Compare how the Union and the Confederacy represented their causes Essay

Compare how the Union and the Confederacy represented their causes. What were their respective ideas of freedom - Essay Example imary cause of the American civil war that saw a massive loss of life and destruction of property, through efforts of separation on one hand and unity on the other (Foner, pp. 49-61). In an effort to understand the American civil war and the issue of slavery, this paper will the union and the confederacy through a comparison of how the two factions represented their course before as well as during the civil war. Additionally, the paper will analyze the ideas that both the unionists as well as the Confederacy had on freedom. The southern and the northern sections of the United States were economically developed along different lines. The southern states were predominantly agrarian states with agriculture being the main economic activity while the northern states turned to industrialization. Due to differences in the economic system of the two sections, different political and social structures developed which led to disagreement among the politicians of the southern and the northern sections on several issues such as tariffs, international improvements and taxation. The differences resulted to the civil war where the Confederates and Unionists tasseled over the issue of slavery as one of their main course of the war. According to the Confederates, slavery was a traditional institution in their social culture and a very significant one in the realization of economic benefit for the South. At the beginning of the civil war, the south had about four million slaves thus the idea of freedom of slaves as proposed by the unionist would interfere with the farming activities of the south. In support of their course of the need for slavery abolition, the unionist pointed at the need to hire slaves and not own them a move that was rejected by the South resulting in the civil war (Foner, pp. 45-53). States’ rights was another are where the opinions of the unionists and the Confederates differed. States’ right was the struggle between the states and the federal