The Civil War was seen as the inevitable eruption of a decades-simmering conflict between the industrial North and the agricultural South. Roark et al. (p. 507) speak of the respective “labor systems” of the two regions which, in the eyes of both contemporaries, were the most striking evidence of two irreconcilable worldviews. Yet the economies of the two regions were to some extent complementary, in terms of the exchange of goods and capital; the civil war did not arise from economic competition between the North and the South in markets, for example. The collision course that led to the Civil War was based not so much on pure economics as on Northerners' and Southerners' perceptions of their respective regions' economies in political and social terms. The first focus of this effort was what I call the nation's “charter”—the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the documents setting forth the nation's fundamental ideology. Despite their inconsistencies, they provided a standard against which the treatment and experience of any or all groups of people residing in the United States could be evaluated (Native Americans, however, did not count). Second, these documents had established a form of government that promised to a large extent the representation of every citizen. It was understood that this was only possible through aggregation and that population would therefore be a major source of political power in the United States. This is where economics intersected with politics: the economic system of the North encouraged (albeit for exploitative purposes) immigration, while that of the South did not. Another layer of economics' influence on politics was that the prosperity of ...... middle of paper ......e? By the armed rebellion of its American residents against the Mexican authorities. Returning to the Civil War, it can be argued that secession itself was not a guaranteed prelude to war. Yet the rapid escalation of tensions to military action, as occurred in 1861 at Fort Sumter, suggests that Americans—Northerners and Southerners alike—were ready for combat. As American history shows, fighting was something they knew something about. Works Cited Kulikoff, A. (2000). From British peasants to American colonial farmers. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Kulikoff, A. (1986). Tobacco and slaves. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Roark, JL, Johnson, MP, Cohen, PC, Stage, S., Lawson, A., & Hartmann, SM (2009). The American Promise: A History of the United States (4th ed., Vol. 1). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin.