Civil War Dbq Questions And Answers

Q: How did the coming of the Civil War reflect citizens reckoning with the effects of Democracy?
As described by Susan-Mary Grant, the Northern worldview was defined by its antipathy towards the characteristics and values of the South. It could also be argued that the South was sympathetic to liberty and democratic values except for when it came to their slaves. The Republicans were hopeful that after the Kansas-Nebraska bill became a law that the North would become stronger. Moreover, it was stated that “if the Kansas-Nebraska bill was passed, “There will be a North.” (Pg. 111) Once the bill had passed, the concept of unification in the face of the enemy was a fundamental aspect of northern nationalism in this period. Many of the newspapers,

111) However, the Republicans believed that the best guarantee of freedom was through a process called “Northernization” (Pg. 111) The Republicans attempted to unify the country but they were unsuccessful because the “Republican ideology was derived from fear of and hostility to the South.” Moreover, the Republican critique of the South was hardly expressive of a desire “to integrate and harmonize socially, regionally, or even politically divided sections of people.” (Pg. 120) Many people believed that America had departed from its revolutionary traditions and betrayed the ideals that that defined the nation and their worldview merged most fully and to devastating effect with the anti-southern views expressed by the Republican Party. By encouraging the

(Pg. 131) Moreover, Proslavery Christianity (like proslavery discourse in general) imparted an ideological coherence to the secession movement in antebellum South Carolina. The proslavery discourse also drew a sharp divide between a free North beset with the cankers of democracy and abolition and a conservative, God-fearing, hierarchical slave South. “The South, with the principle of subordination, gradation, and harmonious inequality pervading the social system, rests upon the law of nature, and may look with confidence to that public opinion which survives passion, prejudice, and error.” (Pg. 133) Moreover, Congressman Bonham argued that slavery was a “moral, social, and political blessing” and that it would “be preserved in or out of the Union.” Lastly, slavery was the foundation of Southern identity and was South Carolina’s official cause of secession, not fears of white slavery, and not fears of political slavery in a nebulous republican cosmology. (Pg.