(Written for my Year 12 History essay)
...The ‘War Between States’ (Civil War) was influenced by conflicting views on the state
and federal rights. The quest for rights began over 100 years prior to the
Civil War during the American Revolutionary War, a conflict between Great
Britain and its American colonies who disagreed with their treatment as part of
the empire. By the Treaty of Paris that ended the war in 1783, the colonies won
their independence[1].
After this revolution, two separate groups emerged: those arguing for greater
rights for individual states and those arguing for more control for the federal
government. The first organised government that followed the American
Revolution was a loose confederation. At the time there were thirteen states
that had a weak federal government, known as the Articles of Confederation. This
then led to the formation of the US Constitution at the Constitutional
Convention. Strong advocates for increased state’s rights, such as Thomas
Jefferson, were not present at the meeting, and therefore their opinions were
not considered. The new constitution ignored the rights of states to continue
to act independently, and many believed states should be allowed to
individually decide if they were willing to accept the federal acts in the
Constitution. Nullification, where states could rule federal acts
unconstitutional, was considered and denied, and in its place states moved
towards secession. This secession saw eleven states break away from the Union,
therefore becoming part of the Confederacy. Of these eleven states, four did
not secede until after the beginning of the Civil War. This secession added to
the already present hostility on the issue of slavery, dividing the country
between the North and South even further. This evidence suggests that
disagreements over state and federal rights contributed to the outbreak of the
American Civil War between the Union and Confederacy, which was formed through
secession.
