Was slavery the only cause of the Civil War? There are those that would have us believe that it was the only cause. Many historians say that slavery was the main issue of the Civil War. Although some historians think the war was the result of political screw-ups and that the issue of slavery did not cause the war. Yet again others claim that there were other more serious causes that lay below the surface. Like politics, economics, sectionalism, and the constitution, and that slavery was just the match that set the Civil War off.
"Approximately 620,000 soldiers died during the Civil War. Almost as many as the combined dead of all other wars from the Revolutionary War through the Vietnam War (Boritt 634)". The Civil War destroyed property worth billions of dollars, brought freedom to over four million slaves, and opened sores that haven't healed completely to this day.
The debate on the main cause of the Civil War has been going on for years and will probably still be going on a hundred years from now. So we will start at the beginning, which was long before the war began to see if the exact cause can be defined.
Most Americans today do not realize that the constitution that our country is run by today was not the first constitution written. In 1776, when independence was declared, a constitution was written and was called, The Articles of the Confederation. At that time this constitution worked for the new country, but within ten years it was discovered that there were problems with it and the government wasn't working the way it should be (Maestro 4).
The Articles of the Confederation was found to have serious problems. Two of which were that the people of the country were poor and hungry. The government had no way to raise money and no way to raise or collect taxes. No state had the power to control trade among the different states, and there was no way to carry out the laws that congress passed or to bring justice to anyone who would not obey these laws (Hauptly 16).