The Civil War Since the Civil War, historians have attributed many causes to the bloodiest
conflict between brothers the world has ever witnessed. Some said it was economic, with a mercantile North and an agricultural
South, others said the South wanted to remain a colony of Europe, and yet others brought in politics, constitutional law,
manners, customs, and morals, all of which contributed its share.
However, the real reason was stated best by General Ulysses S.
Grant when he wrote in the closing months of his life, “For some years before the war began it was a trite saying
among some politicians that, a state half slave and half free cannot exist….I took no part myself in any such view
of the case at the time, but…I have come to the conclusion that the saying is quite true.”
The Constitution
proved to be the anchor of this nation that it is one nation and all citizens are equal and have equal rights to life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness within the nation. Thus the Civil War, the darkest part of the American Story, was unavoidable
because a nation divided against its self cannot stand.
From America’s early years, men like Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Anthony
Burns, John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, William Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant went down in history, each having a part in keeping
the United States one nation under God with each citizen having the same rights to freedom.
No one understood
more than Abraham Lincoln that the North had not gone to war to free slaves, but to restore the Union. Brother fighting against
brother was unthinkable to him, yet was necessary to preserve this nation.
Lincoln’s kindness to the South after
the war, in that he was willing to offer payment for the slaves he had freed, ultimately cost him his life and the United
States the greatest of all Presidents.
