Slavery and Civil War

DBQ 7. Slavery and the Civil War, 1846-1860

Slavery is something that many Americans cannot forget today but it was something that not many knew about in the 1840s. All of us are away of it. Back then it was something the North was not much aware of it and in the South it was domination of slavery. Many Northerners had no clue what so ever what slavery was until they were provided with information. As blacks started to move into America, they were forced to be laborers. They became slaves of the greedy and rich Americans. Once time passed by and the need for slaves increased. The needed of slaves caused many problems and many whites fought over this. The southerners wanted slavery while on the other side the northerners who never heard of slavery wanted to free slaves. This need of slaves caused the beginning of the Civil War. Many acts and comprises as Kansas Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas, Compromise of 1850 and the new Fugitive Slave Law. These acts prove that slavery was the cause of the civil war. The Kansas Nebraska Act was a act that created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, opening new lands for settlement, and had the effect of repealing the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by allowing settlers in those territories to determine through Popular Sovereignty whether they would allow slavery within each territory. It became problematic when popular sovereignty was written into the proposal so that the voters of the moment would decide whether slavery would be allowed. The result was that pro- and anti-slavery elements flooded into Kansas with the goal of voting slavery up or down, leading to a bloody civil war there. Bleeding Kansas was a series of violent political confrontations involving anti-slavery Free-States and pro-slavery elements that took place in the Kansas Territory and the neighboring towns of Missouri between 1854 and 1861. These acts presaged the American Civil War. Ralph Waldo Emerson describes how he was unaware about slavery and knowing the fact that slavery was a major problem in the south. He says, “I have lived all my life without suffering any known inconvenience from American slavery”. He shows how he never saw it and never heard of it. The way he states that sentence describes how he knew that this issue of slavery was something could lead to something serious. He also says, “There was an old fugitive slave law, but it had become, or was fast becoming, a dead letter, and, by the genius and law of Massachusetts, inoperative”. Here he says that fugitive slave law was something because a serious issue. He describes it as a dead letter. By that, Emerson means that it was a law or treaty that has not been repealed but is ineffectual or defunct in practice. Then he says, “They new Bill made it operative, required me to hunt slaves, and it found citizens in Massachusetts willing to act as judges and captors”. Emerson says the bill made people in Massachusetts hunt for slaves that were run away. Lastly, Emerson started to move to the fact that slavery started to shift away from being who they were and what they were known for. He says, “It discloses the secret of the new times, that slavery was no longer mendicant, but has become aggressive and dangerous.” Here he says as time went by, slavery was no longer seen as it was like with homeless black that labored for the whites. They were seen as dangerous people because so many problems derived from slavery. There were a lot of killings over the issue of slavery. Slaves because aggressive and began to revolt. Then he finally says, “The Fugitive Law did much to unglue the eyes of men, but now the Nebraska Bill leaves us staring”. Here Emerson tells us how the Fugitive law was enough by just having it exist. Having to hunt down slaves and upon their capture, to be returned back to their owners. A lost dog is like them treating that. Then Emerson goes on and says something that many people agree with. Something that we all can agree on that started the Civil War. He says how the Kansas Nebraska Act left everyone startled just without any clue. That fact that the act started something that is important in US history. Many key facts can depict how this all ends up at. Northerners had no clue of what was going on until some read Uncle Tom’s Cabin and were terrified of what was happening in the south and how bad slavery was. The Fugitive law was something that was more than enough. It couldn’t get any worse. Many southerners agreed to keep slaves and they wanted them while the Northerners said it was something that was unnecessary and they were against it. This caused a big problem and eventually led to the Kansas Nebraska Act and then to the Civil War. So slavery the primary cause of the Civil War. It went by a chain reaction and lead to the taking of the Civil War.