The South saw slavery as the most important aspect of their cultural and material life. Many acts and events took place to penetrate the division of the North and the South. The election of Republican Abraham Lincoln linked the chain of reasons that Southern secessionists needed. This election shattered the Union and led to start of the Civil War. Southerners saw the election of Lincoln as one more effort to exclude slavery from the territories because he was a northerner and republican that banned the expansion of slavery; this gave the southerners who wanted independence a reason to success from the Union. The Charleston Courier stated that this election of Lincoln meant it was time for a “Southern Confederacy” that was wanted by all real …show more content…
When the United States gained its independence from Britain, the slave states refused to join the Union until the constitution stated that they had the right to regulate slavery. The United States then grew up with the whites being superior to the blacks. The South began to regulate all the slaves because of the invention of the cotton gin and rising demand of cotton in textile factories; this led to a higher demand of labor which made the south turn to slaves. Slaves and land became the life of the South. Therefore, the South held 90 percent of the black Americans. The North, on the other hand, continued to rally up groups that held the belief that slavery was morally wrong, and this started to worry the south of their political power. Many events of the mid- nineteenth century led to the secession of the …show more content…
First, California entered the Union as a free state. Southerners threatened to leave the Union, so New Mexico and Utah were based on popular vote. This maintained power in the Senate because it kept the number of votes to Congress equal. The District of Columbia prohibited the slave trade but maintained the institution of slaves. The South was pleased when Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, which gave the South the right to reclaim runaway slaves and demand federal and local Northern help while doing it. Northerners were then only given the options to break the law or help the South. The northerners were then pleased when the anti-slavery book called Uncle Tom’s Cabin came out, humanizing slaves and greatly upsetting the South. This book and the many acts caused even more conflict between the north and the south. The Kansas- Nebraska Act showed the true colors of division when half the state was for slavery and half the state was against slavery. The Missouri Compromise had kept them together but now it was being contradicted. This was thought to unite the southerners because more people could vote for slavery, but this caused serious outrage in the north because they wanted to prohibit the spread of slavery. Another case that brought division towards the United States was the Dred Scott case. Dred Scott demanded freedom because he was taken to a free state by his
Abraham Lincoln's victory alarmed many white southerners because this meant that their future was now in the hands of a political party that was primarily against their region's personal values and interests. The people that wanted the South to secede from the Union had their reasons to do so. They were worried that Lincoln's election might lead to future Republican administrations interfering with slavery in the states. In the Deep South, southerners feared that they might become a sticking minority in a nation that was overrun by their political opposites. With this in mind, they instead seceded from the Union and saved slavery within their states.
The secession of South Carolina on December 20, 1860, by a vote of 169-0 was a response to the election of Abraham Lincoln of 1860. Lincoln perceived as an abolitionist wanted to contain slavery rather than ending it. The majority party above the Mason-Dixon line were Republicans and below were primarily Democrats and Republicans were viewed as abolitionists. The election of a Republican threatened the South’s status quo. The primary catalyst for secession was based on slavery. Different social cultures and political beliefs developed due to the South’s intimate and reliant relationship on slavery. Southern whites feared the end of slavery and this paranoia was shared among plantation slave owners and white Yeoman farmers. Southern whites felt that the North were threatening the supposed tranquility of the South. The South’s agrarian economy, honor, and independence were believed to be in danger. Slavery was intertwined with the South’s social, cultural, and economic makeup. As a result of slavery, the South developed a paternalistic culture and racial ideology of white supremacy. The perceived notion that the North was influencing it’s political and social beliefs on the South lead them to believe that secession was the only act of self-preservation. The growing differences between the South and North made it difficult to negotiate. This fear was exaggerated and accelerated the South’s eventual implosion. The South believed that without slavery it would self-destruct and
The controversy over slaves ultimately led to the secession. Abraham Lincoln thinks slavery is wrong and he wants to stop it from spreading. Earlier, he had warned that slavery could separate a nation. In the 1860 election Lincoln is elected, but southerners are worried he will end slavery forever. Southern states start to secede because they are worried. First South Carolina succeeds, then North, Texas, and then Florida too. They give themselves a new name called the Confederate States of America. (Wise...)
Tensions between the North and South had grown steadily since the anti slavery movement in 1830. Several compromises between the North and South regarding slavery had been passed such as the Nebraska-Kansas and the Missouri act; but this did little to relieve the strain. The election of President Lincoln in 1861 proved to be the boiling point for the South, and secession followed. This eventually sparked the civil war; which was viewed differently by the North and the South. The Northern goal was to keep the Union intact while the Southern goal was to separate from the Union. Southern leaders gave convincing arguments to justify secession. Exploring documents from South Carolina’s secession ordinance and a speech from the Georgia
Correspondingly, there was the quarrel over state versus federal rights. States felt they didn’t have any say if they disliked a federal law. So when all these compromises came about concerning slavery in the West, people wanted to be able to nullify federal laws. To nullify is to cancel, and in this case to cancel a federal law. People like John C. Calhoun fought for this right along with many others. However, the federal government felt this was not necessary, therefore, some states threatened to secede.
First of all, extremism was evident in both sides. An example of this would be the incident at Harper’s Ferry, in which John Brown attacked a fort and tried to arm slaves with weapons so that they could revolt (Doc 6). Another example would be the fugitive slave act, which allowed for slave owners to get back slaves who had ran way and gone to the north. Two extremes such as arming slaves and having slave owners catch runaway slaves in the north led to a division in our country.
As Abraham Lincoln succeed in winning the elections it became a conflict. In Document 11 from the Civil War DBQ it says that Abraham Lincoln was republican who was against the expansion of slavery. Lincoln winning the election without a single vote from the Southern side it lead to the civil war. The South fear that he was going abolish slavery in the Southern side. The South secede from the Union, but Abraham wanted the Nation to be together and he was going to do whatever it takes to have all states together in the Union. Since he wanted to stop slavery the South refuse and fought against the
The reason it divided the nation was the Southern politicians objected to the new territories entering the Union as Free states, and felt like they were not being heard on their sides of the issue, in return the South decided to secede from the Union. War with Mexico added new territories to the Southwest, slavery expanding became more serious than ever. Henry Clay made a series of compromises in an effort to fix the space between the north and south states. Congress eventually passed the Compromise of 1850. This Compromise added California to the Union as a free state, allowed the territories of New Mexico and Utah to decide the slavery issue for themselves. The Kansas-Nebraska Act granted residents of these territories “popular sovereignty,”.
Before the Civil War, the North and South's attempt to resolve matters at any time was through compromise. One significant issue that could not have a solution found over time was slavery. Northerners supported the abolition of slavery. However, the South depended on slavery. As this conflict intensified, the South figured that compromise would no longer function. The South's breaking point was Lincoln's election. The South withdrew from the Union; the Civil War had begun. The South seceded from the Union because of opposition towards slavery, the fear that abolition of slavery was a threat to their way of life, and that Lincoln would get rid of it.
By 1804, all of the states above the Mason-Dixon Line had voted to end slavery. Things went a different way in the South. There were usually more slaves there, and the rise of cotton after the invention of the Cotton Gin created huge demand
During the mid 1800’s many Americans began to have mix feelings over the issue of slavery. Many northern Americans believed that slavery was morally wrong and that it was an evil. Southerners on the other hand believed it was a good for the economy as well as for commerce. This great split of attitudes between the north and the south eventually led to threat of the civil war.
The compromises of 1820, 1850, and 1854 that were written to keep peace caused more tension between Northerners and Southerners because the supporters of the compromises did not abide by them (Schultz,n.d.). After Lincoln was elected the Succession began which formed The Confederate States of America. Though the North did not all agree with Lincoln they did not want to have to live with African Americans, nor the competition in the west. They did consider slavery barbaric and backward, which offended the southerners as they
The political turmoils of nineteenth century America gave way to a massive Civil War which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. The United States were divided geographically and ideologically. The North was an industrial powerhouse based on (relatively) free labor that focused on factories and manufactures. In its economy it had no need for slaves and was dead set against the very institution of slavery. On the other hand, the south was the agricultural center of the U.S.A. and relied heavily on a large slave population to do most of the manual labor. The election of 1860 pitted these two different world views against each other. The pro slavery Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge and the abolitionist Republican Abraham Lincoln were
The North turned slavery into a moral issue creating tension between the two distinct parts of the
The South wanted to free the slaves, however, they understood the “negative” political impacts. The North wanted to free the slaves, but they were very divided within themselves. Once ex-slaves gained the right to vote as a full human being (Black Suffrage), the Republican party arose to shape our country. (Roark, 471) With ex-slaves gaining the highly deserved power, the Ku Klux Klan (K.K.K.) was developing to support the democrats and restore “White Supremacy”. (Roark, 471) The political division raised what I would call a second Civil-War within the American government.