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In the 1800s, the economies of many northern states had moved away from farming to industry. A lot of people in the North worked and lived in large cities like new York, Boston, and Philadelphia. The Southern states, however, had maintained a large farming economy and this economy was based on slave labor. While the North no longer needed slaves, the South relied heavily upon slaves for their way of life.

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The idea of states´ rights wasn´t new to the civil war. When the Constitution was written there had been arguments about how much power the states should have and how much the federal government should have. The Southern states were afraid that the federal government was taking away there rights and powers.

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As the United States continued to move westward, each new state added to the country shifted the power between the north and the south. Southern states were scared because they thought that if they lost to much power

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The South relied on slavery for labor and work on the fields but there were people called Abolitionists that were against slavery and wanted to make it illegal. This made the south fearful.

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The final straw for the South was the election of Abraham Lincoln to be a president of the United States. Abraham Lincoln was a member of the new anti-slavery Republican party. He got elected without even being on the ballot in ten of the Southern states.The southern states felt that Lincoln was against slavery and also against the South.

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When Abraham Lincoln was elected, many of the southern states no longer  to be a part of the United States. They felt that they had every right to leave. Abraham Lincoln said they did not have the right to leave the United States and sent in troops to stop the South from leaving. The Civil War had begun.