It is 1860 and tensions between the Northern and Southern states are at a critical level. Many historians debate what the true cause of the South's rapid assaults on secession were. Many believe the South seceded out of fear of anxieties, the growing Republican Party, the North's neglect of the Constitution, and finally the issue of slavery. . Professor Charles Dew believes that the conflict between North and South was primarily over the issue of slavery. While Professor Marc Egnal argues that the South's secession was driven primarily by an economic problem between residents of the Upper South who were still loyal to the North's entrepreneurial outlook and those who opposed a diversified economy. The question is: what was the real reason for the South to secede? In my opinion, the South split due to the issue of slavery, the growing tension between the economic beliefs of the North and South, and ultimately government oppression of state's rights. While all the hard evidence supported one thing, the obstacle in the South was simply too complex to pin down on a single topic. Professor Charles Dew has been working on the problem of Southern secession for many years. He believes that the only way to understand the point of view from the Southern point of view is through their personal writings, such as letters and speeches from Southern commissioners. The professor examines the written documents of the secession commissioners on the eve of the Civil War to determine what they think of secession (334). Dew argues that his observation is different from that of other historians because he uses the primary sources of the Southern Commissioners. For example, Dew states, “Professor Wakelyn does not include…the center of the paper…the graph. Egnal states, “The other group, whose strength lay in the southern reaches of the Lower South, defended an economy centered on slaves, cotton, and rice” (349). Therefore, the South depended on slavery to drive the South's agricultural economy. The question of what caused the South to secede may never be fully answered. The best way to understand what really happened is to look at all aspects of the story. Historians have wrestled with ideas of slavery, economics, republicanism, and anxiety. The truth is that all of these ideas could be the answer to what caused the rapid aggression of the South. We can see Professor Dew and Professor Egnal emphasizing different aspects, but both are tied together through the link of economics. All in all, the Southern secession was not caused by conflict; but a set of problems that have come together.