Though a large number of people ill-informedly assume that slavery was the sole cause

for the division of the Union in 1861 and subsequent Civil War, tensions between North and

South were present and on the rise long before the question of the morality of slavery became a

widespread issue. These sectional tensions were often based upon politics—the Nullification

Crisis, notably, demonstrated this sectional division in that almost all dissent for the policy came

from southern states such as Georgia due the impacts of tariffs upon the southern economy. The

Civil War was actually a result of a number of long-lasting sectional tensions, some of which

existed under the guise of having to do with the legality or morality of slavery but, in reality,

were not wholly related to the issue. The events of 1861 and onward were less about slavery or

the abolition of its institutions and more about prior tensions such as the political-economic

divisions between North and South, the country-wide possessiveness that occurred during the

time period, and issues surrounding Manifest Destiny.

Economic divisions in America were present and the source of much of the sectional

tension even before the Industrial Revolution, but the increasing presence and importance of

industry in the North versus the undiversified agriculturally-based economy of the North only

served to exacerbate tensions in the period leading up to the dissolution of the Union in 1861.

Document 4, though demonstrating the division between free, slave, and popular sovereignty

states, also demonstrates the economic division between these areas. While the southern

economy (as previously stated, based upon undiversified crop-farming) was admittedly aided by

slave labor, many middle class southern farmers neither owned nor depended upon slaves,

meaning that economic tensions were related more to economic politics. The southern economy

meant that the number of those belonging to a political party with anti-tariff policies was largely

disproportionate to the number of such people in the north. The undiversified economy also
meant that the railroad industry never fully took hold of the South like it did in the North

(Document 6). While the North expanded almost across the country, the South had neither the

need nor the materials to match the sheer number of railroad routes that popped up in more

industrial states, which later led to the disconnect between the Transcontinental Railroad and so

much of the South. Even despite the country-wide disconnect, the political parties of the time

were undergoing a number of micro-schisms that ended in a divide among the Democratic

platform (Document 7). The document aimed to illustrate the division of the party and the

destructiveness in the south of such a disunity—a disunity caused by sectionalism. The political

turmoil led to “Northern Democrats” and “Southern Democrats,” which further strained relations

between the North and South on the grounds of politics and economy.

Despite differences in politics and economy between the North and South, this period in

American history does demonstrate how agreement between two regions can be ruinous as

well—in this case, the shared nationalism and possessiveness of both regions that caused, in part,

the break-up of the Union. Document 2, a document about the Mexican-American War,

demonstrates how this nationalism and the wish to potentially expand was country-wide and

shared by both regions in that the document discusses the act of war against Mexico with one,

unified country. Though both of the other two related documents demonstrating this

possessiveness discuss the issue of slavery, the problems ran deeper than that. Document 3

discusses the Wilmot Proviso, an act that would outlaw the spread of slavery to the Mexican

Cession territories—the document, spoken by the creator of the act, aimed to convince Congress

to pass the act—but tensions increased not because of this (the act was not passed), but because

of both regions’ desires for the continuation of its respective precedents due to nationalism.

Document 3 proves this in the quote, “Must we yield this also?”, which illustrates the fact that
the issue is not, in reality, slavery itself but the possessiveness over this new land by each

region—an impact of the sectional tensions. Both the North and South feared its traditions would

be eradicated during the expansion of American lands; the increased tensions following the

Compromise of 1850 aid this point. The North disagreed with the Fugitive Slave Law following

the Compromise despite the fact that California was admitted as a free state, but the South

viewed the act as unfair due to perceived “unbalanced representation” in the government as

compared to the North. The Dred Scott Case, as discussed in Document 5, also relates to the

spread of precedents due to sectional possessiveness. The Dred Scott decision, in which slaves

were marked as property, was fully meant to open the door to the spread of slavery above the

Missouri Compromise line, once again not about slavery but about the regions’ possessiveness

over the country and its new lands.

The country’s new lands were acquired solely because of Manifest Destiny, Americans’

“right” to westward expansion. And because these lands were west, not North or South, Manifest

Destiny caused a number of problems leading up to the Union’s split. Document 1 discusses the

annexation of Texas, a problem that increased tensions between North and South because of the

ambiguity over its status as a state. Due to its location beneath the Missouri Compromise line, it

would technically be a slave state, but because of its simultaneous westward location beyond the

Louisiana Purchase, debates arose between Northerners and Southerners, therefore increasing

tensions, but these debates were more about the extent to which previous laws applied to new

lands than they were about slavery. Manifest Destiny and westward expansion opened doors to

new debates over the extent of old acts and laws. An abundance of issues stemmed from

this—Bleeding Kansas, for example, stemmed from debates over the status of the Kansas

Territory. Both Northerners and Southerners flocked to the territory in order to establish it as
either a free or slave state. The violent confrontations were caused by these debates over the

extent of previous laws and newly-established ones—here, this was popular sovereignty, a

system in which the people of the state voted on the matter of slavery in the territory—rather

than slavery itself. If not for these previous laws, the confrontations would have likely not

occurred, and the death of both Northerners and Southerners during Bleeding Kansas led more to

the breakup of the Union than the admission of Kansas into the Union as a free state did.

Though a lot of the confrontations and tensions leading up to the break-up were, on the

most basic surface level, about slavery, the dissolution was actually caused more by sectional

tensions. These sectional tensions had been on the rise long before slavery was an issue and were

based on political-economic differences, possessiveness over new lands and old precedents, and

the unclearness over new lands acquired through Manifest Destiny. Yes, the Civil War ended in

the abolition of slavery, but these tensions lasted through Reconstruction, and the Jim Crow

Laws and black codes further prove that slavery was not the biggest issue, but sectionalism was.