The American Civil War led to the largest loss of American lives than any other US war. The reason for this is that the war pitted American against American. Many historians will agree that the cause of the Civil War can be attributed to several different factors. The effects of the war took a long and terrible toll on the nation. In order to understand the causes of the war and the effects, people must look at the signs that began from the beginning of the United States until 1861. The first step that took Americans closer to a war amongst themselves began when the country was formed. During the American Revolution, the colonists themselves were divided on the whole idea of independence from Britain. Some colonists wanted freedom from Britain while others were considered loyalists and wanted to remain part of Britain. Another dividing factor was that the North and South developed their economies quite differently. The South economy was for the most part agrarian while the North followed along the lines of an industrialized economy. These different economies fostered different lifestyles that led to different political and social views. These situations further widened the gap between the North and the South. (Historynet.com, 2015.) Among the other previously stated issues, the issue of slavery and the rights of the states was the primary cause of the Civil War. Slavery was deeply ingrained into Southern society and strongly tied to the agrarian economy. (PBS.org, 2014.) The issue of whether or not states had the right to choose if they wanted to have slaves or not was heavily debated in the political realm as well. The Compromise of 1850 was another thing that helped to build the tension between the states. It first made California part of the United States. Then it gave the new territories but not the states, the right to decide whether or not they wanted to have slaves. The Compromise of 1850 made many of the Northern states, w