Ever since the colonial days the North and South had very different ideas in the way they viewed slavery.
As the idea of Manifest Destiny spread the country westward and new states joined the union, the disagreement over slavery became more and more heated. With each new state, came new congressman, new lawmakers. Northern states, free states, wanted the new states to have no slavery. The Southern states, pro-slavery states, wanted to extend slavery into the new states.
JUMP FORWARD 1858: The race for Illinois Senate - the Lincoln-Douglas Debates
In 1858, an Illinois lawyer named Abraham Lincoln and the current Illinois senator named Stephan Douglas engaged in a series of debates about the slavery issue and its extension into the new territories.
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Both slave and free states watched carefully to see which side California would be on. The south was hoping to spread slavery through the land gained from the Mexican-American War (1846-48) and treaty with Mexico. The south also wanted laws passed to help recover slaves who had escaped into the free states in the North. This law was called the Fugitive Slave Law (Act). The North was very much against this law. The people of California decided they did not want slavery in their state. This caused the anger between the North and South continue to get worse.
Henry Clay, a senator from Kentucky, proposed several measures in an attempt to save the Union. This was called the Compromise of 1850. It included the following measures: 1) California enters the union as a free state, 2) the territories of Utah and New Mexico will be able to decide for themselves if they want to be free or slave states 3) enforcement of a strict fugitive slave law 4) abolition of slave trade in the District of Columbia (Washington, DC) 5) Payment to Texas of $10,000,000 to give up certain claims to New Mexico and land north of Missouri Compromise line
Tensions between both sides arose when Douglas passed the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Senator Douglas felt that Kansas and Nebraska should be subjected to popular sovereignty like other western territories. Although the many temperate politicians like Abraham Lincoln wanted to avoid the Civil War and were fine with allowing slavery to die slowly. But, many influential political leaders of the 19th century were not. The South was interested in maintaining slavery to the new territories to increase their economy and political power. Due to lack of leadership neither side could come to a compromise, as Stephen Douglas put it what applied in the South could not similarly apply as in the north and vice versa (Doc 5), these were two distinct societies, but there was still room for a middle ground. The North had an interest in limiting the spread of slavery into the new territories for both purposes of controlling Southern political
The North and South both had opposite opinions about slavery, The South favored slavery because of there agricultural based economy which they needed slaves to attend to their harvests and crops, the North was against slavery because they were an industrialized nation they had no need for slavery. This debate went on and almost resulted
In 1850, Henry Clay introduced a series of propositions which concerned California as a free state and the fugitive slave law. However, Clay never succeeded in passing his plans due to differences congress portrayed within each other. In September, Douglas introduced Clays plans, but separately, and ended up…… so the Compromise of 1850 was signed. This Compromise admitted California as a free state and enforced the Fugitive slave laws among others. It created tension as northerners were unhappy with the fugitive slave law and the southerners felt threatened due to
Politically, slavery became one of those hot topic issues that politicians usually like to avoid speaking about because the country was divided into two different view points, pro-slavery and anti-slavery, and politicians wanted to be in everyone’s good graces to win come election time. However, when the argument came about weather or not newly inducted states could ban slavery or not, tensions rose in the government. This led to the Compromise of 1850, which allowed for stricter fugitive laws, but allowed California to be free, and New Mexico and Utah to make their decision based on popular sovereignty (the idea that the people of that state should choose). Politically, slavery left a whole mess of confusion for the new states. For example, in the Kansas- Nebraska act a railroad was to be built crossing over two new territories (Kansas and Nebraska) that allowed
Although it bought the North 10 more years to industrialize before the Civil War, the Compromise of 1850 overall did not work very well causing widespread unrest over its effects. California being admitted as a free state and D.C. stopping its slave trade worried the South for the fate of slavery. Popular sovereignty really only put gas into the fire that was the dispute
As Americans were moving west to fulfill the Manifest Destiny and conquering new territories, new boundaries for the Union were having to be shaped. With the northern states having officially abolished slavery since 1804, the argument over which territories would be free or not was now coming into play. The North and South have had differing opinions regarding slavery for over sixty years, but with the topic being kept out of most, if not all, political debates the dispute never seemed to come to a head. After the
The 1820 Missouri Compromise played a large role in the campaign against slavery. In 1819 Missouri became a statehood and congress considered framing a state constitution, with this a representative attempted to add a anti-slavery legislation with it. This is what started the process of the campaign against slavery. Henry Clay made a large contribution toward this compromise in 1820, with his new ideas on how to settle the conflict between the North and the South, which lasted until 1954.All the compromise’s made from 1820's to the Kansas Nebraska compromise
One of the main topics of concern for many decades was when new territories want to enter the union, will they be free or slave states? Henry Clay, one of the great compromisers, was able to work all sorts of different compromises on several issues throughout the years. One of his most famous compromises was the Missouri compromise. This allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state, and every new state following would be free North of the Mason-Dixon line. This would try to stop the expansion of slavery, and for a short while, it did. During this time period, most Americans believed in manifest destiny, so they expanded westward. As many Southern’s moved west, they brought with them their slaves. Furthermore, they moved to places where slavery made economic sense, for example
“I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance, The Union, sir, is my country” - Henry Clay (United States History). The Compromise of 1850 was once considered despising, loathing, and abhorring. This would become altered, as it would turn out to be one of the greatest compromises in the United States and would make its mark in history. The Compromise of 1850 adopted the Fugitive Slave Act and the reason for California statehood. The compromise attempted to avoid a crisis between the North and the South, with the assistance of Henry Clay and his colleagues. The document came to be with three main ideas: significance, conflict, and compromise. The Compromise of 1850, proposed by Henry Clay, dealt with disputes
The Compromise of 1850 was drafted in response to the threat of a Southern Convention, because of Zachary Taylors decision to carve out two huge territories in the Far West and to admit them in the union as free states. Henry Clay drafted the compromise, which includes eight parts. "The first pair would admit California as a State and organize the remainder of the Mexican cession without "any restriction or condition on the subject of slavery". The second pair of resolutions settled the boundary dispute between Texas and New Mexico in favor of the latter and compensated Texas by federal assumption of debts contracted during its existence as an Independent Republic. Clay 's third pair of resolutions called for abolition of the slave trade
The Compromise of 1850 was a desperate attempt to keep the southern states from seceding from the United States of America. While the goal was to keep the south from seceding, the new laws actually created more tension than it solved. Since the division in America over slave ownership had been holding a delicate balance with the states on both sides, the North and the South. When California petitioned to join the Union in 1849 as a free state, that delicate balance tipped and the conflict once again erupted. The Compromise consisted of 5 laws, admitting California as a free state, creating Utah and New Mexico territories with the question of slavery in each is determined by popular sovereignty, settling a Texas-New Mexico boundary dispute in the former’s favor, ending the slave trade in Washington D.C. and making it easier for southerners to recover fugitive slaves (History).
Slavery continued to cause major conflictions throughout the nation, especially between northern and southern states. Northerners and Southerners had two completely different views and insights on the issue of slavery. For most Northerners, they believed that slavery was wrong and it went against what the nation stood for; liberty and all men being created equally. However, there were some northerners who were antislavery and others (very few) were abolitionist. Although both sides opposed slavery, some individuals’ motives were self beneficial and really did not care so much for slavery while others believed in what America stood for and how it implies to everyone. Southerners on the other hand defended slavery, as it was their way of life.
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.
Even though the North and the South origins were both from Europe, their customs and living habits were different. The North and the South began to notice these differences as they broke away from Britain in the Revolutionary War. The North and South emerged into two different regions, due to their various differences. These differences included the geography, the economy, the social and classification status, and transportation.
The South wanted to free the slaves, however, they understood the “negative” political impacts. The North wanted to free the slaves, but they were very divided within themselves. Once ex-slaves gained the right to vote as a full human being (Black Suffrage), the Republican party arose to shape our country. (Roark, 471) With ex-slaves gaining the highly deserved power, the Ku Klux Klan (K.K.K.) was developing to support the democrats and restore “White Supremacy”. (Roark, 471) The political division raised what I would call a second Civil-War within the American government.