THE CONTEXT OF THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR To understand why the American Civil War started, a war where over 600,000 men died, where brother turned against brother, we must go back way before hostilities broke out in 1861 to understand the roots of the conflict. Whilst there is no doubt that slavery was one of the main reasons for the war, there were also several other factors which combined to create a situation where a major confrontation of some sort was inevitable, after years of internal tension, political anger and violence. The conflict can be seen as a matter of geography: the industrial North, Whig, radical, where business and industry flourished, as opposed to the agricultural South, Democrat , conservative, suspicious of federal power. A situation, therefore, of opposition between two different cultures, and perhaps more significantly, two differing ways of imagining the future of the Unites States of America. It is difficult to lose sight of the fact that through this conflict, the modern USA that we know was legally created. It was a young country before the war, still expanding to the South and the West, a fact that also played a crucial role in the run up to the conflict, as the balance between these two cultures shifted. From the start of the 1850's onwards, it would be possible to argue that some major problems lay ahead - the foundations for the ensuing violence were there already, and the ten years before the start of the War represent a time of increasing tension, exploding into open warfare in the 1860's. THE MAIN FACTORS The middle years of the nineteenth century were a very exciting era in the history of the United States. With the goldrush to California in 1849 and new states being formed in the West, especially after the Mexican war, the country was going though enormous changes. The very nature of the population was changing, as it expanded and took in many more immigrants from Europe. As all these things took place, tensions inevitably arose in the political system of the country. Here is a look at some of the main factors, characters and events which led to 1861 and the start of the war: Slavery The political pressures of immigration to America The Confederacy Breaks Away