Slavery Expansion

The states were balanced, but this compromise was a factor for the civil war because the North was still against the expansion of slavery. Southern citizens also opposed it because it allowed Congress to make laws regarding slavery. These arguments over slavery would still continue even though the states were balanced. Later on, the Kansas- Nebraska act repealed this compromise as it allowed popular sovereignty to decide whether Kansas and Nebraska (both above the 36 30’ line) would be slave or free states. The Dred Scott decision even stated that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional by the Fifth Amendment which prevented Congress from depriving people of their property (slaves) without the due process of law.

This act also pr... ... middle of paper ... ...ving twice been a resident on Free soil. The lower court and the Missouri Supreme Court ruled against him; and the case went to the US Supreme Court. The Chief Justice Rodger Taney declared that the Missouri Compromise, was unconstitutional and the congress didn’t have the power. The issue of slavery, once again, made war sound as if it couldn’t be avoided. The 1820 Missouri Compromise was known as highly dangerous and conflicting as it was trying to keep an equal balance of Free and slave-holding states between the North and the South, although the compromise did play a vital role in withholding the peace between the North and the South until the new compromise in 1854 came about.

The Missouri controversy alerted the South to the need for political unity in order to maintain the "peculiar institution" of slavery and alerted the whole country to the political problems inherent to westward expansion. The next jolt to national unity was over the admission of Texas into the Union. Texas had petitioned for admission as early as 1836, and the ensuing arguments in Congress over upsetting the balance between free and slave states delayed its admission into the Union.

This left the Americans in a predicament of whether or not to admit California to the Union as a free state, therefore making the ratio of free to slave states imbalanced. Ever since the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the balance between slave states and free states had been maintained, but California began to petition Congress to enter the Union as a free state. Since Texas was a slave state, they claimed land north of the 36°30' demarcation line for slavery set by the 1820 Missouri Compromise. However, the Texas Annexation resolution required that if any new states were formed out of Texas land; the land north of the Missouri Compromise line would become free states. As Clay worked for months to develop a compromise to solve the nation’s issue, he received help from Stephen Douglas, a young Democrat from Illinois.

The matter of slavery escalated during the 1850s, even after comprises in 1820 and 1850. Causes include debate of acknowledging Missouri as a slave state in 1820, the acquirement of Texas as a slave state in 1845 and the status of slavery in western territories, won as a result of the Mexican-American War and the resulting Compromise of 1850. The North tried to eliminate slavery from dominated territories in the Wilmot Proviso after the United States’ triumph over Mexico, but the attempt failed in the Senate. The disagreements over slavery ended the Whig and Know Nothing political parties. It also caused the Democratic Party between the North and South to split, while the new Republican Party fought to end the expansion of slavery.

D) Before the secession of the south, the issue of slavery was dividing the Union. Since the institute of slavery was not directly mentioned in the Constitution, both the North and South claimed that the Constitution was in their favor. The North claimed it did not protect the institute of slavery, while the South said that it protected a citizen’s property, which they believed that the slaves were. From the Compromise of 1850 the Utah and New Mexico territories were left up to popular sovereignty to determine if they were slave or free. While the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 made it increasingly more difficult for escaping former slaves to hold on to freedom in the North.

In addition, Polk also wanted to influence the people who lived in the region to pressure the Mexicans to sell off the territory that was not actually under any established form of government at that time since Mexico’s frontiers had no formal king or leader. Polk ordered US Colonel Stephen Kearney to the New Mexico territor... ... middle of paper ... ... and the Oregon Territory establishment with Britain, along with the Missouri Compromise ended in a political aftermath of irreconcilable conflicts between the North and the South over the expansion of slavery, led to the beginning of the Civil War. Source Cited 1. Hofstadter, Beatrice K. and Richard. Great Issues in American History, Volume II: From the Revolution to the Civil War, 1765 - 1865.

As the armies of Texas argued over whether it should send its troops to other states to fight, the institution of slavery went full steam ahead. After the end of the war many blacks began to realize the hatred that faced them and how many whites in Texas would do anything in order to ensure that they(whites) would always be the ruling class. Opportunity did not come easy to blacks, but prejudice did. Almost until the very end of the Civil War, Texans seemed to be denying the fact that an end coming to their precious "right" to own and oppress their "inferior" and "heathen" God-given servants. Courtesy of chew (1995) University of Maryland

Those wounds had salt poured on them so to speak when the Compromise of 1850 was passed. The Compromise goaded the hostility between the North and the South concerning the question of the extension of slavery in all directions. The anti-slavery Republicans favored the proposal made in the Wilmot Proviso to exclude slavery form all the lands acquired from Mexico. While the South assumed that this land was theirs for he taking and strongly opposed this plan.

Rather than remaining responsible to the British government, who was suddenly attempting to control them, representatives from the thirteen colonies of America sign the Declaration of Independence. While laying out the framework for this independence, numerous debates arise over the question of slavery. Despite opposing viewpoints over this issue, the Declaration of Independence is signed with slavery remaining intact. By leaving the issue of slavery unresolved in the Declaration of Independence, America’s future would rest upon an institution with an unsteady foundation. This quandary ultimately sets the stage for a number of inevitable conflicts culminating in South Carolina’s secession from the Union and a great civil war.