The American Civil War was a series of transactions, or exchanges, between the North and the South. These transactions involved more than a million Americans who risked their lives for the liberation of the country's slaves. These transactions were influenced by three overarching concepts: perspectives, values, and relative assessments of costs and benefits. Amid this tumultuous period in American history, these concepts shaped not only the people themselves, but also the social, political, and economic transactions of the Civil War. The perspectives of the Union and the Confederacy always conflicted, as slavery was an anomaly in the North and predominant in the South. The Northern view was that slavery was unnecessary and a threat to the American dream. On the other hand, the Southern view was that slavery was an absolute necessity that would strengthen the American economy. These perspectives were influenced by the values ​​of the North and the South. Northerners valued a unified, slave-free America based on a free industrial economy, while Southerners valued secession's preservation of the antebellum period. Even though the two sides had conflicting perspectives and values, they did not engage in civil war until they weighed the relative costs and benefits of violence. It is important to understand the differences in perspectives, values, and relative analysis of costs and benefits that shaped social, political, and economic transactions during the Civil War because this era created a nation that valued freedom. A perspective is a specific way of seeing things based on one's beliefs, character, and associations. When a subject or thing is discussed...... middle of paper ......ver the expansion of slavery. The Free-Soil Party was composed of abolitionist Northerners who supported the Wilmot Clause and adopted its terms in the 1848 election. In contrast, Southerners valorized the "antebellum period," an era of white supremacy. White supremacy, which began before the Civil War and eventually led to the infamous American white supremacy group, the Ku Klux Klan, made white people superior to foreign races other than their own. This white supremacy movement would only place black people and other emerging races under racial judgment and racial inequality, and further subject them to slavery. This would ultimately be one of the most valid reasons to secede from the free states of the North. Although the Union and the Confederacy had different values ​​and perspectives, they accounted for many of the relative social, political, and economic costs and benefits of the Civil War..