mechanical reaper
The mechanical reaper invented by Cyrus McCormick.
sewing machine
The sewing machine invented by Elias Howe.
cotton gin
A picture of the cotton gin invented by Eli Whitney.
Slavery
One cause of the Civil War was slavery. The argument was if it is right or wrong, the North believed it was wrong and the South believed it was right so the south decided that they were going to secede from the North. Now I'm going to give some more information on why they seceded from the United States of America to form the Confederate States of America. Of course the most of the people in the North were abolishionists which ment that they wanted to get rid of slavery. This made the South furious because the slaves were their way of life. The slaves were their main source of income because without them they would not have anyone to pick the cotton and tobacco. They would lose a lot of money and go into poverty, and especially after the inventions of the Cotton Gin, Mechanical Reaper, and Sewing Machine the demand for slaves was at and all time high. The South now needed more slaves to pick the cotton and tobacco instead of separating it and sewing it into clothes. This enforced the South's reasons to fight for slavery instead of just letting the North take slavery away from them. There were also many people who threatened the act of slavery. For one example, there was someone named Dred Scott who took his fight for citizenship to Supreme Court, but they denied his citizenship and said he was property and was not free. What Dred Scott did made the South very mad. Another example for an important person in the war over slavery was a man named John Brown. He was a famous person against slavery whom everyone thought was crazy because his plans to end slavery often involved shootings, riots or just violence in general. In one of the now famous event Bleeding Kansas, John Brown was there causing trouble. This all eventually caught up with him and he was executed on December 2nd 1859 in Charlestown, Virginia. However, many other things threatened slavery such as the Underground Railroad, The Fugitive State Law, The Dred Scott Decision, and the fact that the North wanted it to be illegal. The election of Abraham Lincoln was the last straw for the South, it meant that it was almost certain that the end of slavery was near so the South was left with no other decision than to secede from the North.