Slavery Vs Sectionalism

By the year of 1860, the North and the South was developed into extremely different sections. There was opposing social, economic, and political points of view, starting back into colonial periods, and it slowly drove the two regions farther in separate directions. The two sections tried to force its point of view on the nation as a whole. Even though negotiations had kept the Union together for many years, in 1860 the condition was unstable. The presidential election of Abraham Lincoln was observed by the South as a risk to slavery and many believe it initiated the war.

The compromises merely worked, and with the passing of time, tensions rose more between the sections, thus making these compromises less and less effective. The Compromise of 1850 enraged both the North and the South. When California was annexed, it was assigned to become a free state and the South did not appeal to that because the land boundaries that was made by the Missouri Compromise was large. Another part of this compromise that angered Southerners was that slave trade was banned in Washington D.C. The Fugitive Slave Law, which was a part of the Compromise of 1850 angered the North, because it allowed bounty hunters to hunt down slaves and the people who helped them to hide. Also, Northerners rejected this because they rejected Popular Sovereignty, which created possibilities of having slavery in any Northern states.

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).

The Compromise of 1850, as it was called, was a bundle of legislation that everyone could agree on. First, congressmen agreed that California would be admitted to the Union as a free state (Utah was not admitted because the Mormons refused to give up the practice of polygamy). The fate of slavery in the other territories, though, would be determined by popular sovereignty. Next, the slave trade (though not slavery itself) was banned in Washington, D.C. Additionally, Texas had to give up some of its land to form the New Mexican territory in exchange for a cancellation of debts owed to the federal government. Finally, Congress agreed to pass a newer and tougher Fugitive Slave Act to enforce the return of escaped slaves to the South.

All of this new land was a major benefactor to the Market Revolution and widespread commerce, but it left a lot of problems regarding slavery. Thus, The Compromise of 1850 was passed. This act admitted California as a free state and abolished slave trade in the nation’s capital to please northerners. It also Installed the Fugitive Slave Act and formed a territorial government in the west with no slavery restrictions for southerners. This compromise was also referred to as the “Armistice of 1850” because it resolved issues for at least a little bit.

During the 19th century the South and the North began to debate within each other as slavery was starting to become a national issue. The South was unified following the institution of slavery as it was vital to their economic success and the North was anti-slavery. The Civil War was inevitable becoming the climax to a growing tension between both the South and North in the act of failed Compromises and differences. The Missouri Compromise, The Act of 1850, and The Kansas-Nebraska Act hold large responsibility as causes for the Civil War considering none completely stopped the war and were merely postponed it.

One effect on the issue was that the economy in the south was fueled by cultivation of staple crops that required slaves for labor. In the South slavery wasn’t thought as an evil as in the North because to the Southerners defense the slaves in their opinion were treaty in contrast to workers in England and peasants that were Irish, also the end of slave trade brought higher value to the slaves causing their owners to be less harsh because they were more valuable. Although slavery fueled the economy in the South it was not the same in the North therefore there was no complete dire need for slavery, and although the slaves probably weren’t treated as bad as the north had thought they still saw it as

At the beginning, the Compromise of 1850 settled the dispute of the land from the Mexican Cession. The Compromise of 1850 pleased both the North and South. California was admitted as a free state and slave was ban in Washington D.C. as it favors the North. For the South, popular sovereignty decided if slavery was used in the western territories, along with the fugitive slave law passed. The Fugitive Slave Act 1850 allowed special government officials to arrest any person accused of being a runaway slave, as shown in Document B, a poster of capturing fugitive slaves. Additionally, the Kansas-Nebraska Act (Stephen Douglas) was passed. It undid the Missouri Compromise, having popular sovereignty in the western territories, therefore “to cease the agitation of the

The Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1877, was mainly caused by the diverging society between the North and the South. The North and the South had different goals. There were many factors that led to the war and the chief ones were political and economic differences between the North and the South. The North’s aggression to control the South had led to the point where it was intolerable. The issue on slavery was one of the causes of the Civil War. Slavery and slave trades had become a big part of the South’s economy. The slaves were needed to work on plantations which helped the South prospered. During the 19th Century, the North worked hard on abolishing slavery, which they thought was a disgrace to the Union.

The Compromise of 1850 had five laws regarding slavery and conflict between the north and south passed in September, 1850. The five laws that were passed include California being admitted as a free state, upholding the popular sovereignty in New Mexico and Utah, banning slave trade in Washington D.C. (because it doesn’t look good in the nation’s capital), fugitive slave act and, settling the Texas and New Mexico border dispute. This compromise allowed issues to get sorted out in a fair way. The north benefited by receiving California as a free state and no more slave trade in

There were many things that struck me about sectionalism outside of slavery. For instance, just learning that sectionalism means “not one.” It was interesting to me how the point was raised that America developed on different paths. I was familiar with the idea, but I was never challenged to apply this to areas outside of Slavery; although, this was always subconsciously my knowledge. For instance, I always knew about the North being more industrialized while the south remained more rural, but I never analyzed it in a way that the outcome would lead to different developmental paths. Also, it could be argued that slavery did not have as much significance as it has made out to be. Chapter 12 points out that three thirds of southerners did not

In the later half of nineteenth century America, the new nation’s original ability to resolve conflict through means of peaceful compromise had vanished. Various spans of conflict such as Westward Expansion, the Market Revolution, Sectionalism, Mexican American War, the succession of the southern states and ultimately the failure of the Compromise of 1850 that made compromise between the North and the South unattainable. It was the uncompromising differences amongst the free and slave states over the power of the national government that created a divide that would result in divisional violence. From the industrialized North, the agricultural South, Jackson’s Presidency to Lincoln’s and the rise in America 's involvement in politics that followed, slavery was merely one pawn on the board during America’s transforming years that would later reveal itself to have been the vehicle for the Civil War.

Crisis events of the 1850s that helped lead toward the civil war were the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law, and the South leaving the Union. The Compromise of 1850 was five separate bills and three separate compromises. It admitted California as a free state, and the rest of the Mexican possession were left to be decided by popular sovereignty, which is a vote of the territory inhabitants. The result of this was 15 free states and 16 slave states. This lead to a stronger slave law, but no consistent majority of votes over the compromise (Faragher, 363). The Fugitive Slave Law helped lead toward the civil war because the law stated increased the power of slave owners to capture the escaped slaves. Through this the federal government fully

Sectional tension increased during the mid 19th century bringing America into a civil war. There were a few important factors that helped to increase tensions in both the North and the South. Some of these factors were the Anti-Slavery movement, Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Fugitive Slave Law, John Brown’s raid at Harpers Ferry, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and the election of Abraham Lincoln into Presidency.

Slavery was the most important cause of the Civil War, because this single issue divided the North and South to begin with. The ideological differences between the North and South led to economic differences, conflicts over newly acquired territories, disputes over the constitution, and political extremism. The Election of 1860 was the culmination of these disputes and caused the South to secede in 1861 and guided the way towards the Civil War.