Why The Civil War Began Essay

Civil War So many major events from the time between 1848 and 1861, lead up to the civil war between the Union and the Confederacy. “Historians have identified at least four main causes of the conflict between the North and the South: (1) slavery, as a growing moral issue in the North, versus its defense and expansion in the South; (2) constitutional disputes over the nature of the federal Union and states’ rights; (3) economic differences between the industrializing North and the agricultural South over such issues as tariffs, banking, and internal improvements; (4) political blunders and extremism on both sides, which some historians conclude resulting in an unnecessary war” (Newmon 247). Though these are logical explanation, to why the civil war began, I believe that believe that because of agitation over slavery, national parties in crisis, extremist and violence, constitutional issues, and road to secession ultimately led to the outbreak between the North and the South. The brief period between the
Compromise of 1850 and the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1851 resulted in the political tension slightly decreasing. However, the Fugitive Slave Act cause public attention regarding slavery within the South; the Fugitive Slave Act caused a lot of tension between the North and the South. “It was the Fugitive Slave Law that persuaded many southerners to accept the loss of California to abolitionists and Free-Soilers. Yet, the enforcement of the new law in the North was bitterly and sometimes forcibly resisted by antislavery northerner. In effect, therefore, enforcement of the new law added to the aggrieved feelings on both sides. The law’s chief purpose was to track down runaway (fugitive) slaves who had escaped to a northern state, captured them, and returned them to their southern owners” (Fugitive). They were then taken to U.S. commissioners who decided their fate. Commissioners who returned suspected fugitives earned more money, then if they rejected a slaveholder’s claim. Therefore, many free people were enslaved. The Fugitive Slave Act upset many northerners, they were uncomfortable with how much power was given to the commissioners. They also disliked the idea of trial without jury. “The Potency of the slavery controversy increased political instability, as shown in the weakening of the two major parties-the Democrats and the Whigs-and in a disastrous application of popular sovereignty” (Newman 252). Senator Stephan A. Douglas of Illinois had the idea of building a railroad running through Chicago. Southerners in Congress did not support Douglas’s plan, and recommended a southern route. In January 1854, Douglas introduced what is known as the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This was a plan the would divide what was remaining of the Louisiana Purchase, and turn it into two different territories- Nebraska and Kansas. The people of the two territories had to decide how they were going to handle slavery. Douglas’s bill gave Southern slave owners an opportunity to expand slavery the had been closed to them by the Missouri Compromise of 1820. “Antislavery northerners were outraged by the implications. Some believed that the proposal was part of a terrible plot to turn free territory into a ‘dreary region…inhabited by masters and slaves.’ All across the North, citizens attended protest meetings and sent anti-Nebraska petitions to Congress” (White 485). “The Kansas-Nebraska Act, in effect, repealed the Missouri Compromise that had kept a lid on regional tensions for more than three decades.
After 1854, the conflicts between antislavery and proslavery forces exploded in Kansas (…)” (Newman 252). In 1856, the civil war began in Kansas when a group of pro-slavery riders burned down parts of Lawrence, killing two and destroying many homes. John Brown was an American abolitionist, who led a small group of men; in May 1856, he and his supporters killed five pro-slavery men at Pottawatomie creek, in response to the pro-slavery events in Lawrence. Civil war in Kansas began this year, and continued until it merged with that nation’s Civil War in 1861-1865. “As ‘bleeding Kansas’ became bloodier, the Democratic party became even more divided between its Northern and Southern factions” (Newman 254). With so much separation and disagreements between pro-slavery, and anti-slavery, I can understand why they went to
war. The court case of Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), was one of the most well know court cases in history. “The Supreme court worsened the crisis when it infuriated many Northerners with a controversial proslavery decision in the case of a slave named Dred Scott. Scott had been held in slavery in Missouri and then taken to the free territory of Wisconsin where he lived for two years before returning to Missouri. Arguing that his residence on free soil made him a free citizen” (Newman 255-256). Scott sued for his freedom, and his court eventually reached the Supreme court. The majority of the court ruled that Scott had no right to sue in a federal court. The court’s ruling delighted Southern Democrats, and made Northern Republicans extremely angry. This caused the Supreme Court to declare all parts of the western territories open to slavery. Many northerners were very upset with the ruling, and it just so happened that the majority of the Supreme Court were Democrat, and during that time there was a brand new Democratic president. This caused Northerners to believe that they had secretly planed the Dred Scott decision, hoping it would end the question about slavery.