The Pros And Cons Of The Civil War

The Civil War was a decisive and important part of American history. The north and south had radically different ideas of the direction the country should take and tension had reached a boiling point. The two different viewpoints can be seen in speeches made by John Smith Preston and Abraham Lincoln. John Preston’s speech to the Virginia state legislature outlined the south’s viewpoint and reasons for seceding while Abraham Lincoln’s first Inaugural Address outlined why the south could not succeed and his duties as president.
John Preston quickly established the viewpoint of the south in his speech: the states had the right to secede. The premise of his argument was that each state had given power to the federal government but still retained “sovereign capacity” (Preston 1). Sovereign capacity meant that the
President Abraham Lincoln did not believe that the south could legally secede from union because the states could not get rid of a government they made without collapsing anarchy. Lincoln called the Union a “contract” (Lincoln 2) between the states and the contract could not be dissolved without the consent of all the states. Since the North did not believe the southern slave states had ample reason to secede, all the states were not in accord, so the “contract” (Lincoln 2) was still valid. If the legal matter was not reason enough against secession, the resulting anarchy from a new government should have been a deterrent. The federal government was not able to please everyone, but no government would be able to please everyone. If the new southern government could form on basis of pleasing everyone, it would dissolve into chaos. The new government would be mob rule and it would encourage other factions to break off from the union if they became dissatisfied. It would plunge both countries into a mad power scramble and it could not be allowed even if it was legal, which it was