Analysis Of The Irrepressible Conflict Between The North And South

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The turmoil between the North and South about slavery brought many issues to light. People from their respective regions would argue whether it was a moral institution and that no matter what, a decision on the topic had to be made that would bring the country to an agreement once and for all. This paper discusses the irrepressible conflict William H. Seward mentions, several politician’s different views on why they could or could not co-exist, and also discusses the possible war as a result. According to William Seward, slavery was able to exist because faster modes of transportation did not exist. “Internal commerce which daily becomes more intimate is rapidly bringing these states into a higher and more perfect social unity or consolidation.” …show more content…

The new territories and the discussion of whether they would be admitted to the Union free or slave-holding stirred up animosity. The Compromise of 1850 which offered stricter fugitive slave laws, admitted California as a free state, allowed slavery in Washington D.C., and allowed new territories to choose whether they wanted to be slave-holding or free was supposed to help ease tension between the North and South. Yet Southern states wanted more new territories to be slave-holders so the institution of it would continue to grow. They believed slavery was a way of life and as Larrabee said in his senate speech, “You cannot break apart this organization and this system that has intertwined itself into every social and political fiber of that great people who inhabit one-half of the Union.” (“There is a Conflict of Races”). The North felt like the south wanted to completely monopolize the new territories and make every one of them slaveholding. Northern states also held the belief that slavery was meant to be temporary and seemed morally wrong. The North and South each believed they were right in their beliefs, “Both remained convinced that the other would stop at nothing to achieve domination” (Fellman 65). An Illinois newspaper as quoted by Fellman regarding the South says, “She aspires to nothing short of absolute …show more content…

English believed that the North would never actually go through with the abolishment of slavery but it’s interesting that with that belief he still foreshadowed the fact that these two ideals could not live in mutual peace. One would overpower the other and grow while the latter would be diminished and eventually nonexistent. Seward, on the other hand, believed that an agreement seemed very unlikely and that a war was the likely result. He said in his irrepressible conflict speech, “every new state which is organized within our ever extending domain makes its first political act a choice of the one and the exclusion of the other, even at the cost of civil war, if necessary…”. (Seward). The people of the North and South each believed fiercely in their cause, one for a free people the other for life servitude. Neither group, based on the documents presented were willing to budge regarding their beliefs. They North wanted to abolish slavery completely and the South could not understand why they had to give up their way of life because the concept was so ingrained in them as a people. The two completely different ideals could not co-exist peacefully and therefore the eventual climax of this issue, the war, was an inevitable

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