Conflict Between 1820 And 1860
(O'Donnell, Edward T 384). The northern abolitionists outrage ultimately led to the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 who had a strong opposition against slavery. The South relied heavily on slavery as it was the heart of their economy, however, the north was not in favor of the Dred Scott decision because they wanted to free slaves from
On the other hand, Douglas, the candidate for the Democrats, was a firm supporter of Popular Sovereignty, which did not garner him many votes among the North and South, eventually leading to him only getting the support of one state during the electoral votes. The candidate's views on slavery divided the votes among the states, with the ideas that had Lincoln allowing him to collect the majority of the votes in the Northern states, while the efforts of Douglas, Bell, and Breckinrigde split the votes in the South. The division in the views on slavery culminated in the eventual election of Lincoln as our 16th president. “While historians remain divided over precisely when the Civil War became an ‘irrepressible conflict,’ the results of the election of 1860, as evidenced by the actions of seven slaveholding states, clearly shows that Lincoln's election only further aggravated existing sectional tensions. Even if the election did not directly push the nation into civil war, its results clearly hastened the South's journey toward disunion.”
In the early half of the 19th century, the differences between the North and South resulted in the Civil War. The major difference between the two was that the North was anti-slavery, and the South was pro-slavery. Since the difference between the two territories was so drastic, it is safe to say that slavery was the overarching cause of the Civil War. The outburst of the Civil War was built on the frustration of the poor treatment of slaves, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. In the South, a central reason for slaves was so that they would help maintain a landowner’s planation.
The institution of slavery had always been associated with America since the beginning of time dating back to the first English colony of Jamestown. In the early years, ignorance of this immoral practice was common in order to avoid conflict. However by the 19th century, popular sovereignty, manifest destiny, along with the sense of morality brought by the 2nd Great Awakening led to sectionalism and growing tensions concerning the issue of slavery. The status of new states, economic differences, and state’s rights were all contributing factors that ultimately fueled the start of the Civil War in which northern and western regions had contrasting views to that of the south.
The Civil War did not start as a result of a dispute over slavery. It began due to Lincoln’s election, the secession of eleven slave states, and the attack on Fort Sumter. Abraham Lincoln was a member of the Republican Party who became President of the United States in 1860. He believed that slavery was “a moral, a social, and a political wrong.” He did not however, believe that slavery should be abolished in the states it had already existed.
Lincoln was against slavery, and he “argued against the spread of slavery” (history.org). When he ran for president, the Southerners were afraid that he would attempt to end slavery, and they did not even include him on the ballot. Also, they stated that they would secede from the nation if Lincoln became president. When Lincoln was elected, “...seven states had seceded, and the Confederate States of America had been formally established…” (history.org). Lincoln’s election was the breaking point of tensions between the North and South, and when he was elected the outcome was the secession of the South.
The U.S was only able to settle political disputes through compromise until 1860 because of the increasing sectionalism, the Abolitionist Movement and the Secession of South Carolina. New states joined into congress creating an unbalanced senate forcing congress to make decisions to balance the nation between freedom and slavery. The Missouri Compromise failed as an attempt to maintain peace between the North and South because it created an greater sense of sectionalism throughout the country. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was a decision to make Missouri a slave state to maintain an even number of free and slave states. It led to uproar in congress and the North retaliated by declaring the rest of the Louisiana territory to be free.
Both regions had different points of views on many topics, one being slavery. These points of views affected the North and South greatly. The stances of both regions affected their advantages in the upcoming Civil War, too. Hart states, “Many Southerners in 1860 still measured wealth in terms of land and slaves” (Hart, 328). Slavery was very significant in the South.
The Civil War, which began in 1861, had the American states divided into 2 parts, and pitted against one another in the name of slavery. Accounts of slavery have viewed the situation as “wicked, cruel, and unjust” (John Brown). However, this view, at the time, was controversial at best, due to the overwhelming fact that the south was in favor of slavery, and the north was appalled by tit. Slavery was their main source of labor in their area that relied on agriculture for production and sustaining financial wealth. The north had mostly factories and industries, and did not require as much manual labor, hence the idea of opposition at the time.
Additionally, the dispute over free land that America and Mexico had a separated conflict, before conquering Texas and New Mexico and California was defeated as well. One side stood on the fact that the free land should be decided only by white Americans, they should be used by farmers, and the farming industry should develop freely, and the slaves claimed that they had the same rights as other individuals. The border slave states and northern part tried to compromise a reconciliation of the sections; Lincoln led the Republicans in rejecting the proposed because this would let slavery to extend and to spread on Southwest (Divine page 345-347). To illustrate, the main cause of a Civil War in the United States became the sharpest contradictions between different socio-economic systems that existed in one state-the north and the slave-owning in the southern society. After Lincoln won the election, that was for the slave owners of the south a signal of danger and led to a secession - the withdrawal of the southern states from the Union.
A House Divided: The Causes and Effects of the Civil War in the Institution of Slavery, The Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Militant Presidency of Abraham Lincoln The causes and effects of the Civil War will be defined through the institution of slavery and the military leadership of President Lincoln to resolve the uncompromising political position of the South/Confederacy. Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech will be an important primary source that defines the underlying resistance to the expansion of slave states into new territories taken by the U.S. government before the Civil War. More so, the uncompromising and increasingly militaristic aggression of the South in seceding from the Union defines the effects of this political “divide” between
‘Slavery was the root cause of secession’. ‘November 6 1860, Lincoln was elected president of America which resulted in panic emerging in the South’ . The election of Lincoln as president who was a Republican leader meant that ideologies, movements and values from the North would be implemented in the South which meant the abolition of slavery. Slavery was a huge characteristic of the South as the economy; politics; social status and psychological mind-sets were influenced by the process of slavery. The southern white population then derived the idea of secession which meant the South would gain independence from Northern aggression .
Constitution and altered it by explicitly protecting the institution of slavery. This peculiar institution was what made the Confederacy unique. Sectionalism over economic, social, political, and constitutional issues regarding slavery continued from Buchanan’s inauguration in 1857 until secession after Lincoln’s election in 1860. “The expansion of slavery into western territories provided the catalyst for the growing perceptions of northerners and southerners that they held different intentions of the republic’s future.” “In the South, loyalty to slavery and its required expansion became the hallmark of party politics as the region’s politicians—Whigs, Know-Nothing, and Democrat—competed to demonstrate their loyalty to southern rights.”
After the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and the rise of the Republican party, Southerners feared the tipping of the balance of political power against them; their need for self-determination parallel the colonists’ belief of rebelling against the oppressive government of Great Britain. However, the Civil War represented something more: the clash of the feudalistic, agrarian South with the industrialized, capitalistic North. These two powers differed socially, politically, and economically, and were especially conflicted over slavery. These two sections of the United States were divided against one another, and could not survive this way. Therefore, it is more accurate to state that though the Civil War resembled some aspects of the American Revolution, it was a clash between two forces who could not exist with one another in their current state, leading inevitably to conflict between the
To a greater extent, slavery was the greatest cause of the outbreak of the civil war in 1860. Disputes of slavery caused economic and political troubles between the northern and southern states leading up to the civil war. The fact the the northern and southern states were different in almost every way caused them to turn out like completely different territories, one of their greatest differences was the fact that most southern states economy relied on hard labour, agricultural jobs like tobacco in Maryland, and cotton in Virginia; this caused their economy to be more based on the labour of slaves than the more developed territories in the north (Harrold), who after this time was starting to not need the slave labour in their territories because after early 1800’s, the industrial revolution had been spreading to America, and the country developed very quickly. But in this expansion, only the north states were getting the effect of the industrial revolution, meaning the north would not need slave
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