D channel Did the South have the right to secede?
South Carolina seceded on December 20,1860,after that,six other states followed.They formed the Confederacy or Confederate States of America.So here is the question.Did the South have the right to secede?
At the declaration of independence.The government is formed by people and also people have the right to choose the president of government,to alter of to abolish it,and to institute a new government.Because of the Northerners opposed slavery,so the Southerners rights have been threaten by the North.So they have the right to decide whether to stay in the Union.
In 1846,Congress debated the Wilmot Proviso.Its proposal followed the war in Mexico as many Americans wondered whether the territory would be free or slave.This was a bill that would ban slavery in the new territories acquired from Mexico.The Southerners opposed that because they think they had a right to slaves in the new territories because slaves were property.And if they can’t slaves in the new territories, this will affected their economic increasing.
In 1849, California asked to enter the Union as a free state. But Southerners think that
California should be a slave state because California lay south of the Missouri
Compromise line. Which means the states that above compromise line will become free states, this issue affect the Southerner’s expanding of slavery. So thats why the
Southerners opposed the Proviso. After the Missouri compromise, Senator Henry Clay presented the Compromise of
1850. Northerners like this compromise because this provision gave popular sovereignty to the territories, which means people have the right to choose whether they are a free or a slave.Compromise of 1850 prevent South to expand further because nobody wants to become a slave. After the Compromise of 1850 became law. The Southeners made the Fugitive Slave
Act much stricter.