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Northern And Southern Interpretation Of Constitution

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rthern and Southern Interpretation of Constitution The years leading up the the Civil War, or the Antebellum Era, was full of controversy and disagreement in the United States. There were numerous issues that continued to divide the North and South, many of which stemmed from their different views of the Constitution. From the birth of the nation, the North was predominantly full of Federalists (who later turned to Whigs) who passionately believed in a strong and central government, a national bank, tariffs, and a loose interpretation of the Constitution. Their Southern counterparts were not Federalists but instead Democratic-Republicans, which was a political party that opposed many Northern viewpoints. Democrats believed in a smaller federal …show more content…

They had a more strict interpretation of the constitution. In other words, they believed that the only way the government could do something is if the Constitution explicitly allowed it. Each side argued how the Constitution proved their beliefs, however neither side got very far in the effort to resolve these issues, as it was many of these problems that ultimately led to the Civil War. Throughout the Antebellum Era, Northerners and Southerners greatly disagreed on many issues due to their respective viewpoints of the Constitution. The North tried to fight off the tariff and the national bank through their loose interpretation of the Constitution, while the South used their strict interpretation to say that both the tariff and national bank were constitutional. When it came to slavery however, Southerners attempted to justify it through the Constitution while Northerners …show more content…

In 1816, the first tariff was passed in an attempt to protect American industry against foreign competition. However, it was evidently clear that this tariff would only benefit the North and somewhat drain the South economically. Because Northern manufacturers were the ones who were selling products, the South would be paying extra money for items that they could not produce themselves or live without. Gradually over the next few years Southern resentment towards the tariff continued to grow and grow. Eventually, tensions reached an all time peak when the “Tariff of Abominations” was passed, which almost caused South Carolina to secede from the Union. South Carolina attempted to nullify the tariff through the theory of nullification, which states that the states have the right to nullify any law that is unconstitutional. Southerners claimed that the tariff was unconstitutional (as it only benefited the industrialized North), they claimed it was their right as a state to nullify the tariff and not have to pay for it. Thus, Southerners believed that the tariff should go away as a whole as they felt it went against what the founding fathers wrote in the Constitution. The North on the other hand loved the tariff, as it benefited them. They clung to Article 1 Section 8 Clause 1 of the Constitution, which said that Congress had the power to tax. Therefore, Northerners felt that the tariff was

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While the North tried to stop the South from withdrawing their spot in the Union, the North also denied the Southern states rights. Sectional groups assembled in the North regarding the “unnatural feeling and hostility” to slavery in the South. “ By consolidating their strength, they have placed the strength... no avail in protecting Southern rights (Document I). The Northerners believed that slavery is not right, and also that “the demand of African slavery throughout the confederacy” is unheard of.

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The Nullification Crisis was an event that happened between the years of 1828 and 1832. There were many reasons that this crisis occurred. Many of these reasons could have been avoided from happening. The event that really started it all was the Tariff of 1828. One of the tariffs done during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, it was tax on goods that were imported and sold.

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The disagreements between them led to the Federalists taking over the North, while the anti-federalists were taking over the South.(Doc. A) The federalists were all in on with the constgitution. They saw nothing wrong with wanting it. Meanwhile, the anti-federalsits thought the constituiton gave the North too much power.

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In the early 1830’s, South Carolina had the idea that they could nullify the law. This meant that the states could disregard some of the federal laws. A man named John C. Calhoun Promoted the idea. In 1828, there was a tariff passed that put a tax on all imports. Calhoun and a lot of Southern states were outraged.

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During that time, the quality of the British product was better than America’s. Therefore, the Northern cotton industry struggled. At the same time, the Southern enjoyed almost complete free trade with the British and other European countries, because there was barely tariff on imports. For this reason, there was a conflict of interests between the north and the south over a high protective tariff of 1828 removal of agricultural and marine products, industrial products including non-tariff barriers. Even though this policy contributed to the Southern agriculture economy, it put an enormous amount of scale pressure on existent infrastructures in the north area.

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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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Insofar as tariffs discouraged the sale of foreign goods in the United States, they reduced the ability of British and French traders to buy southern cotton because of the loss of export income. This situation worsened already existing problems of low cotton prices and thousands of acres of farmland exhausted from perennial planting. Compounding the South Carolinian’s malaise was growing anger over the North’s moral criticism of slavery. The unexpected passage of the Tariff of 1828, called the “tariff of abominations” by its critics because it pushed rates up to almost 50 percent of the value of imported goods. South Carolina Exposition and Protest, written December 1828 by John C. Calhoun, had actually been an effort to check the most extreme states’ rights, advocates with fine spun theory, in which nullification stopped short of secession from the union.

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