United States Rights Vs. Federal Rights

During the early 1800’s in the United States of America, both the Early Industrial Revolution and the Westward Expansion contributed to the sectional tension between the North and the South. While the North had factories popping up everywhere, the South had more and more land dedicated to plantations. To stay at the pace of the North, the South decided it would be beneficial if they were to become their cotton suppliers. With the invention of the cotton gin, cotton was being mass-produced and sent to the North to be made into items such as clothing. Whilst this was going on, the point of slavery became a big issue and the debate over it began, dividing the North and South more and more over time. The North didn't support slavery and instead, hired workers to work in the factories (specifically low-wage woman), while the South supported slavery and used African slaves to work on plantations. This caused many problems as both sides wanted more land to promote their opinion on slavery for either plantations or factories. Due to each of the sides having contradictory points of view on slavery, the Missouri Compromise and the addition of other territories such as during the Louisiana Purchase, the Oregon Treaty, and the Annexation of Texas, much strife occurred in the Senate. The Westward Expansion led to the desire for more land, therefore the United States expanded their land from the East coast to the West coast. The Westward Expansion promoted the addition of new land and

The north and south have been arguing over slavery since 1787 when the constitution was first signed and our government as we know it came to be. Before the westward expansion in new unexplored territory began in the United States, it was understood that the Ohio River and Mason-Dixon line would be the boundary between free and slave states. Westward expansion was a very important thing to the United States during this time. The incorporation of new states in the newer, western territory made slavery a full-frontal concern of national politics. “As the free society of the North and the slave society of the South spread westward, it seemed politically expedient to maintain a rough equality among the new states carved out of western territories,” (Alchin, Linda). Balancing the amount of slave and free states was a significant matter to both the northern and the southern political leaders. When Alabama first joined the Union in 1819, it made the political power between free and slave states completely equal, which made political leaders from both sides happy.

The issue of slavery was also a bone of contention at the time. Slaves made up a large share of the population in southern states. Since population was the basis for representation in the House of Representatives, the southern states pushed for the inclusion of slaves when calculating their population. The northern states which did not have a large population of slaves opposed this idea. Both sides finally agreed to count slaves as three-fifth of a person. This is why an amendment had to be made to the constitution for African Americans to be emancipated.

Southerners were basically farmers who made their living of agriculture, architecture, so they needed to tend the land they owned. To be able to maintain their crops they needed labor as well as slaves. If slaves were banned in the south the southern economy would drop because the lack of labor and the trade market of slaves would drop as well. Slavery existed for primary labor. Southerners claimed that the federal government was not allowed to stop them from having slavery; the issue of slavery became one of the main issues, because it was the most certain issue of the time. The slavery issue came to the front of laws later, and many in the south were discussing the possibility of freeing the slaves on their own. The north, which was controlled by radical republicans, was pushing for the abolition of slavery. Northerners aided the escape of runaway slaves, which was a constitutional violation that made a fugitive from one state a fugitive of every state. Slavery in the beginning existed in every state, and the writers of the Constitution avoided addressing the issue of conserving or ending slavery in order to obtain ratification from all states. When Americans acclaimed victory in the Mexican War, which resulted in the US expanding its territory from Texas all the way to the Pacific Ocean, the question of whether or not to permit slavery in the new territories was later issued. The

Socially and economically, the biggest and most controversial issue in the states was slavery. The Southern states relied heavily on slavery for their plantations and also wanted them involved in the state census. This became a problem to the Northern states because slavery was big in the South, but not the North. If slaves did become part of a population count, it would make the Southern states have more power in the government. As shown here, it is very easy to see how America has become divided into two halves when it comes to economic and political gain. In a sense, this debate was almost foreshadowing the Civil War. The South was extremely selfish as they themselves considered slaves almost less than human, but when it came to gaining power, they were ready to have the slaves counted. The 3/5th Compromise was a great solution to the slave issue. The 3/5ths Compromise stated that for every five slaves in a state, three of them would be counted towards the population and also towards taxation.

As the need for more crops and other products increased, the production in the North also increased, but the South could not do so without slaves. The slaves in the South were essential to their economy. Almost all of the individuals that could afford slaves, owned them. However, in the northern states, slavery was not as apparent because the political leaders thought it was morally wrong and felt as though the slaves would take away jobs from the whites. Also, with all of the factories and inventions that the North had that the South did not have, the North was far more successful in their levels of production, without the aid of slaves. Throughout history, the differences of opinions over whether slavery should be allowed or abolished in the Unite States has brought many debates and controversies which eventually led to wars. There were many causes that led to the Civil War, and many of them led were started over disputes over free or slave states in the South.

The Civil War was started by many events that proved to served sectional tensions, where the Kansas-Nebraska Act proved the tensions that had failed to be resolved. Northerners became more opposed to slavery, whether for moral or economic reasons, while Southerners became more united in their defense of slavery as an institution. Different ideas over slavery were shared. This caused sectional tensions and as the North and the South were trying to come with a consensus of what to do, things became more intense. Political sectionalism occurred because of certain events happening throughout the government. The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which was followed by the Kansas Nebraska Act was a main cause in the lead of Civil War. Since the Kansas-Nebraska Act effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise, tensions regarding the issue and stance of slavery became more debated throughout the country.  As the North and the South became increasingly different, their goals and desires separated as well. Arguments over national policy became more aggressive. Between the 1840s and 1850s, both the North and South evolved extreme positions that had as much to do with serving their own political interests as with the morality of slavery. As long as there were an equal number of slave-holding states in the South as non slaveholding states in the North, the two regions had even representation in the Senate and neither would dictate to the other. However, each new territory that applied for statehood threatened to upset this balance of power. Southerners consistently argued for states rights and a weak federal government, but it was not until the 1850s that the issue of secession was raised. Southerners argued that having the Constitution ratified and having agreed to join the new nation in the late 1780s, that they would retain the power to cancel the agreement. There were controversial attempts at a solution that included legal compromises and debates such as the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, and the Lincoln-Douglas Debates in 1858. However, Southerners felt that the laws favored the Northern economy and were designed to impede the South. Although, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 which was in favor of

While the South was largely agrarian, they saw slavery as an essential institution to maintain a competitive economy. However, the North was strongly opposed to slavery, seeing it as an immoral practice and unfair competition against American laborers. Disputes over taxes also fueled the increasing friction between the North and the South. By raising protective tariffs, the North benefited from less competition and cheaper imports of raw materials, however it also harmed the southerner’s ability to purchase affordable goods and sell their produce at a competitive price. These conflicts sectionalized the United States and gave rise to a political divide between the northern republicans and southern democrats. Relations between the North and South combusted as republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election causing the South to propose bills of secession. Washington’s two warnings of sectionalism and political parties were both ignored during this time, resulting in the bloodiest war AMerica has ever seen. If his warnings were enforced as constitutional law, where the North and South corporated in unison to each other’s benefit, instead of plotting against each other, America may never have ruined their hard built cities, infrastructure, their farms, and families in a war between themselves. 620,000 men and women would have been alive with their loved ones and able to contribute more to their community instead of lost in bloody battles between their fellow

The spread of slavery separated the Union because State Representatives could agree on whether the land gained should be free or be slave terrain. States in the North didn’t want slavery to continue, opposing any more slave states, on the other hand states in the South wanted slavery in the land gained. Issues of slavery were decided in Congress, where the results are based on votes by Representatives from each State. Each state has a different number of representatives based on the state 's population. “Representatives and Direct Taxes shall be apportioned … according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years… three-fifths of all slaves” (Constitution of the Confederate State of America, 1861). The free States were equal in political power

By the time the Civil War broke out in 1861, the North and the South had very different arguments about slavery. In the north, the soil and climate did not allow for large plantations as in the south. Because of the large crops of tobacco and cotton, southern plantations relied heavily on slave labor. The north favored industry. Because of this, slavery died out and was “replaced…by immigrant labor from Europe” (civilwar.org). The northern population tended to be more educated than that of the south. This led to more of the southern population being poor and owning slaves merely because they felt the slaves were a lower class and owning them gave them a higher social status. Southern defenders of slavery believed that without slave labor, the crops would die out and dry up, leading to the economy to collapse. Slavery defenders also believed that freeing the slaves would cause chaos due to overwhelming unemployment. The abolitionist movement, during mid to late

After getting freedom from Great Britain, there was a big concern on how to run America and its government. It was not an easy decision how t was planned , however people thought of it as dividing the nation into two separate sections; the North and the South. Throughout the 19th century, conflicts arose between the North and South because both the North and South did not agree on the same things; the North and South had many differences mainly because of how they would make their growth in business and whether slavery would be a part of their economy or not. These differences between both the North and South made the tension between both sections unavoidable and eventually lead to the cause of the Civil War.

In 1820, Congress passed the Missouri Compromise into law which not only banned slavery in the former Louisiana Territory north of the 36°30' latitude line but admitted Missouri into the Union as a slave state and Maine as a free one. This shows how much Northerners and Southerners were divided over the issue of slavery in the western territories considering a law had to be implemented merely for Missouri to receive statehood. The reason why this was such a huge deal was because the North didn’t want there to be more slave states than free states since that would mean the South would possess more representation in Congress and thus more control over legislation. Even though the slavery issue seemed to be resolved by this compromise, tensions between the North and South regarding this practice came about once more under the presidency of James K. Polk. He was president during the Mexican-American War, a conflict which arose after the annexation of Texas that resulted in the United States acquiring the Mexican Cession under the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (1848). Sectionalism was present in the nation again considering the North and the South were at each other’s throats because the two couldn’t agree on whether to allow slavery in the lands the country received from Mexico. After the Wilmot Proviso failed which was an attempt to ban

The institution of slavery swiftly divided the Americans eventually causing the Civil War. Since the founding of the colonies, the southern colonies drastically differed from its New England neighbors. For example, South Carolina divided because the southern region exploited slavery for the production of cash crops, such as tobacco and sugar while the northern region held different political beliefs and specialized in lumber for ship making. Eventually, this division led to the creation of two new states—North and South Carolina. Similarly, slavery worsened this divide among Americans eventually causing the creation of two new nations—The Union and the Confederacy. Both sides held opposing beliefs and because neither would succumb, the method

The north and south were very different, while the north was based on industry and trade the south was based on agriculture. Plantations were the way of life and well established in the states that formed the confederacy. The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney became a tremendously profitable business leading to an increase in the number of fermentations willing to grow cotton which created the need for cheap labor, that meant slavery. However, the economy in the northern states were based more on industry, in fact the industries in the north were purchasing the raw cotton and transitioning it to finished goods. Society evolved which meant that the different cultures and classes in the north had to work together.

Since the Wilmot Proviso was not a law but merely just a proposal the Compromise of 1850 brought clarity to the Americans. When the Compromise of 1850 was established this gave American’s something concrete to go by. They were given five new laws. American’s now knew what would be allowed in the new territories and how they would be divided. It also allowed the states people to decide whether or not slavery would be legal. There was also a fugitive slave act passed that gave slave capturers government funded incentive. These laws were viewed as a peace deal because it made both sides happy. Although the Compromises was viewed as a resolution, it was short-lived. The fugitive slave act created problems among the anti-slavery community. It made