It was a war to surpass all wars. It began as a disagreement; who had the right to succeed, and whose power was more effective. The Civil War began as a test of states' rights versus federal rights, and augmented into the bloodiest battle to ever be fought on American soil. When it began, both sides were certain that the war would be quick, ninety days at most, and God would see to it that the one in the right was victorious. As the days progressed, and the ninety days passed, the fate of the war was again placed into Gods hands, and the country's worst fear was about to take effect. The war emanated over the South's right to secede from the Union, but quickly turned into a war about the "proper way of life". When the war concluded, the North had won, and the slaves were freed, and in the eyes of the government, they would no longer be enslaved.
In 1860, there were about nine million people in the South, and out of that, four million were slaves. They made up about one-sixth of the American population before the Civil War began. The nation was expanding westward, and as the people drove west, they settled down and began to raise families. With a rapidly growing population and nation, a quarrel could separate the region as a whole and separate tradition from change. The South was traditional by its practice of slavery, and its agricultural economy. The North, on the other hand, represented change as it was ever growing with new technologies. This quarrel was so minute that it could have been settled over tea and crumpets, rather than a four-year war.
A preliminary Proclamation was issued on September 22, 1862 declaring that any slave who crossed over enemy lines was considered a free man. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of the bloody battle. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as sla...