1. The north developed an industrial base during Jefferson's embargo of europe. South did not, because that predated the cotton gin and their export economy.
2. South had an export economy around cotton. To the South free trade meant easy exports and cheap imports, to the North it meant higher prices for American raw materials and foriegn competition with Yankee labor
3. US constititution limited South to 22 Senators no matter what the population was, and their Representatives were tied to their percentage of the population. It was essential to slave and trade interest of the south that new states have slaves and plantation economy so they'd vote with Dixie.
4. main loyalty was to state rather than Union. the South played up their martial history as places that had always been at war and won because they were better than lazy northern states full of Dutch, Germans and Irish and blacks.
5. South maintained a legal theory that states could secede from teh union. in 1815 Vermont and New hampshire were ready to secede over the British war but the british quit before their ultimatum reached Washington DC. This theory was preserved in the South.
6. Rising moral opposition to slavery was growing in the North.
7. The Mexican War stretched the USA to the Pacific and forced the issue of slave and plantation expansion beyond Dixie all over the continent.
8. A political compromise that new states would choose to be free or slave for themselves was exploded by the Dred Scott case, where the Supreme Court said an escaped slave was property, and no state could vote to steal property from an owner and then refuse to send the property back to the owner. This mean every state was a slave state like it or not.
9. the entry of Kansas into the Union meant 2 more senators and some Representatives. If they weren't a slave state that would have worsened Dixie's share in Congress, if they were a slave state that would maintain dixie's share. Violent demonstrations broke out, and armed gangs rode into Kansas to shoot it out for their side of the issue.
10. One of the Kansas guerrillas, John Brown, rode to Virginia and took over a federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry, took hostages in the town, and declared he would arm a slave revolt. He was captured by US troops led by Robert E Lee. Many Northerners said Brown had the right idea, Ralph Waldo Emerson said his gallows would be a cross, which to the South meant the North wanted them raped and hacked to death by rioting blacks.
11. Some Congressman denounced slavery as degrading, and a Southern Congressman objected, and beat him with a stick on the floor of congress until he collapsed. Southerners applauded and sent him sticks to hit him again. To the North this proved those crackers were gorillas drunk on too much peach brandy and slave ass.
12. when Lincoln was elected some states seized federal property. A few federal officers were killed fighting over that. To the south this proved the North started it.
13. South Carolina ordered the garrison at Fort Sumter to haul down the flag. The commander refused and teh fort was shelled with cannons and stormed. To the North this proved the South wanted war.
14. everybody voted to raise an army for a good quick fight of a few months.
