Is The Democratic Age: An Inevitable Phenomena?

In the time period between 1775 and 1830, African Americans start to gain more freedom in the North while the institution of slavery expanded in the South. These changes occurred due to the existence of different point of views. The North did not need slavery and acknowledge the cons of slavery while the South’s want for slavery quickly became a need.

In the United States, we have a liberal democracy meaning our rights and liberties are protected. The US also has a multiparty electoral system with free and fair participation and a checks and balances system that prevents a single party from taking sovereign control. Liberal democracy is a political system that is supported by free and fair elections, but also a separation of powers between branches and the protection of its citizens basic liberties such as, freedom of speech, assembly, property, and religion (Zakaria 22). Constituitonal liberalism is mostly based on limiting power in government, while democracies tend to be more about its accumulation and use (Zakaria 30).

America was at a very conflicted time during reconstruction after the civil war. While there was many ways radical republicans enforced their beliefs and helped the former slaves, the former confederates fought back with two times as much force. The country was completely split because of these two polarizing groups. Lives of the former slaves were heavily debated and extremely toyed with. These times have molded modern day society in the United States.

Slavery was the most popular form of labor during the growth of American society. For many, this was all they knew despite being an inhumane way to live. Slavery caused physical and emotional damage to African Americans of this time. As society progressed many begin to realize how wrong this actually was. Even though there are many causes of the growing opposition to slavery in the United States from 1776 to 1852, the main reasons were a changes in social morals, political ideas, and the mass production of anti-slavery newspapers,books, and posters.

The rights of slaves were thoroughly deprived. As a result, some of them refused to obey the law, agitating the southerners. These two compromises reflected that at that time, the United States was following the ideals of democracy. But from the slaves’ perspective, they did not live up to any ideal of rights, equality, liberty, or

Slavery has always been a controversial and debatable issue in the United States. No one attacked the African-American slavery of the southern states with greater vehemence than a group of young, radical abolitionists. Frustrated at the betrayal of the revolutionary promise that all forms of bondage would disappear in the new land and marshalling all the religious revivals that swept the country, abolitionists demanded no less than the immediate emancipation of all slaves. Bursting upon the American political system in the early 1830s, abolitionists not only opposed any reparation of slaveholders, but they also demanded full political rights for all African-Americans, North and South.

It seems that slavery has long been at the heart of our original political movements. Today, slavery is not an open ownership of other people, but more of tyrannical taxing and taking advantage of the average man. Back when the Whigs and the Democrats feuded and compromised over slavery and our countries growth, both economically and expansively, a rising new political party was coming to a predominate position in the political process of our present day affiliation called the Republican Party – a Government of the people.

The United States has always had a rocky history and at much more often instances than we would like to admit because of controversial actions of its own citizen’s with regard to the Constitution. The Civil War of 1861 up until 1865 was one of America’s first industrial modern conflict involving very sensitive social issues on slavery that divided the nation and pitted American men against other American men. Prior to the Civil War, many slaves were brought from African territories to work in plantations as a free labor force. As a justification to owning slaves, it was imbedded that slaves where inherently inferior and as in many cases, treated less kindly than an animal would be. Much of these influences where brought from the European counterparts that the Americans had broken apart from, and unlike America, Europe was in a process of changing slaves into a force of wage labor, although they were still treated as subhuman. Since the Southern part of the United States had such a strong dependency on wealth through slave labor, many new equality ideologies and industrialization from the north caused great rifts and tensions between competing and opposite ideologies were one attempted to influence the other. Thus, the Civil War was a conflict of slavery due to a changing market revolution, the manifest destiny, and new found ideologies on concepts about slavery and freedom.

One of the most, if not the most, controversial and heated debates following the United States independence was regarding the institution of slavery. In the introduction to his book Half Slave and Half Free, Bruce Levine quotes Carl Schurzs’ observation as the “slave question not being a mere occasional quarrel between two sections of the country divided by a geographic line, but a great struggle between two antagonistic systems of social organization (p.15)”. The Nouthern states that allowed slavery benefited from the agricultural labor that those slaves provided. The Northern states that prohibited slavery did so for moral and pragmatic reasons; they felt it was morally wrong to deny another human any form of rights, and did not like the economic advantage it gave to the Southern states. With the use of slavery largely concentrated in the South, the movement against it came from the North and was led by abolitionists; those who were committed to bringing an end to the practice. In this course we have defined “Practice” as the conduct of policy, such as opinion, election, parties and law-making (Lecture). We define Policy as the goals of politics, those being sovereignty, defense, and a collective well-being (Lecture). The following analytical essay will examine antislavery sentiment and practices in the Northern states and the reaction of Southern states. Additionally how the pressures from both sides influenced the Policy of the United States following independence then

“By erecting a slave society, American created the economic foundation for its great experiment in democracy.” From the beginning of America’s profound search for human equality, tyranny trampled on the dream of those who helped make the system prosper. The long perilous search of escape from the oppression of the iniquitous proved insufficient. Economic prosperity was deemed the foremost priority, rather than the equal representation of voices that America was supposedly found on.

In the early 19th and late 20th centuries, freedom among the African Americans has been a constant battle between his U.S born given rights and the limitations places on such rights by the states. Through the expansion and development of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century, the term freedom had been ironically used, for example through the 13th amendment where a former slave could be called a free man yet his freedom was limited and strictly outlined by the government. Slavery, though said to be abolished after 1865, had taken numerous new forms in society to continue the oppression of the colored race. For example, the idea of separate but equal that was once seen as constitutional. There is indubitably irony a between the government acceptance of slaves as freed American individuals and the deprivation of basic rights. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th century, freed Black individuals were increasing in government participation as soldiers and were served with a sense of inclusion in society through the adoption of amendments yet were constantly deprived of social acceptance by shunning blacks through segregation and disenfranchised through the regulation of the African American’s lives.

"United States can be seen as the first liberal democracy. The United States Constitution, adopted in 1788, provided for an elected government and protected civil rights and liberties. On the American frontier, democracy became a way of life, with widespread social, economic and political equality. The system gradually evolved, from Jeffersonian Democracy or the First Party System to Jacksonian Democracy or the Second Party System and later to the Third Party System. In Reconstruction after the Civil War (late 1860s) the newly freed slaves became citizens, and they were given the vote as well." (Web, 1)

American’s who live in the 21st century know that slavery is terrible and also a touchy subject. But Americans used to rely heavily on slavery, how we perceive slavery in today’s society can either be the same or different from how others thought of slavery living within mid 1800s. People who resided in the northern region of American found slavery wrong as we do today. Americans who lived farther south however liked, and relied on slavery. In today’s world, we Americans almost all agree that slavery had been a negative factor of our country. But within the 1840s and 1870s, Americans had been divided by slavery. People that were against slavery created the union as the pro slavery citizens created the confederates. Today, we can see why people of the mid 19th century either supported slavery or rebelled against it by reviewing sources.

Constitutional liberalism is the procedure for government’s objective. It means that the historical traditions of protecting each person's autonomy and dignity against intimidation of state, church, city, etc. It focus in two words that are really connected as it is liberal because it make clear each people liberty and freedom that is constitutional because it indicate the tradition of the rule of law. Every time a government uses constitutional liberalism to make clear its right as a democratic state to protect the people rights. But if a democratic government thinks of constitutional liberalism as they are the law and have all the power it can be dangerous because it's already making the government starts to make itself more powerful. A couple of countries according to Zakaria’s article that have either a illiberal democracy or a dictatorship are: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Iraq, Libya, Slovakia or Ghana. Iraq and Libya are the dictatorships

First, liberal democracies are more open with the people. The philosophical traditions of a liberal democratic republic are democracies, liberalism, and republicanism. Democracies try to be equal with all, it stresses public rights, it reaches for what the majority wants, and it is very protective against authoritarianism. In liberalism, natural rights can’t be violated, private rights are very important, no one is above the law, and the government has no rights. In republicanism the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. The chief executive is chosen through lections, and every citizen has their right to vote. Political