Leading up to the Civil War

Leading Up to the Civil War

        The Civil War was fought over the moral issue of slavery and other factors contributing to it. A key issue was states’ right because the Southern states wanted to assert their authority over the federal government so they could abolish federal laws they didn’t support, especially laws interfering with the South’s right to keep slaves and take them wherever they wished. Also territorial expansion was another cause because the South wished to take slavery into the western territories, while the North was committed to keeping them open to white labor alone. Abraham Lincoln also won presidency in 1860 with a single Southern vote, which was a clear signal to the Southern states that they had lost all influence. So, the South seceded, which was a political decision that led directly to war. In the years leading up to the Civil War, sectionalism and racism ran ramp causing nation-wide disarray and grow feelings of resentment between the Northern and Sothern regions of America. The idea that the tumultuous state of American government during the 1850’s lead to the Civil War can be proven true by the negative effects of the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law, and the Kansas- Nebraska Act.

        The Compromise of 1850 played a major role into the Civil War. After the Mexican-American War, the thought of free soil, which insisted that Congress prohibit slavery in the territories, and thought of popular sovereignty, which promised to ease the slavery extension issue out of national politics by allowing each territory to decide the question for itself. Popular sovereignty pleased neither the free-soilers nor proslavery extremists. Then Henry Clay proposes the Compromise of 1850, which was widely opposed in both the North and the South, so it did little to settle the escalating dispute over slavery. In document A, John C. Calhoun’s speech on the Compromise of 1850, implies that he is trying to get South’s rights and he is trying to preserve the Union by satisfying the South. Right after the California Gold Rush and president Taylor’s death in 1849, Calhoun gave this speech mainly to the Confederacy and Union to help prevent War, because the North has absolute control over the government and Calhoun is trying to convince the Confederacy and Union that the Southern section should remain in the Union consistently with their honor and their safety. Also in document B, Ralph Waldo Emerson gave his address on Fugitive Slave Law in the 1850’s when the Senate grew unbalanced which was also another factor that lead to the Compromise. Following increased pressure from Southern politicians, Congress passed a revised Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. Part of Henry Clay's famed Compromise of 1850 this new law forcibly compelled citizens to assist in the capture of runaway slaves…