Pre Civil War
Essay by review • January 1, 2011 • Essay • 481 Words (2 Pages) • 1,072 Views
As America proceeded to the future as a new nation, many differences and problems erupted throughout the nation dividing territory north, south, and west. Westward expansion, state right and boundaries, new tariffs, abolitionism and slavery, and finally the Dred Scott Decision of the Supreme Court steered up many problems. American territories started to identify themselves and separated culturally, geographically, economically, politically and agriculturally.
The north started to industrialize and upheld about 70% of all railroad centered in there territory as well as almost all the banking systems in the nation. Their territory was larger and held a greater population with increased immigration into its region. The north also started to introduce tariffs on imported goods into the country to support domestic manufacturing. This very much angered the southerners and put them on the verge of nullification. They also had a strong feeling against slavery and decided to be separated that way as free states as the south went to slave states to keep up with cotton manufacturing. Then when Americans started to expand westward the north and south disagreed again o the decision if those states would be free or slave. The north wanted to tame slavery and eventually shut it down were it existed while the south was look to expand as much as they could and increase southern economy with cotton. Disagreements and arguments erupted between politicians on these issues as the nation separated into its own regional territories. They began to create their own state rights and rules. While all these problems and differences started to erupt in America, tension between the states increased and the chance of a civil war look definite. The nations leaders trued to cool down the tension and introduced the compromise of 1820 to separate by a line into free and slave territories. Then the compromise of 1850 called for a popular sovereignty vote in the new western lands on the issue of slavery. A large problem was that California called to be a free state but they were below the line made in the compromise in 1820. The nation was still together as these compromises were introduced to try and please both regions but The Dred Scott decision tore a lot of that apart. The supreme decision on the case was that a slave was property and could be moved anywhere in the nation, even a free territory, and still be a slave. This separated the north and south yet again and made it obvious
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