Term Paper on "Civil War Even When the Constitutional Convention"

Term Paper 4 pages (1743 words) Sources: 1+

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Civil War

Even when the constitutional convention had occurred in 1787, the leaders of America knew that there was a dividing line between the states that wanted slavery and those who did not. There were many attempts to stop facing the issue - the three fifths rule, the constitutional promise not to end slave trade before 1808, banning of slavery in the Northwest Territories through the Northwest Ordinance, etc. It was hoped by the northerners that the south would recognize the inefficiency of slavery and end slavery. The hope in the south was that an agrarian coalition with West could stop the commercial interests from the north running the country. This was realized when Thomas Jefferson became the president in 1800. (Coming of the Civil War: An Overview)

The economic fact was that there was a boom in the prices of cotton and the southern planters were highly profitable. Yet, the view was gaining ground that slavery was a form of barbarism and thus their acceptance in other white societies was slowly diminishing. The abolition of slavery in the north had come soon after the revolution. Slavery was also stopped in Haiti and an independent black republic was formed in 1804. By 1808, the British banned African slave trade. In pursuance there was abolition of slavery in Republic of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Panama, Mexico, Peru, Chile and all countries which got their independence from Spain. Slavery was outlawed there. By 1833 there were only three large nations with slavery - Brazil, Cuba and United States. In the meantime, in 1815 America had become a democracy and this extended voting to all men and not necessarily property owners. This was Andrew Jackson's democracy. New Jersey even took away the voting rights from women at that time. The black men also had no voting rights. This issue of voting rights became very important when consideration was to be made for the admission of Missouri Territory in the union in 1818. At that time it caused a lot of anger between the supporters of slavery and the abolishers for slavery as the original proposal for the state and as proposed by the state had allowed slavery. (United States (History): Changes in Slavery)

The Missouri Compromise or the Compromise of 1820 was the agreement in that year between the two groups of pro-slavery and anti-slavery leaders in the country, and was the rule for governing of slavery in the Western Territories. The first approach by Missouri was through a constitution and a government preliminary for admission into the union came to the House of Representatives in February, 1819. This brought an amendment from James Tallmadge of New York that more slaves should not be brought into that area, and all children born to the existing slaves should become free after they reached the age of 21. This was adopted by the committee and passed at that time. This amendment was not accepted by the senate and the whole effort was to no avail. This led to another bill during the next year when a similar bill was passed and the similar amendment introduced by John Taylor of New York was approved. This amendment made it compulsory for the state to adopting a constitution having an abolition of slavery compulsory. (Encyclopedia: Missouri Compromise)

The situation had then become complicated as there had been an admission of Alabama, and that was a state permitting slavery. Also Maine had been admitted, and that was a state which did not have slavery. To solve the issue the senate decided to admit Maine and with the right of Missouri to form a state constitution. This resulted in a second amendment coming from Jesse Thomas of Illinois and he proposed that slavery be stopped from the area of the state north of 36 degrees and 30 minutes all over the country except within the state of Missouri. This became a heady issue and to solve the problem a committee was appointed. This led to two laws, one admitting Missouri and the other stopping slavery as discussed. This was finally approved by President James Monroe in March of 1820. (Encyclopedia: Missouri Compromise) Due to this entire issue of Missouri, America became a two party system of democracy. This also resulted in the parties from avoiding sectional issues from interfering with the national problems. The situation continued till the end of Mexican War which gave large areas to the country. The question of new areas had to be handled by congress and the issue of slavery in the new territories became the most important question.

While all this was going on, gold was found in California in 1848 and this led to a rush to that territory. Earlier Mormon settlers had moved in to the Salt Lake Valley and that was the northeastern corner of the Mexico Cessation in 1848. In the meantime, the slave holding state of Texas demanded half of New Mexico. This led the politicians to come out with the Compromise of 1850. California was admitted as a free state and the rest of the land collected from cessation was divided into Utah and New Mexico territories. Texas did not get anything. The slave trade was banned in that area and a stronger law against fugitives was put into effect. It was felt that this solution was more in the line of thinking of the north, and was followed with measures important to both the sides. In the end the compromise did not satisfy any party. (the Compromise of 1850)

This truce lasted only a few years and the settlers had moved into the west of Missouri into the present state of Kansas. Congress drew up laws for organizing the lands under the federal government in the Louisiana Purchase into Kansas and Nebraska. As per the Missouri compromise, this land should not have slaves, but the people from the south along with the support of some democrats from the north organized this land into popular sovereignty. This was called the Kansas Nebraska Act and effectively ended the Missouri compromise. With the fate of the area to be decided under popular sovereignty, the future of slavery in Kansas was to be decided by the voters. (United States (History): The Kansas-Nebraska Act) There was a flood of antislavery settlers as also a large number of proslavery settlers from Missouri. There was an election for the legislature in 1854 and at that time there were some 5,000 voters from Missouri who voted illegally. In the end, there was legal acceptance of slavery in Kansas, but the results infuriated the antislavery forces. (United States (History: Bleeding Kansas) They organized their own legislature in Kansas. The new state was near Missouri and it now became a battleground for the two forces - anti-slavery and proslavery. The matter under question was whether the state should be a state with slaves or without. According to reports, this resulted in 157 deaths due to these fights. (Encyclopedia: Bleeding Kansas)

All the forces in the country put their own hand into the slavery question and the Supreme Court, which had a majority of Southern justices, tried its own hand at it. The case that it selected for the solution was the Dred Scott case. He was the slave of a U.S. army doctor and was shifted to the free state of Illinois and the Territory of Wisconsin. Wisconsin was a free area under the Missouri Compromise. The Supreme Court gave a proslavery decision and against the effort of Dred Scott to seek freedom. It said that blacks did not have the rights to be citizens of United States and due to that reason; the case should not have come into the Supreme Court. (United States (History): The Dred Scott Case) the battle of nerves had been going on for some time, and in 1850s the war came. The antislavery Republican Party was on top and Abraham Lincoln had become the president in 1860. Since the antislavery party was controlling the white House, slave states started leaving the Union. This was not accepted by the other states and the war started.

The reason given by the south was known as the compact theory. The followers of this theory believe that independent retain their own individual identities but were united through a compact between the independent states. This compact could be broken in the way that it had been created. In this manner South Carolina first left the union in December 1860. By the time Lincoln was to be president six more states had left the union. Northern political leaders including Buchanan, Stephen Douglas, and others denied that they had the right to secede. (United States (History): The South Secedes)

The war went on with many battles and ended with the famous battle between Grant and Lee at Petersburg. In the meantime, Sherman had left Atlanta and moved across the country to Savanna, and in the way he destroyed anything that had any military value. He then turned north and… READ MORE

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