Essay about Kentucky's Divided Loyalties During the Civil War

McDonough, James L. War In Kentucky: From Shiloh to Perryville. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994

The United States became further united due to the continuous desire and procurement of new territories. In President James Polk’s 1845 Inaugural Address, he shared his opinion of the “danger to [the nation’s] safety and future peace” if Texas remained an independent

As Texas State Gazette mentioned”No state can force another state either to remain in it or withdraw from it”; this was later supported by O.M Roberts, president of the Texas Secession Convention, when he said “the true theory of our national government as an associations of sovereignties not a mass of people in one social compact.” (document C). Each statement supports the fact that the united states should grant each state their own power. By doing this it gives people popular sovereignty, this means more individual freedom and a happier government. Texas felt the need to not have to follow a set of rules created by a federal system. The Union deprived Texas of this right because it wanted to stay in control, this ended up giving the Union Hitlerian aspects which incensed Texas.

Daniel Webster, along with other people also objected to Texas joining the Union due to its’ status as a slave state, but this was not due to slavery being evil, so much as it was a socio-economic issue for the North.

3. Explain the maneuvering by pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces to gain control of the Kansas government. What did both sides come to believe that Kansas symbolized for the nation?

Secession is when a territory or state withdrawals from a larger territory. It is significant in this chapter because

In 1820, a politician by the name of Henry Clay decided to help work out a compromise that would keep the balance the North and South. Clay suggested that Congress should admit Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. The official proposal was passed in March of 1820 and prohibited slavery from any territories in the Louisiana Purchase that was North of 36°30’ latitude. (The American Journey Page 320,437, and 438) Almost thirty years later, a dispute over slavery broke out in Congress because a bill was introduced by Illinois senator Stephen Douglas. Douglas originally wanted to run for president but in order to do that he needed the support of the Southern Democrats. With Douglas trying to win over both northerners and southerners, the Kansas-Nebraska act proclaimed that Kansas and Nebraska territories would have the choice to be a free or slave state. Douglas was basically saying that “they” being Congress would repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and would rely on “popular sovereignty” which is letting the people decide. He figured that because Kansas and Nebraska becoming slave

In the early 1820’s Missouri wanted to be admitted into the Union. At this time the twenty-two states in America were evenly divided into two groups. The “slave” states whose state constitutions allowed slavery, and the “free” states whose state constitutions did not allow slavery. Each side had eleven states, making the balance between the parties’ power in the Senate equal. Missouri’s state constitution allowed slavery and admitting Missouri to the Union would have given the slave states more power in the Senate. The “free” states were against this happening. Henry Clay

The Constitution of the United States of America, and its powers within, is supposed to support the overall liberty of our nation. In 1798, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson sought to fight for the states right to nullify laws that they deemed unconstitutional. This fight was spurred by the Alien and Sedation Acts which were “considered unconstitutional because they infringed on the reserved powers of the states” (“Virginia and Kentucky resolutions,” n.d., para. 2). The language in these resolutions was later brought to light in 1832 in support of the nullification position taken by South Carolina pertaining to the high tariffs on imports that the government imposed. In the end, the fight for states’ rights was neutralized by the Force

The Union wishes to suppress and maybe even outlaw slavery, while we aim to expand slavery. The Union supported a free Kansas while we proposed for the state to decide whether they would allow slavery. If we stay in the Union, the desire to abolish slavery may be forced upon us. Slavery is the backbone of our economy and we must preserve it.

With no hope of bringing the South back into the United States by protecting slavery, Lincoln had a new dilemma. His own political party, the Republicans, had formed around their opposition to slavery. Many of the more radical politicians in the party saw the secession of the South as the best opportunity to abolish slavery once and for all. As the US war dead piled up, more and more Northerners began to push Lincoln to punish the states that had seceded by making abolition a major goal of the war. The problem with abolishing slavery, however, was that there were still four slave states that had not seceded from the United States: Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware. Lincoln feared that if he advocated emancipation he would provoke those states into joining the Confederacy, making the war even more difficult to win. Of the border states, Maryland was particularly worrisome, because the US capital at Washington D.C. sat on its border with Virginia. If Maryland decided to join the Confederacy, Washington D.C.

Calhoun: And why should we not allow states to succeed henceforth give power back to the people. There can be a successful separation of the confederacy from the union. If the federal government treads on our freedoms as states it should justly be our right to form our own nation.

Kentucky offered more resistance than Maryland or Missouri. However, it also surrendered [to federal tyranny] (pp. 85-87).

sovereignty of the thirteen distinct states.” Mercy Otis Warren was not the only one who thought

As the Civil war was going on the Kentuckians wanted to stay neutral as they did not wanted to be part of the Civil war. Lincoln stayed out and hoped for the federal forces to stay out as well of the hotspot hoping of neutrality of the state border to its unionist senses. When the Kentuckians served both unions, they captured six of the U.S. Congress seats. Ulysses S. Grant claimed to come and save Kentuckians of invaders. As the two houses of Kentucky wanted for both Polk and Grant to leave, Polk was decided to stay. The unionist dominated the three less enslaved