Compromise Of 1850 Dbq Essay

1309 Words6 Pages

Before the passing of the Compromise of 1850, Congress needed to keep the power balanced between slave states and non-slave states in the government. To keep the balance, they passed the Missouri Compromise in 1820. This Compromise allowed Missouri into the union as a slave state and allowed Maine into the union as a non-slave state. As a result, the balance between slave states and non-slave states stayed equal. This resulted in neither the North nor the South having an advantage in passing laws. This Compromise was good for the time being but as time went on, the argument between the North and South about their differing political views on slavery grew, which overall led to the Civil War. Although some may argue that the Civil War was caused …show more content…

This election and the new political rules that came with the Compromise of 1850 led to the Civil War.
Newly elected President Lincoln was highly against slavery. He refused to have any exceptions to slavery. He. He wanted it abolished in the entire United States. In addition, he refused to allow slavery in the new territories that the United States had bought (Doc 7). This caused a lot of anger in the South because their economy relied heavily on slavery, and if Lincoln abolished it, the South's economy would be in shambles. This continuing debate on slavery and Lincoln's refusal to budge on abolishing slavery was a major political issue and, as a result, the idea of a civil war formed. As a result, of Lincoln being elected President, the South tried to convince Lincoln and the North that slavery wasn’t as bad as it seems. The South created these pictures and stories to convince the North that slavery wasn’t bad and so they could keep slavery in the South. Harriet Beecher Stowe strongly disproved the lies the South had through the novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”. Stowe explained throughout her book the true struggles of a slave and how slaves were treated in the South. Stowe's book was directed toward the North to inform them that the South's political …show more content…

First of which was allowing popular sovereignty. Meaning each new state was allowed to vote to be a slave state or not. Popular sovereignty caused many people to flood the new territories to sway the state to either be a slave state or a free state. The people of the North and South wanted their ideas and way of life to continue throughout the new land, so they all fought for places in these new states. As a result, they would hope that the voting would go their way and that their ideas would have a stronger place in government. The “battle” for creating states with or against slavery got so intense that people ended up voting in states where they didn’t live to have their ideas be politically stronger. I saw this when Kansas tried to hold a vote to decide if it was going to be a free state or not and most of the votes that were made were made by citizens of Missouri (Doc 3). This obsession with political power separated the North and South further and increased the chances of a Civil War. The next rule that came from the Compromise of 1850, which also led to the Civil War, was that slaves who made it to the free North still could be arrested. I explained this through the court case of Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857. The Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney stated slaves didn’t have the right to sue nor the right to be considered citizens in the North. He also