Political Changes Between 1860 And 1860

The presidential election of 1860 set the stage for the American Civil war. By 1860, the nation had been divided mostly up to that point regarding questions of states’ rights and slavery in the territories. Southerners were outraged over the plan by abolitionist, John Brown, to start a slave rebellion at Harper Ferry, Virginia. This event garnered headlines all over the nation in newspapers and magazines. On the other hand, the Northern Republic seemed equally anger by the Supreme Court decision in the case of Dred Scott v. Stanford, which declared free soil unconstitutional. The Northern Democrats, however, struggled to persuade the Americans that their policy of popular sovereignty still made since.

After the war was over, there were many constitutional alterations in America’s government. In 1862, while

     Radical Republicans wanted to enact a far-reaching transformation of Southern social and economic life, permanently ending the old planter class system, and favored granting freed slaves citizenship and voting rights. After the war, they came to believe whites in the South were seeking

They were opposed to the expansion of slavery and called for Congress to prevent the further expansion of slavery into new territories. They believed that by confining slavery to its current boundaries, it would gradually be eradicated. The formation of the Republican Party was one of the primary reasons of how the political landscape changed in the Union.

The American Revolution had a very intense fundamental change on American society between the years 1775 to 1800. The thirst for independence resulted in the revolution which caused many political, social, and economic changes. When the revolution began, the people were drowning in jingoism, and after the seven years of fighting for our independence, several changes had to be made. Although some political, social, and economic parts of society seem to have remained the same, America experienced drastic fundamental changes throughout these years and set the standards for even more changes to come.

The North didn't care about slavery as long as it stayed in the South. South Carolina seceded, because Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, was voted into office. The Republican party threatened the South's expansion and so Southerners felt that they had no other choice.

During the period between 1860 and 1877, many major changes occurred in America. There were many constitutional developments in this time period, which include the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil War, and newly added Amendments. There were also many social developments included the Ku Klux Klan and voting of black people. Some of these developments were a revolution, which is a forcible overthrow of the government or social order in favor of a new system, and some were not.

During the period of 1820-1861 the north and south debated on issues that dealt with slavery and unbalance power, in order to reduce sectional tension between these two states, the Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act were proposed.

Central to this shift was the conviction of increasing numbers of Northerners that the South should be remade into a society based on free labor, equal rights, and the republican form of government guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. This view was especially widespread within the Republican Party, which dominated national politics, in part because the Southern states, where the Democratic Party was dominant, had withdrawn their representatives from the Congress of the United States after secession.

As time passed the rapidly changing society in the nineteenth century, in 1820 the north and south began to have serious conflicting problems that were proved unfixable by compromise. During this time, the north underwent major social, economic, and industrial changes known as the Antebellum Period. While the south generally clung to king cotton and slavery and thus remained essentially the same. This arose a manifold of controversies with how issues such as tariffs, slavery, and land should be handled. Both the Union and the Confederacy tried to create compromises to resolve these problems, yet both sides were never completely satisfied no matter how hard they tried. This made it very close to impossible for them to completely put their

Firstly, the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 established popular sovereignty which allowed the states to choose whether they were free or slave-holding (Doc 3). This led to a period of time known as Bleeding Kansas when tensions between antislavery Republicans and pro-slavery Democrats increased as border ruffians tipped the votes and violence ensued. Also, the Caning of Charles Sumner, when Northern Congressman Sumner was beat by Southern Congressman Preston Brooks, further intensified tensions (Doc 4). The event led Northerners to view Southerners as uncivilized and violent, further increasing the gap between the North and the South. Thirdly, the Dred Scott v. Sandford decision ruled that slaves were not citizens and it allowed slavery virtually everywhere (Doc 5). This angered Northerners extremely because slavery was banned in the North and most Northerners supported antislavery. It also effectively repealed the Kansas-Nebraska Act that allowed states to choose being slave-holding or free, further angering the North. Altogether these events were the reason sectionalism became such a large issue; they significantly increased mutual dislike between the North and the South and fragmented the

The Civil War brought an end to slavery. Reconstruction came with the hope of transforming the nation. For the Republicans, they had a vision that was building the nation. For example, they used preventive ways to create a new economic policy. Their second part was to reshape the former Confederacy and to explore the events in the West. Despite President Andrew Jackson’s political madness, Republicans believed in the vision and wanted to succeed with their reconstruction plans. Tariffs, the national banking system, and railroads went a long way to the growth of the nation.

The core issue of the Republican Party, and Lincoln was over the extension of slavery. Abolitionists and supporters of free soil in the North worked to keep the Republicans from compromising on their territorial stand. In the South, proslavery advocates and secessionists gathered public opinion and demanded that state conventions assemble to consider secession.

As to what exactly caused the Southern Realignment many politicians have their own theories and opinions. Some believe that racial issues was the leading cause that made the South more Republican. According to Ryan L. Claasen(2011) laws like the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act started brewing the Southern Realignment and mainly changed the ideals of Southern White Voters to more of the conservative side. There were many reasons why many southern conservative changed their voter partisan due to race because of what the parties had to offer. When Civil Rights started the Democratic and the Republican party made it clear where they standed on this

Compare and contrast economic, social, and political developments in the North and South between 1800-1860. How do you account for the divergence between the two sections?