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Civil War Compromise

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Why can’t we all just compromise? The United States of America has fought in many wars throughout the nation's history. One impactful war that has helped shape modern America was the Civil war. The election of the anti-slavery Republican Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States in 1860, caused Southern states to secede from the Union to join the Confederate States of America. Although the election of Abraham Lincoln was one trigger to the start of the Civil War, it was not the cause of the Civil War. During the brink of the Civil War there were many attempts at compromise, one being the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which was the last attempt to provide popular sovereignty to states in the Union on the decision of slavery, but eventually …show more content…

The Missouri Compromise was an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. At the time, the United States contained twenty-two states, evenly divided between slave and free.“In an effort to preserve the balance of power in Congress between slave and free states, the Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820.” So they would not create further chaos between free and slave states, Congress agreed to admit Missouri as a slaveholding state, but they would create the state of Maine as a result, which would be admitted as a free state. The Missouri Compromise would also provide the 36’30 Parallel line. Any state that was below the 36’30 line would permit slavery and all states above the 36’30 parallel line would prohibit the institution.“The Act authorized the people of the Missouri territory to form a constitution and state government, and for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing with the original states, and to prohibit slavery in certain territories.” The Missouri Compromise is another way that the U.S political system has attempted to resolve conflicts by an act of …show more content…

Officially titled, “ An act to Organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas," this act repealed the Missouri Compromise, which had outlawed slavery above the 36’ 30' latitude in the Louisiana territories and reopened the national struggle over slavery in the western territories.” In 1854, Senator Senator Stephen A. Douglas introduced a bill that divided the land west of Missouri into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska. Stephen A. Douglas was an advocate for popular sovereignty, which allowed the settlers of the new territories decide whether slavery would be legal in their state. This upset the advocates of anti slavery because under the terms of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, slavery would have been outlawed in both territories. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Douglas states “ I say, let us maintain this government on the principles that our fathers made it, recognizing the right of each state to keep slavery as long as its people determine or abolish it when they please.” “The Kansa Nebraska act was passed on May 30, 1854, groups for and against slavery recruited armed emigrants to move to Kansas. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska soon placed Kansas at the center of the increasingly violent debate over slavery. Although Nebraska would become a free state, Kansas was still up for the taking. On Election Day, thousands of pro slavery

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