Dbq Compromise Of 1850

Everyone thinks that Abraham Lincoln was America’s most fervent supporter of preserving the Union, but while Lincoln was still a boy, there were three politicians leading the charge to keep the Union from fracturing. These three political giants were celebrities in their time and their names are: Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun. Their differences ran the gamut and they more often worked against each other than with each other, but each of the men was deeply patriotic and ambitious. They all at one point in their careers served in the Senate and as the Secretary of State. Each of them

Four years after the Wilmot Proviso was denied of passage in the Senate, Southerner, John C Calhoun delivered a speech to congress. Calhoun spoke to congress about the addition of California to the US. Because of values of Manifest Destiny, it was in a way a dream of the US to add California. However, according to Calhoun, it had be a slave state. He wanted this because he was a southerner and the more slave states there were, the better. Also, as he says in source B, that if t California was to be added as a free state, then the balance, or “equilibrium”, would be thrown off in the Union. There would be more free states than slave states. In order to keep the balance, he advocated California to be a slave state. Conflicts between parts of government over slavery, like Wilmot and Calhoun, only continued the schism in the nation and set the US on the path of the Civil War.

The compromise of 1850 was a settlement on a series of issues plaguing the unity of the states. The primary issue to address was the institution of slavery, which was causing much dissension between the north and the south. Additional items to be addressed were territory issues and to prevent secession by the south. Henry Clay stepped forward to present a compromise, which had Congress in an eight-month discussion known as the “Great Debate”. As a result of the proposal, there were strong oppositions. One outspoken person who opposed the proposal was John C Calhoun. Calhoun was an intellectual southern politician, political philosopher and a proponent to the protection of Southern interests. He was an advocate for states’ rights and

Many causes led to the Civil War. This all happened around the mid 1800s. It was a conflict between the Northern and Southern states. Both sides had their own view on slavery, and their separate views caused contentions between the two. Both had different views on whether to expand or stop slavery growth to the West, or have slavery at all.

Calhoun bluntly states in his opening sentence he knew that if something was not done about the abolition of slavery it would end in disunion. He claims to have tried to agitate both parties toward some kind of resolve but to no avail. He then asks Congress the pressing question: “How can the Union be preserved?”

A little after the Manifest Destiny, the U.S. faced a series of troubles of sectional balances over whether or not the land acquired should be free or slavery states. The Compromise of 1850, proposed by Senator Henry Clay, included measures that dealt with the land acquired specifically from the Mexican War.

There were countless individuals who helped fugitives going through Connecticut. As this primary source showed, most of the agents were from New Britain. This was probably because abolitionist were more lenient in helping slaves escape from slavery than other towns were. Connecticut was divided on the issue of slavery, but the "Compromise of 1850 seemed to bring about a steady growth of anti-slavery unity within the state" (Connecticut Humanities). Therefore, after 1850 were more willing to help slaves escape, even if the "conductors" would get in trouble if they were caught.

Cotton was the king of the South. It was bringing in large amounts of money as the textile industry in the North grew. Slavery was vital to the economic well-being of the South, and when the North began to question the “peculiar institution” of the South the wall of civility between the two sectionalized areas began to crumble. Due to the growing issue of slavery in the 1850s, the United States of America was in a state of total disarray and turmoil. The tension that had always existed between the North and South over the matter of slavery was no longer ignorable. As the United States expanded to the West, the status of slavery in the new states erupted in a violence that could no longer be controlled by sectionalism. The peace treaties that had worked in the past became Band-Aids over stab wounds. Southern states began to leave the United States of America to form the Confederate States of America and war was declared as the South fired onto the forts of the North. The Civil War was caused directly by the issue of slavery; the fugitive slave act in the Compromise of 1850, Dred Scott v. Sandford, and Bleeding Kansas prove that slavery was the key factor in the eruption of the nation.

The events of the mid-1800s kept the nation together and pulled it apart because of the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Dred Scott Decision.

John C. Calhoun’s belief on the subject of the Compromise of 1850 is that it would give an unfair dominance to the North and that it would be unacceptable if it was passed. By putting the compromise into action, the South’s control in the government and the laws that are passed would be heavily suppressed. If California were to be added into the Union as a free state, the balance in the the Senate between the North and the South would become disproportionate. This would lead to the creation of laws that ignore the interests of the South and rather, would result in laws that are created in favor of the interests of the North. He states, “One section has the exclusive power of controlling the government, which leaves the other without any adequate

In the later half of nineteenth century America, the new nation’s original ability to resolve conflict through means of peaceful compromise had vanished. Various spans of conflict such as Westward Expansion, the Market Revolution, Sectionalism, Mexican American War, the succession of the southern states and ultimately the failure of the Compromise of 1850 that made compromise between the North and the South unattainable. It was the uncompromising differences amongst the free and slave states over the power of the national government that created a divide that would result in divisional violence. From the industrialized North, the agricultural South, Jackson’s Presidency to Lincoln’s and the rise in America 's involvement in politics that followed, slavery was merely one pawn on the board during America’s transforming years that would later reveal itself to have been the vehicle for the Civil War.

From the 1820s to the 1840s the North and South’s economic resources were very different. The North was mostly manufactured while the South’s was agriculture based. The North was much more industrialized during this time. They were manufacturing wool and textile goods. While the South was farming, its main crop was cotton. They both had many differences eventually leading to the Civil War. African Americans were used as slaves to produce the amount of cotton the world needed. The slaves wanted freedom they thought this was unfair, the slave masters had to control them from breaking free. The big challenge was power, masters and slaves both wanted something that benefited them own selves. Most of the African Americans accepted that they were

In the early years of the 19th century, slavery was more than ever turning into a sectional concern, such that the nation had essentially become divided along regional lines. Based on economic or moral reasoning, people of the Northern states were increasingly in support of opposition to slavery, all the while Southerners became united to defend the institution of slavery. Brought on by profound changes including regional differences in the pattern of slavery in the upper and lower South, as well as the movement of abolitionism in the North, slavery in America had transformed from an issue of politics into a moral campaign during the period of 1815-1860, ultimately polarizing the North and the South to the point in which threats of a Southern disunion would mark the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 (Goldfield et. al, The American Journey, p. 281).

In 1861, the American Civil War commenced after many years of tension building between the Northern and Southern states. The main reason of the tension was said to be the debate of slavery between the North and South, and although some documents support this claim, it is false. The war had been brewing since 1607, before slavery was even introduced to the colonies that would become the United States of America. The debate of slavery did play a major part in the civil war; however it did so in supporting the true cause of the civil war. The main cause of the American Civil War was not the debate of slavery, but rather Europe’s role in the American economy.

The first half of the 19th century was a time of sweeping changes. With transportation, and factories increasing, North America was in for a major upgrade. While all of those things are going on, the two regions that made up the growing nation was the North and South. These two sides were very different in their approach of lifestyle which would soon lead to conflicts. Two issues stood out more than others as the North and South headed towards civil war. One reason increase of tariffs and taxes the Congress placed on the south to ship goods to other countries. The other was the idea of keeping slavery in the country. The tariffs placed economic inequality between the northern states and the southern states.