The Civil War is commonly thought to have been caused by the idea or institution of
slavery in the United States. Although slavery did play a part in leading to the Civil War, the true
cause of the United States of America being divided into two separate entities was succession.
More specifically the succession of the state of South Carolina from the Union. The succession of
South Carolina, the catalyst which ignited the conflict of the Civil War, was brought of by two
key factors, the southern nationalistic views and the strong leadership among the Cotton
Kingdom1 which South Carolina possessed.
Ten years prior to the Civil War the south, especially South Carolina, had a strong feeling
of southern nationalism. This was of no surprise considering all of the influences and events of
the time period, 1850. The historical meeting of the Nashville Convention, November 14, 1850,
was of the largest importance dealing with this issue. Cheves launched an attack on Henry Clay's
Compromise of 1850, saying to the southerners, "Unite, and you shall form one of the most
splendid empires on which the sun ever shone, of the most homogeneous population..."2. Cheves
went even further, making a defensive attack on how the south should unite and further declined
that the institution of slavery was not wrong or immoral, but in fact was apart of their culture and
their society. Cheves's speech at the convention was not the only topic that brought together and
connected the people of the Palmetto State3 and the rest of the south, but the tariff and
nullification episode between 1827 and 1833 also gave the southerners a feeling of nationalism to
their part of the country. The tariffs gave the south such a disadvantage to the north that they had
no other choice but to band together. Cotton, the south's most lucrative and essential industry,
price, "...had fallen from thirty cents a p...