Cause And Effect And Comparison-Contrast

Causes and Effects of Civil War

Introduction

American History has been tainted and marred by several atrocious, conflicting, debatable and controversial incidents that historians have superficially focused upon. One of such highly controversial and highlighted incident was the Civil War that broke out in 1860 and went on till 1865. It was one of the most brutal regional wars ever fought within a country. For the sake of more details and insights about the avoidably of the war, respective paper will briefly discuss various underlying causes that triggered the Civil War, and then will discuss if the war could have been restricted or completely ceased without the damage that was done during the war.

Cultural Diversity and Multi Ethnicity

One of the major reason that gave rise to this discriminatory social ideology was the co-existence of multicultural and multi-ethnic population within the same region. Sense of superiority started surfacing in certain classes of society that suppressed and degraded the others significantly. In case of Civil War and Civil Rights Movement, major-split was between the whites and the African Americans. The white Americans perceived them to be superior and more fortunate as compared to African Americans who were perceived to be appropriate for slavery. Their rights were taken away and freedom was curbed by modifying and manipulating the U.S. Legislation. For instance, the Jim Crow Laws and the Black Codes were legally passed by the congress to degrade and humiliate the African Americans of that time.

Apart from racial segregation, the differences between the northern and the southern states also became a pivotal cause of segregation. This split was also ridden by challenges of slavery and racial segregation. Due to industrial challenges and uncertainty regarding the issues of trade, political electorate and slavery, southern states started breaking their unification agreement (Clowers, 2011). Sense of alienation and segregation along with the fear of being culturally ignored started taking toll. South Caroline was the first state to opt out of the agreements. This sense of depravity could have been overcome by proper and intelligent political intervention. But nothing intervened and things kept on going worst.

Jim Crow Law

The term Jim Crow originated from a minstrel Performance in which a white boy played a character of a black boy by smearing charcoal all over his face. He further made extremely humiliating and offensive moves on the stage that were intolerable for the blacks but entertaining for the whites. This show became so popular among the whites that they started using the term – Jim Crow, as a stereotyped phrase for segregating and humiliating the blacks all over the country. The term was so strongly disfranchised by the whites that an entire new Law was legally and constitutionally formulated against the blacks for discriminating them from political, social, educational and recreational point of view.

Meanwhile, the Jim Crow Ideology was progressing and developing as more severe incidents such as Bloody Summers and Prison Farms started to surface without any actions taken against the actual culprits (Delany & Delany, 1993). Most of these incidents were taking place in the southern states. And this was also one of the primary cause between the conflict of southern and northern states.

Miscegenation Laws

Introduction of Miscegenation Laws within the southern states was the most offensive act of all. According to this law, there was complete prohibition of inter-racial marriages that confirmed the blacks as a humiliated and degraded race. Some of the historians have tagged this particular law as ‘Ultimate Act of Segregation’ (Washington, 1901). These laws made it clear that blacks are posing a cultural threat for the whites, and they must be kept as low as possible for the benefit of white Americans. Under these laws, even after blacks were allowed to vote, there votes were destroyed at the polling booths (Washington, 1901).

Resulting Anger and Frustration in African Americans

United States have exhibited one of the worst form of civil right violations in its history that had eventually led to the Civil War that kept on going for 4 consecutive years. The major causes for this civil war were the racial and ethnic discrimination, unjust distribution of the political representatives and slavery. This led to an unjust and uncomfortable environment in the United States

Effects

As per an estimate, the number of killings per day during the civil war exceeded twenty-five hundred thousand men; and that makes more than one million casualties over the span of four years (Jauiline, 2011). These statistics make the Civil War one of the most expensive and bloodiest war of American histories (Jaquiline, 2011). Other than these, as a result of the military operations and supremacy, more that 55,000 young boys were forced to level their homes and families and were forced to live under inhuman conditions within jails and prisons that were small, confined cubicles (Balire, 2006). These prisoners were starved here and were attacked by fatal epidemics and diseases, killing another 13000 at the Andersonville Camp (Blaire, 2006). This entire episode of extreme brutalities and civil cruelties were the result of segregationally ideologies and discriminatory social philosophies that were extremely string in the society of that time (Jaquiline, 2011).

References

Jacquiline. "Stop The Civil War." Glogster. http://jacqueline968.glogster.com/stop-the-civil-war/. 2011

Blair, Jayne E. The Essential Civil War: A Handbook to the Battles, Armies, Navies And Commanders. 2006

Delany, Sarah L., A. Elizabeth Delany, and Amy Hill Hearth. Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years, New York: Kodansha America. 1993

Washington, Booker T. “Up for Slavery”. http://www.bartleby.com/1004/ 1901.