1.

The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other
names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union[f] ("the
North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states that had
seceded. The central cause of the war was the dispute over whether slavery would be
permitted to expand into the western territories, leading to more slave states, or be
prevented from doing so, which was widely believed would place slavery on a course
of ultimate extinction.
The Civil War is one of the most extensively studied and written about episodes in
U.S. history. The American Civil War was among the first wars to use industrial
warfare. Railroads, the telegraph, steamships, the ironclad warship, and
mass-produced weapons were all widely used during the war. In total, the war left
between 620,000 and 750,000 soldiers dead, along with an undetermined number of
civilian casualties, making the Civil War the deadliest military conflict in American
history
2. Causes
Slavery
Disagreements among states about the future of slavery were the main cause of
disunion and the war that followed. Slavery had been controversial during the framing
of the Constitution, which, because of compromises, ended up with proslavery and
antislavery features

Abolitionists
The abolitionists—those advocating the end of slavery—were active in the decades
leading up to the Civil War. They traced their philosophical roots back to Puritans,
who believed that slavery was morally wrong.

States' rights
A long-running dispute over the origin of the Civil War is to what extent states' rights
triggered the conflict. The consensus among historians is that the Civil War was not
fought about states' rights.[84][85][86][87] But the issue is frequently referenced in
popular accounts of the war and has much traction among Southerners. Southerners
advocating secession argued that just as each state had decided to join the Union, a
state had the right to secede—leave the Union—at any time. Northerners (including
pro-slavery President Buchanan) rejected that notion as opposed to the will of the
Founding Fathers, who said they were setting up a perpetual union.

Territorial crisis
Manifest destiny heightened the conflict over slavery. Each new territory acquired had
to face the thorny question of whether to allow or disallow the "peculiar institution".

Nationalism and honor

Nationalism was a powerful force in the early 19th century, with famous spokesmen
such as Andrew Jackson and Daniel Webster. While practically all Northerners
 supported the Union, Southerners were split between those loyal to the entirety of the
United States

Lincoln's election
The election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860 was the final trigger for
secession.[110] Southern leaders feared that Lincoln would stop the expansion of
slavery and put it on a course toward extinction.

Outbreak of the war

Secession crisis
The election of Lincoln provoked the legislature of South Carolina to call a state
convention to consider secession. Before the war, South Carolina did more than any
other Southern state to advance the notion that a state had the right to nullify federal
laws, and even to secede from the United States.

Battle of Fort Sumter

The Battle of Fort Sumter, as depicted by Currier and Ives
The American Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces opened
fire on the Union-held Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter is located in the middle of the harbor
of Charleston, South Carolina.

3. Aftermath
Radical Republicans
The Radical Republicans were a faction of the Republican party that sought to impose
a harsh version of Reconstruction over the former Confederate states following the
Civil War. They were also very supportive of establishing and protecting the civil and
voting rights of the newly freed Black population of the south.

Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

On the night of April 14 1865, while watching a play at Ford's Theatre with his wife,
Abraham Lincoln was shot in the head by actor John Wilkes Booth. He died the next
day, April 15 1865. Lincoln was the first President of the United States to be
assassinated.

Reconstruction
Reconstruction refers to the period immediately after the Civil War from 1865 to 1877
when several United States administrations sought to reconstruct society in the former
Confederate states in particular by establishing and protecting the legal rights of the
newly freed black population. Historians consider Reconstruction to be a total failure
as the former Confederate states did not recover economically from the devastation of
the war and the Black population was reduced to second class status with limited
rights enforced through violence and discrimination.

13th Amendment
 The Thirteenth Amendment of the United States Constituion was ratified in December
1865. It abolished slavery in the United States.

Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan or KKK is a violent extremist group. It has had three different
manifestations in three different eras. The first era, when the group was founded, was
in the aftermath of the Civil War, particularly during Reconstruction. The Klan
operated as a vigilante group that targeted newly freed black populations and
Republican politicians in the Reconstruction governments of the former Confederacy.
Though it was officially disbanded in 1869, it continued to function well into the the
early 1870s.. The KKK did not resurface again until the beginning of the 20th century.

Civil Rights Act of 1871

Following the Civil War as part of the Reconstruction period, various Civil Rights
Acts were passed to extend rights of emancipated slaves, prohibit discrimination, and
fight violence directed at the newly freed populations. The Act passed in 1871 in
particular was intended to combat the Ku Klux Klan specifically by suspending the
writ of habeas corrpus. (Habeas corpus is the right to seek to take legal action to seek
relief from unlawful imprisonment.) President Grant used the authority granted to him
by this act to dismantle the KKK which did not resurface until the beginning of the
20th century

Panic of 1873
The Panic of 1873 was an economic depression that lasted from 1873 to 1879.

4. Effects
The Civil War confirmed the single political entity of the United States, led to
freedom for more than four million enslaved Americans, established a more powerful
and centralized federal government, and laid the foundation for America's emergence
as a world power in the 20th century.

Though freedom did not lead to equality for former slaves, the Civil War initiated
immense constitutional changes that re-defined the nature of American society and
acted as a point of departure in the struggle for equal civil and human rights