The Causes of the Civil War: Slavery, Economics, or Constitutional Differences History question: Historians have long debated the cause of the Civil War. Was Slavery the cause of the war? or economic differences? or Constitutional differences? Prove that it was a combination of all three. During the time around 1850, tensions were rising on the issue of slavery between the North and the South. New states were being admitted to the United States, but the decisions to make them a free state or a slave state were what really mattered. As an example, Cal