Civil War Dbq

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The Civil War did not began in a blink of an eye, just like any war there where events and political actions that increase the tension between two sides until it reaches a breaking point. The Civil War focus was around the southern states wanting to maintain the right to own slaves, and to a point the nation had agreed which states would be either slave or free states. Yet tensions began to escalate with the Compromise of 1850, the compromise lead to many other debates that increased the tension. The southern states declared the breaking point when they decided that the results of the 1860 election was an incompatible result with their desire to maintain slaves. The compromise of 1850 assigned the modern borders to the state of California and Texas, and assigned them their slavery status, California being a free-state and Texas a slave state. In addition, it granted “Popular Sovereignty” to the new territories, this decision would allow the citizens of the new territories to decide to either become a slave or free state. This idea would later create greater tension among states. One act that made the population choose sides on the slavery issue, was the Fugitive act of 1850. This act held states responsible for the capture and return of fugitive slaves, and it also punish white …show more content…

Where Scott, a slave black man, argued that he should be free because his owner had taken him and died in a free-state. That he should not have to go back to his owner’s wife as property, because he was in a state where he should be a free man. The decision written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in two parts. The first part stated that Scott was not a citizen and that he no legal ground to file a lawsuit, and the second part stated that free states laws were unconstitutional based on the 5th amendment’s right of property. This ruling elevated the tensions between the

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