Draft talk:How or If the Founding Principles were displayed in the Civil War

The Civil War (between the Northern states and Southern states in the United States) was a very well known war, that has been at times, improperly thought to be a war fought to free slaves in the United States. The war which began April 12, 1861, ending May 9, 1865, began with a series of events including when Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States with a 40 percent plurality, carrying the Electoral College without a vote from the south. Southerners were outraged that Lincoln had won. Reactions to the election included the state of South Carolina declaring a secession from the U.S. in December of 1860 prompting ten other southern states to leave the union by February claiming "We are divorced, North and South." The final straw that caused the war happened on April 12, when Fort Sumter's commander refused to surrender, shore batteries opened fire and President Lincoln declared insurrection, calling for 75,000 volunteers.

The division between the Northern part and Southern part of the United States was due to the question of expansion of slavery into new territory like New Mexico and California. The northern states consisted of a lot of abolitionist who felt that slavery was morally wrong, while the opposition, the southern states, were pro-slavery and many southern citizens owned plantations (rice, tobacco, cotton) that used slave labor to work on these plantations. Many northerners were not opposed to slavery, they just did not want slavery to expand to other states in the union. They wanted a gradual emancipation that free slaves over time not immediately while compensating the slave owners. Southerners felt that if they were denied expansion into the new western territories, their rights as citizens were being violated.

The Declaration of Independence states: We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In this statement many in the north felt that this applied to all men including slaves, and thus was a violation of principles set forth by the Founding Fathers.

Samariaroundtree (talk) 22:08, 10 October 2017 (UTC)