The Road to Civil War

1632 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Slavery in America

The battle between armies did not begin until 1861, however the conflict within the Country began at its founding. When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence which included “all men are created equal; and they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” he unintentionally yielded abolitionists stimulation in contradicting the institution of slavery. Despite the controversy slavery faced at the Constitutional Convention, the inclusion of the fugitive slave law, the extension of the African slave trade and the three-fifths clause were added with compromise, in anticipation of founding a Constitution and securing the Union, however it would be the ramifications of these laws that would ultimately divide the Country and begin the course to an inevitable civil war.

The debate over the issue of slavery began early in the creation of the United States and was present at the framing of the constitution. The debates were so intense that various delegates threatened to walk out. (Oakes 220) In the North, some states had already abolished slavery and others were in the process. Some believed that the institution of slavery was shrinking and soon would be nonexistent. Like Mr. Elsworth who stated “ as population increases poor laborers will be so plenty as to render slaves useless. Slavery in time will not be a speck in our Country”. (Madison's Journal) However, some delegates from the deep south like John Rutledge from South Carolina, argued that slaves were important for them economically and to remove the institution would make it unacceptable to agree to the Constitution. (citation needed) These southern delegates refused to join the...

... middle of paper ...

...on 3 “ treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them”. (Oakes 442, Oakes A-10)

Many of the delegates at the Constitutional Convention had already had reservations over the issue of slavery. However, they would include clauses in the Constitution that would protect the institution in order to satisfy some, and complete the Union. They unfortunately left these clauses very vague, which led to contradicting interpretations, and conflict within the states. After decades of tensions and multiple failed attempts at compromise the conflict grew beyond control and left the Union split into two distinct territories, with opposing ideas, interest, and values. These sides had different opinions of how to proceed, the South wanting to separate, and the North determined to preserve the Union. It would take a war to decide who would prevail.

Show More
Related

  • ThestuAnalysis of For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought In The Civil War by James M. McPherson

    1162 Words  | 3 Pages

    From the day, the first European set foot on American soil up until the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which occurred in 1865. Slavery was a controversial issue. The issue of slavery divided up the United States of America to ultimately put the two against each other. The Northern States who identifies themselves as the Union disapproved of the atrocious actions of the South who condone the crude treatment of slaves and the disturbing practices of slavery. Although slavery was not the sole cause of the Civil war, it played an important part in the disunion of the United States. The battle between states rights and federal rights rubbed more salt in the already enormous wound. Southern States who later considers themselves the confederates disapproved of the idea that the available actions of the states to act upon certain situations were dwindling, reducing the power and rights of the states. The set up of all these complications and disagreements led to the secession of the southern states which initiated the start of the brutal American Civil War which lasted from 1861 to 1865.

    Read More

  • The Breakup of the Union

    841 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the years paving the way to the Civil War, both north and south were disagreeable with one another, creating the three “triggering” reasons for the war: the fanaticism on the slavery issue, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the separation of the Democratic Party. North being against the bondage of individuals and the South being for it, there was no real way to evade the clash. For the south slavery was a form of obtaining a living, without subjugation the economy might drop majorly if not disappear. In the North there were significant ethical issues with the issue of subjugation. Amazing measures to keep and dispose of subjugation were taken and there was never a genuine adjusted center for bargain. Despite the fact that there were a lot of seemingly insignificant issues, the fundamental thing that divided these two states was bondage and the flexibilities for it or against. With these significant extremes, for example, John Brown and Uncle Tom's Cabin, the south felt disdain towards the danger the Northerners were holding against their alleged flexibilities. The more hatred the South advanced, the more combative they were to anything the Northerners did. Northerners were irritated and it parted Democrats over the issue of bondage and made another Republican gathering, which included: Whigs, Free Soilers, Know Nothings and previous Democrats and brought about a split of segments and abbreviated the street to common war. Southerners loathed the insubordination of the north and started to address how they could stay with the Union.

    Read More

  • Celia, A Slave...

    1459 Words  | 3 Pages

    "The American constitution recognized slavery as a local constitution within the legal rights of the individual states. But in the North slavery was not adaptable to the local economy, and to many, it contradicted the vision of the founding fathers for a nation in which all men are to be free. The South considered slavery as a necessary institution for the plantation economy. It was linked to the local culture and society. As the United states expanded, the North worried that the South would introduce slavery into the new territories. Slavery had become both a moral issue and a question of political power." (Kral p61)

    Read More

  • The Pro-slavery Constitution

    612 Words  | 2 Pages

    The original version of the Constitution is a result of a series of compromises made to achieve a document that would be voted by the majority of the newly emerged states. Slavery was a very sensitive issue, as it was widely common on the continent.

    Read More

  • Southern Pro-Slavery Rhetoric

    1613 Words  | 4 Pages

    By 1860, the slave states had approximately four million slaves making up approximately one-third of the South's population. However, opposition to slavery began as early as the 1700's by religious leaders and philosophers in North America and Europe who condemned the practice, arguing that slavery was contrary to God's teachings and violated basic human rights. During the Revolutionary War, many Americans came to feel that slavery in the United States was wrong because they believed that protection of human rights was one of the founding tenets of the United States, and slaves were not accorded rights. Slavery was likely opposed more rapidly in the North in part because fewer people in the North owned slaves. Northern abolitionists began organized efforts to end the practice of slavery in the 1800's. But much of the American South, believed that slavery was vital to the continuation of its livelihood and lifestyle and therefore defended the institution of slavery.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Irrepressible Conflict Between The North And South

    1061 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Missouri Compromise Essay

    758 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the mid nineteenth century the United States started to part, yet at the center of the century individuals perspectives began to wind up more concrete thus detachment in the Union turned out to be more extreme. From 1850 to 1861 it was evident that the union was isolating into the North and the South. The Constitution assumed a noteworthy part in the division that was happening. Through sectional preference of bits and pieces of the Constitution and through thoughts that were let well enough alone, the Constitution prompted sectional dissension and nearly failure to the union. Therefore several issues created the identity for the Civil War such as, Missouri Compromise, Abraham Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, Abolishment Movement, and the Dred

    Read More

  • The Road to the American Civil War

    1339 Words  | 3 Pages

    The majority of speculations regarding the causes of the American Civil War are in some relation to slavery. While slavery was a factor in the disagreements that led to the Civil War, it was not the solitary or primary cause. There were three other, larger causes that contributed more directly to the beginning of the secession of the southern states and, eventually, the start of the war. Those three causes included economic and social divergence amongst the North and South, state versus national rights, and the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott case. Each of these causes involved slavery in some way, but were not exclusively based upon slavery.

    Read More

  • The Civil War Was Inevitable

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Civil War began on April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor when the Confederate army attacked Union soldier and ended on May 9, 1865 with a Union Victory. There are many events, laws, and people that provoked the Civil War. The two most important causes are slavery and the expansion of the United States causing an unbalance of free and slave states. This essay examines major events that initiated the war starting from the Compromise of 1820 to the election of 1860 and proves how the Civil War was inevitable.

    Read More

  • Constitutional and Social Issues From 1860 to 1877

    977 Words  | 2 Pages

    A controversial issue during 1860 to 1877 was state’s rights and federal power. The North and South were divided over this issue. The North composed of free states and an industrial economy while the South was made up of slave states and an agricultural economy. The South did not like federal authority over the issue of slavery; therefore, they supported the radical state rights’ ideology. South Carolina seceded from the Union because it believed that since states made up the Union, it could leave when it chooses to. The government argued against the South saying that they had no right to leave the Union because the Union was not made up of just states but people. However, the South counteracted this argument with the case that the 10th amendment “declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by its states, were reserved to the states.” (Doc A) However, the government still believed that secession from the Union was unjust and decided that a new change surrounding state’s rights was necessary. As a result, when the Union won in the Civil War, a resolution was made, where the state’s lost their power and the federal government gained power. U...

    Read More

  • Slavery and the Constitution

    707 Words  | 2 Pages

    Was the original Constitution a “pro-slavery” document? Did it do “more to feed the serpent than to crush it?” Was it Frederick Douglass’s “Glorious Liberty Document?” By accommodating slavery did it eventually crush its head through permanent union with economically dynamic free states and Civil War? Could slavery have been abolished at the founding? When would abolition have occurred if union had never been created? Three states would not join a union forbidding the slave trade. Many abhorred it. A slaveholder himself, Jefferson’s draft Declaration charged the King with its introduction. Slavery was a five hundred pound gorilla the Founders accommodated, constructing a “house divided,” in the hope it would strategically enable independence and endure until slavery withered. But twenty additional years of the trade and invention of the cotton gin delayed that hope for more than 500,000 and their offspring. By 1812 the accommodation secured independence for a perpetual union. But the promise of the Declaration’s preamble remained unfulfilled until Lincoln rediscovered its relationship to the Constitution. At the founding, “Join or Die” meant kicking the can down the road regarding “other persons.”

    Read More

  • The Emancipation Proclamation: The Confederate States Of The United States

    1247 Words  | 3 Pages

    "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other," said by Abraham Lincoln. In 1860 President Abraham Lincoln swore to keep slavery out of the territories, as a result the states in the south seceded and founded a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The government and most of the northern states refused to recognize the validity of their secession. They feared that the United States was going to drift apart and not be unified. They wanted to preserve the union at any cost. The civil war began

    Read More

  • Events that Led to the Civil War

    1792 Words  | 4 Pages

    The existence of slavery was the central element of the conflict of the north and south. Other problems existed that led to this succession but none were as big as the slavery issue. The only way to avoid the war was to abolish slavery, but this was not able to be done because slavery is what kept the south running. When the south seceded it was said by Abraham Lincoln that “ a house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.” Because slavery formed two opposing societies and slavery could never be abolished, the civil war was inevitable. These were all the reasons why the south seceded from the union, this succession was eminent and there was no plausible way to avoid it.

    Read More

  • Summary And Slavery: The Causes Of The Missouri Compromise

    672 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tempers raged and arguments started because of the Missouri Compromise. The simple act caused many fatal events because of what was changed within the United States. It may not seem like a big thing now, but before slavery had been abolished, the topic of slavery was an idea that could set off fights. The Missouri Compromise all started in late in 1819 when the Missouri Territory applied to the Union to become a slave state. The problem Congress had with accepting Missouri as a slave state was the new uneven count of free states and slave states. With proslavery states and antislavery states already getting into arguments, having a dominant number of either slave or free states would just ignite the flame even more. Many representatives from the north, such as James Tallmadge of New York, had already tried to pass another amendment that would abolish slavery everywhere. Along with other tries to eliminate slavery, his effort was soon shot down. The fact that people couldn’t agree on whether or not slavery should be legalized made trying to compose and pass a law nearly impossible.

    Read More

  • What Were the Key Issues Leading To the Civil War?

    2033 Words  | 5 Pages

    Since the beginning of their new nation, the United States had many differences between the Northern and Southern states. During the Constitutional Convention they disagreed on how to determine their representation in the house based on population; the Southerners wanted to count their slaves and the Northerners did not, which lead to the three-fifths compromise. Later in the Convention there were concessions given to the South, which left the Northerners feeling uneasy, such as: a guarantee that the slave trade would not be interfered with by Congress until 1808 and slave owners were given the right to recover refugee slaves from anywhere in the United States. While many Northern delegates were disappointed with the rights given to the South, they felt it was necessary for the good of the Nation. This was necessary to form a strong central government and union between the states.

    Read More

More about The Road to Civil War

Open Document