page_title: Origins of the American Civil War
section_title: Panic of 1857 and sectional realignments
hierarchical_section_title: Origins of the American Civil War / Emergence of Lincoln / Sectional battles over federal policy in the late 1850s / Panic of 1857 and sectional realignments
caption_attribution_description: Engraving of Abraham Lincoln
context_page_description: Historians debating the origins of the American Civil War focus on the reasons why seven Southern states declared their secession from the United States, why they united to form the Confederate States of America, and why the North refused to let them go. While virtually all historians in the 21st century agree that conflicts over slavery caused the war, they disagree sharply regarding which kinds of conflict—ideological, economic, political, or social—were most important.
  The primary catalyst for secession was slavery, most immediately the political battle over the right of Southerners to bring slavery into western territory that had hitherto been free under the terms of the Missouri Compromise or while part of Mexico. Initially, states entering the Union had alternated between slave and free states, keeping a sectional balance in the Senate, while free states outstripped slave states in population and in the House of Representatives. Another factor for secession and the formation of the Confederacy, was white Southern nationalism. The primary reason for the North to reject secession was to preserve the Union, a cause based on American nationalism.
context_section_description: A few historians believe that the serious financial Panic of 1857 and the economic difficulties leading up to it strengthened the Republican Party and heightened sectional tensions. Before the panic, strong economic growth was being achieved under relatively low tariffs. Hence much of the nation concentrated on growth and prosperity.
  The iron and textile industries were facing acute, worsening trouble each year after 1850. By 1854, stocks of iron were accumulating in each world market. Iron prices fell, forcing many American iron mills to shut down.
  Republicans urged western farmers and northern manufacturers to blame the depression on the domination of the low-tariff economic policies of southern-controlled Democratic administrations. However, the depression revived suspicion of Northeastern banking interests in both the South and the West. Eastern demand for western farm products shifted the West closer to the North. As the "transportation revolution" (canals and railroads) went forward, an increasingly large share and absolute amount of wheat, corn, and other staples of western producers—once difficult to haul across the Appalachians—went to markets in the Northeast. The depression emphasized the value of the western markets for eastern goods and homesteaders who would furnish markets and respectable profits.
  Aside from the land issue, economic difficulties strengthened the Republican case for higher tariffs for industries in response to the depression. This issue was important in Pennsylvania and perhaps New Jersey.
caption: "Vote yourself a farm—vote yourself a tariff": a campaign slogan for Abraham Lincoln in 1860[citation needed]
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