideas on why the Union fought the Civil War and I think this is the reason because so many different people were fighting for a different reason.