Popular Sovereignty

Douglas contributed a long article to Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, in which he states that the doctrine of popular sovereignty is derived from the founder’s commitment to “Local self-government”. Potentially under popular sovereignty, a few voting men could change the outcome of slavery in the American Territories repealing the longstanding, Missouri Compromise. However,

The coexistence of a slave owning south with an increasingly anti-slavery north made conflict likely. It was formidable to decide whether such states like the ones gained from the Mexican War should be slavery or anti-slavery, which either way would disrupt the balance between the slave and antislavery states. This divided the Union and Confederacy even further. Later on, President Lincoln sought not to propose federal laws against slavery where it already existed, but he had in his 1858 House Divided speech, expressed a desire to “arrest the further spread of it “(Doc. G). Much of the political battle in the 1850s focused on the expansion of slavery into the newly created territories. All of the organized territories were likely to become free soil states which increased the southern movement toward secession. Both north and south assumed that if slavery could not expand it would become nonexistent. Southern fears of losing control of the federal government to anti-slavery forces, and northern feared that the slave power already controlled the government; these thoughts brought the sectional disagreements. The morality of slavery, the scope of democracy, and the economic merits of free labor versus slave plantations caused the Whig and know nothing parties to collapse and the free soil party to arrive, ruining the resolve of compromise.

By the time 1860 came by, the North and South had a deep rift between them. With several issues such as slavery, it divided them in two. The South became the confederacy the moment Abraham Lincoln was elected for President of the United States of America. The North became the Union because unlike the South, the North had not seceded from the United States. Abraham Lincoln’s election drew the southerners over the edge, and on top of that the Civil War broke out in April of 1861.

When Andrew Jackson enforced high tariffs on the country in 1828 and 1832, southern states did not approve because it felt like it was only helping the northern economy, Specifically, South Carolina would nullify the act and “defeat the execution of certain laws of the United States” (Doc A). The effect of the Nullification Crisis is that it showed the south would not oblige by laws that hurt their economy, therefore a compromise on slavery in the future, which was the backbone of their economy, would obviously not be followed by any of the states due to how important a factor it was. Another economic factor that made compromise by 1860 seem impossible was the general economy of each region of the country. In the north, big cities developed with immigrants, railroads were popular, industry was booming and the emergence of a middle class started to happen. Meanwhile in the south, there was no real industry nor manufacturing, no real middle class, and the economy was solely based around slaves picking cotton on large plantations. Since the southern economy was one hundred percent dependable on slavery and cotton trade, they would definitely not favor a compromise that would mute the use of slavery. The effect of this is that it made compromise on the issue of slavery

At this time it seemed that the issue of slavery was the only problem in the United States, almost as if a slave was being forced down the throats of the freesoilers (Document F). Stephen Douglas drafted the Kansas-Nebraska Acts in hopes of adding two new states: Kansas and Nebraska. Although it seemed that one would be a slave state, and the other a free state, the slavery issue would be decided by popular sovereignty. Many opposed this decision but did not know how to deal with it. The reason they did not know was because the Constitution did not mention it. William Lloyd Garrison said “the Constitution which subjects them to hopeless bondage is one that we cannot swear to support” (Document E). He was trying to say that the constitution can’t answer the question of slavery because the words “slave” and “slavery” are not in the constitution.

Prior to Civil War, distinct Northern and Southern cultures had been established; The free North occupied the commercial industry, while the slavery-based South undertook an agricultural occupation. The South and the North began to fight over right and wrong. The major issue was regarding slavery, as the South wanted to preserve slavery while, the North wanted to get rid of it. These conflicts rose into sectional antagonism and eventually put the United States and President Lincoln in a loophole. During the Civil War however, Lincoln made some extremely controversial decisions, that resulted in a reduction of the sectional antagonism present, and the United States became truly “one nation.”

The conflicting ideologies on slavery of the North and South clashed heavily, inevitably leading to the South’s secession from the Union. Abraham Lincoln wished to suffocate slavery in the states in which it already existed by not allowing the institution to expand into the new territories. In his house divided speech he says “In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed. ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand.’ I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.” The two mindsets could not coexist forever as they were too vastly different. The issue of morality in slavery clearly had split in half with the justification

Congress and the states had always battled over what they should do with the issue. While the North did not favor it, the South argued that their agriculture depended on slavery. For a while, this issue was settled with the Missouri Compromise (1820). The Missouri Compromise kept slavery equal among the states, but it did not last long, for there was too many opinions between the North and South. These disagreements slowly lead to the Civil War (1861-1865), which the Union won in the end. Although, this was not what granted the enslaved their freedom, it was the Emancipation Proclamation (1865) that did the

In 1858 Abraham Lincoln addressed the Illinois Republican Convention in concerns that the nation is going in to crisis. He named the crisis “a house divided”. He claimed the issue was slavery and it is dividing our nation. The southern states relied on the cheap labor provided by the slaves, but the North did not agree with slavery and were more focused on the morals of each individual. The north was more concerned with growing the economy through manufacturing and industrialization. Lincoln believed that slavery was immoral and it not follow the philosophies of the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence states “all men are created equal” and having people as slaves is not creating everyone equal. Lincoln ranked helping

Abraham Lincoln 's famous words, “A House divided among itself cannot stand,” is a precise description of the twenty years prior to the Civil War, famously referred to as the Antebellum years. More accurately, it is true to say that a nation divided amongst itself cannot endure. The slavery topic in the 19th century was the central issue in the United States. The North and South constantly bickered in regard to the African Americans. In contrast, while the South wanted to expand slavery, the North wanted it abolished. Provided, the major conflicts caused a drastic division between the two, known as regionalism. Furthermore, as immigration spread in the United States, an antislavery group, the Nativists, rose to form a new political party.

In American History slavery was always an issue that was argued and fought over for centuries. It is one of the biggest issues that occurred around the 1800s. In the 1700s the South wanted to keep slaves and the North thought slavery should be banned. The South believed that it should be a choice if someone wants to have slaves or not. There were many acts and laws passed in the 17 and 1800s to help keep the territories happy, or the new might’ve had more wars and riots then we already have.

During 1790 and 1850, the United States was rapidly changing. The country was learning to live on its own, apart from England with its own economy, laws, and government. Not long after it declared independence that a rift between North and South began to start. The North believed in the Puritan Merchant role model, and the South in the role model of the English Country Squire. The difference in point of views soon caused the United States to start to split apart before eventually completely separating and resulting in one the bloodiest wars in American history. Prior to the outbreak of the civil war in 1861-1865, many events occurred within the years leading up to it that that foreshadowed the eventual succession of the southern “cotton states”. The Union and the Confederacy had begun to grow apart politically and economically following the election of President Lincoln. The outcome of the 1860 election sparked controversy and disagreement between the two sides, most specifically about the topic of slavery. Blacks had become bound to a life of slavery, and had become a staple of the American work force and economy.

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.

The debate over slavery and states ' rights had become so intense by 1860 that the South was ready to break away altogether, and they did not want to cooperate with the North. They felt they were being exploited and taken advantage of by the North. The economy, culture, and various ways of life had developed differently throughout the U.S., creating a feeling of disunity. Resolving disputes threw compromise no longer seemed possible. They had no reason to compromise and work out their disputes because the South wanted to form a confederacy of their own. This all began to deteriorate because of the dramatic economic, social, and political issues, such as the Compromise of 1850, Fugitive Slave Act, political leaders, succession attempts, and

As the United States grew westward, issues that had begun with the original states grew and spread with it. The relationship between northern and southern states was never strong due to the cultural differences of the two, but the westward expansion weakened it further. These differences resulted in arguments in the government over how to handle the issues that were appearing. These arguments eventually became small skirmishes, like those in Kansas, which foreshadowed the large fight that would split the United States: the American Civil War. This civil war was caused by the economic, social and political differences of the north and south all centralized around one main issue: slavery.