Compromise Catastrophe

As the nation descended further into a split entity, with the issue of slavery at the forefront of the debate. The North and South needed to find a way to deal with their differences before the Union fell in shambles. The Compromise of 1850 was passed after long extensive debate in congress, the compromise was intended to settle the debate over how slavery would be controlled throughout the expanding nation. The Fugitive Slave Act was included in the compromise to satisfy southern states, that wanted to preserve the institution of slavery. The act allowed for run away slaves to be hunted down and returned to their past owners, even after they made it to the free states in the North. The Southerners wished to preserve their right to property, which is among the “Unalienable Rights”. Some northern states refuse to recognize the law which infuriated the South because they saw this as an explicit violation of the slave holder’s rights, this intensified the South’s urge to become a separate State.

Throughout American history, the south and the north have consistently held different beliefs on how to handle some subjects. Whether it ranged from slavery, to taxing, or to business, southerners and northerners often seemed to be on opposite sides of the spectrum. It was not any different back in the 1800’s. Though intensely different, they were still part of the same country. One of the biggest issues that made the north and the south so distinct from one another was their view and perspective on slavery. The north, who was considered mostly republican, saw slavery as something that needed to be abolished for it was a great sin committed by mankind; while the south, who were mostly considered democrats, viewed it as a necessity for they considered African-Americans a race that needed to be controlled because they were less intelligent than the white man but very violent and because they were “built” for the hard labor. Over the 1800’s they had been a tension built between the two sides of the country. The tension rose to a boiling point when the 1860 election rolled around. After the elections occurred, a chain of events followed which would leave a lasting impact on the current United States. In the heart of these events was the civil war. To this day, it is very debatable that the war started because of the unsure future of slavery under new leadership.

In the late 1850’s, tension were rising between the northern states and the southern states. These tensions began long ago, but continued to rise before the election of 1860. The main topic of debate at this time was slavery. Southern states relied on slavery for economic production. Many in the north wanted to limit the spread of slavery, or outright ban it. Those opposed to slavery had numerous reasons from political to ethical and religious reasons. The election of 1860 had 4 large candidates: Abraham Lincoln, John C Breckinridge, John Bell, and Stephen A. Douglas. Abraham Lincoln won the popular vote and electoral vote and was elected president in 1860, taking over from James Buchanan. In the

During the 19th century the South and the North began to debate within each other as slavery was starting to become a national issue. The South was unified following the institution of slavery as it was vital to their economic success and the North was anti-slavery. The Civil War was inevitable becoming the climax to a growing tension between both the South and North in the act of failed Compromises and differences. The Missouri Compromise, The Act of 1850, and The Kansas-Nebraska Act hold large responsibility as causes for the Civil War considering none completely stopped the war and were merely postponed it.

Throughout much of the mid-nineteenth century Northern and Southern states remained locked in a fierce debate over the issues of slavery, state’s rights, and taxation. This partitioning between the North and the South is evident when examining the election of 1860. Abraham Lincoln, a Northerner and product of the Republican party, faced opposition from Southern Democrats to such a great extent that he did not even make the ballot in the South. The South was so angry at the prospect of a Northern Republican becoming president and possibly interfering with their rights that upon Lincoln’s election, they seceded from the Union, leading up to the bloodiest war the United States had ever taken part in: the Civil War. This lack of conflict resolution

Past failed compromises that dealt with the spread of slavery to new states and territories lead people to believe that more compromise attempts would also fail. Lincoln’s election 1860 created a secession movement that had led to the withdrawal of many southern states. Confederates fired at support ships in 1860 that were attempting to resupply a federal garrison at Fort Sumter.

At the time just before the civil war, the Northern states and Southern states were divided into one main issue: slavery. The North tended to HATE slavery and the Abolitionists were common. The South felt threatened by this, because the capital was in the north, and it seemed like the government was completely on the side of the north. Starting with Wilmot’s proviso, which first made southerners think that Congress were abolitionists. Next the Kansas-Nebraska act or bloody Kansas, with both sides getting violent, it just added to the conflict between Northerners and Southerners.

The 1850s were believed to be a period of compromise to prevent Southern secession from the Union. Instead, it brought more divisions along sectional lines, Northern Democrats and Northern Whigs (free-states) against the Southern Democrats and Southern Whigs (slave states). David M. Potter’s book Impending Crisis provides evidence of sectionalism between free and slave states. Potter contends that during the expansionist period of the 1840s the country was experiencing a growth of American nationalism, but “the emergence of the sectionalism which almost destroyed the nation was symbolized by an amendment to an appropriation bill which was never enacted.” For the next fifteen years the Wilmot Proviso (1846) and the issue of slavery would become “a catalyst of all sectional antagonisms, political, economic, and cultural…opened the floodgates of sectionalism, for now all the pent-up moral indignation which had been walled in by the constitutional inhibition could be vented into the territorial question.”

During the mid-1800’s, the United States at that point could no longer find room to compromise on their views, and the secession of the South from the North showed the beginning of the Civil War. Both sides believed they were fighting for what was right: the Union for the equality and the Confederacy for the liberty of states’ rights. As there was virtually no room for compromise whatsoever, both sides perceived the other as trying to do what would work out to have the higher benefit for them. The sides both generally felt that the war was needed, but the Union felt that the war was a barrier in the growth of the country as a whole and the division was not how the country should stand.

In between 1820 and 1860 there was a major political view on slavery that eventually led to the failure of the compromise. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 and The Compromise of 1850 were all created by Henry Clay in order to keep our country together. In 1833, Henry Clay stated that South Carolina could not ever become an independent state (A).Furthermore, the anti-slavery convention believed that congress didn’t have to right to interfere with any of the slave states (B). These two documents show that early political attitude didn’t really terrorize the compromise, but although the North didn’t like the Compromise of 1850 and the supply of The Wilmot Proviso, therefore; slavery threaten political fragmentation. This type of tension came forward in the Election of 1816 where not even a single state voted from running candidate, Abraham

Ever since the beginning of mankind, there have been political disputes over the color of skin, slavery, and/or religion, but we are going to focus on the United States’ disputes between the years 1820 and 1860. During this time, the majority of the Southern farmers had slaves, and the majority of Northern people believed slavery was wrong and that it should be abolished. But when a certain man is elected president, the country is divided. In this essay, I will show you the events leading up to secession and what both sides were thinking and feeling because of this conflict.

There was a major division among the Democrats and the destruction of the Whig party (“7.5 A divided nation”). The Democrats considered themselves as the “white man’s party” and considered the Republicans as being “negro dominated,” even though they had white leaders. The Whig party divided after the Compromise of 1850, which was created in an attempt to resolve disputes over slavery between the north and the south (Whig Party). The political leaders during this period were indecisive on the position to take with regards to the question of slavery. The rise of the Republican Party was after the downfall of the Whig party, and it was in support of the abolition of slavery. Publicizing the issue of slavery was a widespread occurrence during this time. After gaining awareness of the injustices of slavery, people were supportive of ending slavery. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was one of the publications responsible for the rise in the antislavery movements (“7.5 A divided nation”).

At the time of the creation of the Constitution, the issue of slavery had been put off and avoided, a decision that would later lead to the controversy now known as the American Civil War. The composition, which was once the solution to problems that the Union was having, had the opposite effect in the 1850s, when arguments and different interpretations of the Constitution resulted in sectionalism, threat of secession, and tension between the North and the South. Abolitionists in the North tried to preserve the Union while abolishing slavery, while southerners supported slavery in the new territory and threatened to secede; the Compromise of 1850, especially the Fugitive Slave Law, increased these beliefs.

The relationship between the collapse of the Whig Party, the divide in the Democrat Party, and the Republican Presidential victory in 1860 was a reflection of how deeply the country was divided over the issue of slavery. Although anti-slavery sentiment was growing in the north, it was the expansion of the west and whether or not to allow those territories to become slave states that caused tremendous eruption on both sides of the issue. In as much as both parties tried to find a compromising solution, it was problematic and created divisions in the parties that could not be easily mended.

The continuously irreconcilable conflicts, especially on slavery, between the South and the North during mid 19th century eventually led to the secession of the State of South Carolina and six other states after the election of Abraham Lincoln. When they felt their interests to be threatened, the white southerners used the secession as a powerful weapon to against emancipating slavery and to protect their own rights. Actually, the disagreements on the future of slavery were the chief reason causing the increasing gap between the South and the North, and there are three primary reasons why the seven southern states chose to secede from the Union after they realized they could not reach a satisfactory conclusion about slavery issues with the northern states.