Why Was The Civil War Inevitable

The Civil War was undoubtedly the bloodiest war in American history. However, debate still surrounds the start of the war. There are historians who argue the war was a result of a “blundering generation”, or those (typically) in Congress during the 1850’s who exaggerated the issues and were both too loud and too extreme. These historians seem to believe the war was avoidable, and was an extreme measure to a compromisable conflict. Others, however, consider the war to be result of an irrepressible conflict, or an unavoidable event that was inevitable all along. Although there may be components of both the “irrepressible conflict” and “blundering generation” theories, there is one that provides the most logical answer to the start of the Civil

During the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the topic of slavery was brought into discussion. Arguably, it would be quite difficult for a newly established nation to eradicate an established institution that was a large form of revenue and valued by several states. “But as early as 1787, conflict over slavery at the constitutional convention almost broke up the Union before it was fairly launched,” (McPherson, 2009). To appease Southern threats, the North agreed to a compromise in the discussion of slavery. The provision made it so slaves were counted as three-fifths of the free population in terms of representation, any federal laws to prohibit the importation of slaves could not go into effect until 1808 (twenty years), and slaves which escaped into free states had to be

“treat them as property, and make it the duty of the Government to protect it; no other power, in relation to this race, is to be found in the Constitution; and as it is a Government of special, delegated, powers, no authority beyond these two provisions can be constitutionally exercised. The Government of the United States had no right to interfere for any other purpose but that of protecting the rights of the owner,” (Dred Scott v. Sandford). Chief Justice Taney essentially discredits the compromise and argues throughout his decision that the federal government does not have the right to act in such a way. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, as said earlier, was created to appease the masses again, but instead led to extreme violence.
Compromise was not an option for the institution of slavery. “How many times have we had danger from this question? Go back to the day of the Missouri Compromise. Go back to the Nullification question, at the bottom of which lay this same slavery question. Go back to the time of the Annexation of Texas. Go back to the troubles that led to the Compromise of 1850. You will find that every time, with the exception of the Nullification question, they sprung from an endeavor to spread this institution,” (Stampp,