The Great War Of The United States

A Civil War is a battle between the same citizens in a country. The American Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865 to determine the independence for the Confederacy or the survival of the Union. By the time Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1861, in the mist of 34 states, the constant disagreement caused seven Southern slave states to their independence from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America. The Confederacy, generally known as the South, grew to include eleven states. The states that remained devoted to the US were known as the Union or the North. The number one question that is never completely understood about the Civil War is what caused the war. There were multiple events that led to the groundbreaking, bloody, and political war.

Abraham Lincoln once stated “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” Abraham Lincoln is a hero for the citizens of America because his determination and courage to ending slavery even if it meant war caused peace in this nation. Slavery was the vital cause of the American Civil War. The north and the south both had their differences on how to run the country. People in the North believed in unity and that slavery should not exist because “all men are created equally.” On the other hand, the South believed in continuing slavery. People tried to talk it out and come to a middle ground after both sides compromising, however that didn’t work and caused war. Ideological differences were a vital role to making the American Civil War an inevitable event.

In the book, America's Great War: World War I and the American Experience, Robert H. Zieger discusses the events between 1914 through 1920 forever defined the United States in the Twentieth Century. When conflict broke out in Europe in 1914, the President, Woodrow Wilson, along with the American people wished to remain neutral. In the beginning of the Twentieth Century United States politics was still based on the "isolationism" ideals of the previous century. The United States did not wish to be involved in European politics or world matters. The U.S. goal was to expand trade and commerce throughout the world and protect the borders of North America.

“Every man who really loves America will act and speak in the true spirit of neutrality”.1 These are the words of President Woodrow Wilson during his “Declaration of Neutrality” on August 19, 1914. Something crazy would happen, the United States would enter The Great War a three years later. A lot of things influenced the United States to finally get to their eventual declaration of war on Germany. The two factors I thought most significant were: the United States’ economic interests favoring Great Britain and Wilson’s insatiable need to have a voice at the peace talks in Europe.

The American Civil War was arguably the most important war in the history of the country. The War of Independence may have allowed American to become its’ own country, but the Civil War resulted in something even more important than that, the end of slavery in the southern states. All of the issues that caused the Civil war were based around slavery, such as states’ rights that involved how slavery would be handled in each state, and trying to preserve the Union since the south seceded from the north due to their lust for slavery. The war ended up being the deadliest in the history of the country with over 700,000 people being killed as a result of battle or from diseases that were obtained during the war. The north was better prepared for the war than the south due to various reasons. One was the fact that the north was industrialized, while the south largely relied on agriculture. Being so heavily industrialized, the north was better equipped to fight the war since they could construct better guns, cannons or even ships to create blockades to prevent the south from getting help from other countries and not everyone in the south was supportive of the war. The north also had a much larger population than the south, and since African Americans were allowed to fight for the Union, their army was larger. Arguably the most important aspect of the northern victory was that it had superior leadership in the form of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is widely held as one of the greatest

It is fair to refer to the United States as the stray seed of Great Britain’s Earlier Empire, yet even with this relationship their executive leaderships and institutions are vastly different. Like an abused child, the United States vowed to, and successfully created a system of governing completely different from the monarch they were previously ruled under, giving birth to a presidential system that would become the leading example of political democracy.

From 1861 until 1865, the United States was embroiled in a war that took or changed the lives of some 625,000 people, leaving many more scarred, mutilated, mentally incapacitated, and with family torn asunder. The war, not fought against an opposing nation or an invading force, but with brothers and countrymen on opposite sides of armed lines, was both longer and bloodier than either side had predicted, though it had been coming for years. The question of slavery had caused numerous debates and fights at the state level as well as in the federal houses, and the many states holding slaves believed it was their right to decide their own future. After the election of Abraham Lincoln to the office of President of the United States, many saw

The First World War was a devastating calamity in which 10 million soldiers lost their lives fighting for their countries. This figure is ridiculous, but when one realizes that, that does not include the civilians who lost their lives during the fighting, the number seems even more ominous. This terrible event happened, and America tried to stay neutral for a while; however, we eventually found ourselves entangled in its web of destruction and for the a little more than the last six months of the war America was part of the fighting. The Germans were no fools, when America and its “dough boys” joined in the fighting they knew it was a big deal, it even lead to a strike by the Germans. “We must strike,” General Erich Ludendorff told his fellow commanders, “before America can throw strong forces into the scale.” But what was the final act that pushed America past the point of no return? What effect did America actually have while fighting? Why was it such a big deal that this one country joined in the fighting? What was going on in America, while its soldiers were out fighting on another continent somewhere in the world? The purpose of this paper is to examine those questions and discuss the influence that America had while fighting in Europe in the Great War as well as the politics that occurred internationally after the war ended.

At the turn of 19-20 centuries, capitalism has evolved into imperialism. The world was almost completely divided between the major powers. Unbalance of economic and socio-political development of the countries increased. States, after others entered the path of capitalist development (United States, Germany, Japan), quickly moved forward and pushed aside from global markets old capitalist countries - Great Britain and France, aggressively seeking redistribution of colonies. The most acute contradictions have arisen between Germany and Great Britain, whose interests were encountered in many areas of the globe, but especially in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, where German imperialism mainly directed its trade and colonial expansion.

Critically, only the United States among neutral nations had the capacity to establish a munitions industry that would have significant impact on the war, thus if this industry could only sell to the Entente, it would weigh heavily on the German military effort. Germany began to demand that the United States put forth an effort to eliminate the naval blockade and resume regular, neutral trade with Germany. However, the United States and Woodrow Wilson actually favored the British and their allies, even if they claimed true neutrality. To Wilson, the allies represented global democracy and peace, which, as demonstrated by his Fourteen Points after the war’s end, Wilson adored. Furthermore, the American people favored the allies because to them the Germans represented imperialism, war, and the Kaiser especially represented the autocracy against which America had been founded. Consequently, the US hardly raised a finger against Britain’s blockade in the North Sea. Again, even early in the war, the United States favored one side as opposed to being truly

Soon the Confederate States of America became a rebellion called the Confederacy that included 13 southern states. President Lincoln would not stand for this as his special message to congress on July 4, 1861 stated, “It was with the deepest regret that the Executive found the duty of employing the war-power, in defense of the government, forced upon him.” (Harris 2007) South Carolina firing on Fort Sumter was the opening salvo of the Civil War. Both the North and South believed in their causes, and both sides thought the war would be over after a few months. Both sides were wrong. Bloody battles such as, Antietam, Bull Run, and Shiloh made it clear that this war would drag on for a long time. The Union of the north was particularly frustrated by their inabi

In April of 1861 the bloodiest war that America had ever been involved in broke out between the states in the North, the Union, and the South, the Confederate States of America. This war was costly for each side in terms of man power, will and finances. In order to counteract the financial drain that the war was putting on the Confederacy’s economy the treasury began producing sheets of bonds that could be bought by the public and then sold back to the Confederate government at the end of the war for certain percentage gain.

The Civil War of the United States, a war that stretched on for a period of four years, was among the worst events ever to occur in American history. The casualties marked by far, the bloodiest in America’s involvement in wars at six-hundred twenty-thousand military soldiers dead. To this day, it is known as one of the most memorable wars in our history. But is that why this war is so well remembered? The strikings of terror and death hold a heavy grip throughout the course of history worldwide, and in fact is one of the key elements that make drama, mystery, suspense, and horror so fascinating in literature. Indeed, there are many incidents in history that are well marked mostly for their count on how many were found dead. However, death

The American President's speech was the force that leads to the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919. Conversely, after congress had voted, only three of Wilson's fourteen points were accepted without compromise and six of the others were rejected altogether. The reason for this uncertainty by the congress was because, "the Fourteen Points were all couched in broad, rather vague terms, well designed to serve their propaganda purpose, but hardly suited to the negotiations of which in the sequel, they were to become the basis" . Wilson wanted the League of Nations because he believed that World Wars would continue to occur as long as each nation was responsible for their own defense. Wilson wanted the nations of the world to stand together in the League of Nations, and promise to defend the territory and freedom of any member attacked by another nation. Wilson believed that in order to keep peace the League needed the authority to impose economic sanctions against aggressor states but the League did not have any military forces to back up these economic threats. He believed that even a powerful nation, knowing that it would face combined opposition of all the powerful nations, would not go to war. In Europe, Wilson also met some confrontation with the Fourteen points. The

President Woodrow Wilson established America’s goal for joining World War I as “making the world safe for democracy.” At the conclusion of the War, President Wilson declared fourteen principles for peace to be used during the Paris Peace Conference, called the Fourteen Points. The most important of these points was the final point: a general association of nations with the guarantees of political and territorial independence and security. As the Peace Conference progressed, more nations ratified the Treaty of Versailles and joined the League of Nations, the embodiment of President Wilson’s fourteenth point. However, Senate the United States, from President Wilson’s own country, did not ratify the treaty.