THE CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR Essays - Slavery In The United States

THE CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR Essays - Slavery In The United States THE CAUSES OF THE CIVIL WAR "The tragic ?fireball in the night? imagined by Jefferson had finally rung. The Missouri Compromise had failed. Proslavery and antislavery civilians clashed in the streets and took up arms. Thousands of Northerners were willing to die for their beliefs. The Civil War had begun. The states were at war with each other." This dividing battle between the North and the South was unavoidable. The Civil War was caused by economic, political and moral problems. It all started by an alarming increase in a need for cotton, which triggered the building of a barrier between two territories in a growing nation. New Machinery was changing the textile industry in New England and Britain. These mills needed more and more cotton, creating a new demand in the south. For this trade with Europe, after 1812, raw cotton accounted for one-third all cotton exports of the United States. By 1830, it increased to half. Cotton quickly became a big money-making cash crop for the South and North economy alike. But the demand also revived the need for slaves. The plantations had to be worked, and blacks were a cheap, efficient way to get the cotton picked. To make their jobs easier, Eli Whitney took advantage of the new idea, and invented the cotton gin(short for engine). It rapidly cleaned the seeds from the short, sticky fibers of upland cotton, the variety that grew all over the South. The process was simple: a roller carried raw cotton along wooden slats. Sharp metal teeth thrust through the slats and quickly pulled the fibers from the seeds. In 1794, he obtained a patent. Whitney still earned little because it was simple enough for manufacturers to copy. Even though the machine made attaining cotton faster, slaves were still pushed to work harder and produce more. Blacks under captivity certainly led a harsh, unfair life. But that is where the white southerners believed blacks belonged. Northerners knew better. Harriet Beecher-Stowe, a female, black abolitionist was aware of these conditions. She wrote Uncle Tom?s Cabin, which was published in 1852, and described the incredible cruelty and horrors of slavery. Stowe wanted to "write something that would make the whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is." Her novel became widely popular, and within a year, readers had bought 300,000 copies. Wherever it went, it carried it?s powerful message of the evils of slavery. She hoped the novel would bring a peaceful end to slavery, but instead it seemed to bring the nation closer to war. Of course, not all Southerners supported slavery, nor did all Northerners oppose it. Yet antislavery feelings were on the rise in the North?few white Southerners went to extremes. Their concern lay in maintaining the plantation system as it existed. With her book she was able to gain many Northerners support in the antislavery race, yet at the same time she outraged the Southerners. Harriet?s novel was one of the many things that sparred mistrust between the North and South. The North didn?t trust the South because they refused to help Southern plantation owners capture slaves. North depended on the South for making money, and the South depended on the slaves to pick their cotton. This created the Northern fear of Competition. The North was afraid that South would gain power of crops and put them out of business. This meant that slavery would double. The North was torn between giving the slaves their rightful choices, or keeping the economy balanced. It was a matter of moral standards. The South wanted to break away from the union, while the North still wanted the two territories to stick together. This conflict was the main cause of the Civil War. The South argued about their state?s rights. They said a state could nullify a federal law it did not consider constitutional. Southern states based their right to leave the union, on the fact the original 13 states had existed separately before they formed together for the United States. The South could break their allegiance to the union because they were not part of the original U.S. If they could form there own confederacy, the South could continue the use of slaves while also

Definition and Examples of an Antonym in English

Definition and Examples of an Antonym in English An antonym is a word having a meaning opposite to that of another word, such as hot and cold, short and tall. An antonym is the antonym of synonym. Adjective: antonymous. Another word for antonym is counterterm. Antonymy is the sense relation that exists between words which are opposite in meaning. Edward Finnegan defines antonymy as a binary relationship between terms with complementary meanings. Its sometimes said that antonymy occurs most often among adjectives, but  as Steven Jones et al. point out, its more accurate to say that antonym relations are more central to the adjective classes than to other classes. Nouns can be antonyms (for example, courage and cowardice), as can verbs (arrive and depart), adverbs (carefully and carelessly), and even prepositions (above and below).   Examples and Observations You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.Opposition and ParallelismFactors that contribute to particularly good antonym pairings may relate to more than just the two items semantic oppositeness; for instance, the pairing of increase and decrease is supported by their rhyme and the perception of a parallel morphology, as well as their semantic opposition.Three Types of AntonymsLinguists identify three types of antonymy: (1) Gradable antonyms, which operate on a continuum: (very) big, (very) small. Such pairs often occur in binomial phrases with and: (blow) hot and cold, (search) high and low. (2) Complementary antonyms, which express an either/or relationship: dead or alive, male or female. (3) Converse or relational antonyms, expressi ng reciprocity: borrow or lend, buy or sell, wife or husband. The Lighter Side of AntonymsA man in the Land of the Houyhnhnms,Had a large collection of antonyms;He would say, This is great!Theyre in pairs, so they mate,Unlike synonyms, and, of course, homonyms.(W. S. Brownlee) Pronunciation AN-ti-nim Source: Tom McArthur, Antonym. The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford Univ. Press, 1992. Steven Jones et al.,  Antonyms in English: Construals, Constructions, and Canonicity. Cambridge University Press, 2012. Albert Einstein, The World As I See It, 1931. Cormac McCarthy, The Road. Knopf, 2006.