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Effects Of The 1850's To 1860

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The 1850’s to 1860’s was a crucial decade that had detrimental effects on the unity of the country. Many events agitated and aroused secession of the South from the North and divided the country in two. The country’s highly divided views between the Northerners and Southerners could no longer be mended, and Southern states could only see secession as the most viable option. The greatest controversy that ruptured the unity of the country were the opposing views on slavery; the events that occurred in this decade, as well as the fear that the Southerners had toward the potential abolition of slavery in America was enough for them to leave the union and is what lead to the bloody battle of the Civil War. As America continued to advance and flourish geographically and economically, the country began dividing itself between Southern states that supported and relied heavily on slave labor, and Northern states that were more opposed to slavery. With cotton being a …show more content…

A major event that occured was during the perplexing times of the Mexican-American war when David Wilmot attached an amendment to a bill that was proposed to Congress, by Polk, to raise money for the war: this amendment was the Wilmot Proviso, which stated that any new territory gained in war was to be made free soil and slavery was not allowed in the newly conquered territory. This affair fractured the whole political system, with Northern Democrats and Whigs being in favor of this, while Southern Democrats and Whigs voting against, creating a major sectional split and wrenching the system by no longer holding its place as partisan; moreover, the country split between pro and anti slavery. With the Wilmot Proviso creating friction between the country, the Compromise of 1850, which was an attempt to calm the agitation from both the North and the South, was an attempt to paper over the

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Another reason was The Wilmot Proviso,In August 1846, Representative David Wilmot, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, proposed an expansion to a war appropriations bill. His revision, known as the Wilmot Proviso, recommended that in any region the United States picked up from Mexico “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist.” It was progressively understood that the Mexican individuals were against servitude and that the area was unsatisfactory for its spread, and in this manner the domain taken from it would be a free region upon its alliance into the Union. The annexation however contributed another conflict that sparked a division between who are with or against the annexation of northern mexico, because the extra land acquired from the northern mexico will be added to the union as a free state rather than a slave state which will consequently increase the number and power of free states over the slave states. Driven by Senator John C. Calhoun, the position of the anti-annexation powers was established in two primary convictions: that extension would aggravate sectionalism to at the expense of the Union, and that the force of the South would be extraordinarily decreased by the addition of

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DBQ: Political Disputes 1820-1860 For forty-four years, the United States of America was a thriving country. We had won our independence from Great Britain and we had started to create a country that would change the world. Yet, in the year 1860, a joined country and political agreement between all states seemed utterly impossible. People fought with each other so deeply about slavery, the country was divided between slave and free states. By the time of 1820 through 1860, political disagreement grew so large, there had been only one answer.

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After the War of 1812, America suffered from financial panic and the Union seemed to lack the ability to ebb and flow with disruption to order as exemplified by the lack of cooperation between all states. As cotton plantations thrived in the South, a different way of economy was produced through industry, paving a clear path to business building in the North. As shown in a graph showing the growth of trade and manufacturing, the North shows a vastly spreading industry but the South remains mostly disengaged (Document L). The importance was instead placed on agriculture, exemplified by Jefferson regarding inventions such as the cotton gin as gaining “considerable interest” for the “success...for family use” (Document M). When writing to Eli Whitney, Jefferson shows the curiosity in up and coming devices, but only those that may be worked by hands at home.

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Uncompromising differences between the South (Confederacy) and the North (Union) created a civil war that lasted five years. During this war, Abraham Lincoln was president. His election led to the secession of many Southern states. After refusing to recognize the Confederacy as its own nation, the American Civil War commenced in 1861. The three main causes of the Civil War between the North and the South were industrial and agricultural economies, politics, and slavery.

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Although not everyone agreed in declaring war, President Polk reassured Congress that he was not fighting the war to expand slavery but instead used the concept of manifest destiny to expand towards the west in hopes of instilling unity upon the nation. After a series of numerous battles that took place between March 1846 and April 1848 the end of the war lead to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This treaty recognized that most if not all parts of present-day California, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and the border of Texas was to be under the authority of the United States. The acquisition of such a large amount of land added to the unresolved issue of slavery. The South was all for adding another slave state to U.S. as this was going to work in their

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By that point, the two sides had polarized to the point of demonizing each other. We can see that there was already violence happening over these issues. For instance, with the compromise of 1850 there were almost none, if any, possible ways of compromising in such a way that both sides would have been happy. This is important to note in todays society as we are becoming incredibly polarized in politics. Generally, people on either side view the other side as foolish and misguided at the best and criminal or dangerous at the worst.

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However, these differences show that the North and South were actually two distinct countries held together by one constitution. The North felt that decisions regarding slavery and its legality were entrenched in the central government while the South felt that such decision belonged to the individual states. In the times preceding the war, both sides could not reach a compromise. Bonner mentions, “Because secession and war were permitted to come, warned Russel, "We are not entitled to lay the flattering unction to our souls that the Civil War was an inevitable conflict (Bonner, 195).” Hence, these differences could only be addressed through war.

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The American Civil War and the Reconstruction periods played an important role in defining the nation’s political, social, and economic identity in the sense that the country’s survival and democratic principles were radically tested. As the country was becoming a hemispherical power, sectional tensions and dissenting attitudes of opposing groups make these periods comparable with the Revolutionary War in three major components: the issue of slavery and struggle for equality, the role of the federal government vs. states’ rights, and scuffles related with economic power. Prior to the Revolutionary War, there was an existing struggle between social classes as the southern states had an inflexible social structure, whereas in the northern states the Industrial Revolution was beginning to take place, causing a dramatic shift of labor force after the country gained its independence in 1783. With the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney in 1791, southern landowners took advantage of the slave force to increase their profits radically, and this reliance on slaves for the

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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

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