The Creature From Jekyll Island (Part 4)

The American Civil War:

The seeds of the American Civil War are planted in questions addressing slavery, states' rights, and constitutional differences. Among many other concerns like slavery, states' rights, and economic disparities, the biggest one was the fact that most of the southern states based their economies on slavery, which is why they wanted to leave the Union during the presidency of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Eventually, they created the Confederate government and this sparked off a deadly war against the Union. The pivotal episodes in the war were Gettysburg and Antietam. The Union managed to maintain the advantage concerning both industrial power and population, so necessarily victory, though being late, was going to become a reality.

In 1863, President Lincoln through the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation declared all the slaves living in the Confederate territories free. This was a great push towards morality and the prospects of the Union cause. The war ended in 1865 when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. It was only after the war that the 13th Amendment was adopted which finally meant the abolition of slavery in the U.S. As such, from 1865, the Reconstruction period was the struggle aimed at bringing the southern states back into the Union and protecting the rights of the recently released black people, it marked the beginning of a very difficult but at last, an informative part of American history.