Northerners, during mid-century America believed in the preservation of the undissolvable Union. When the Constitution was framed in 1787, the founding fathers were concerned about leaving Britain and becoming a Union, as opposed to the issue of slavery that would later prevail. Henry Clay created the Compromise of 1850, which helped solve the problem of slavery in the territories. When the Missouri Compromise was ruled unconstitutional under the Dred Scott decision, the due process clause, for the first time, was interpreted to state that people could not be denied their property, displaying that Calhoun was right all along, slaves were actually considered property after all. It is evident that although the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, many Northerners depicted its flaws.
Sectional difficulties that lead to the break up of the Union can be traced to flaws in the Constitution, although there are other factors as well. In events such as John Brown’s Raid, the North solemnly respected Brown, holding commemoration services in his memorial. This shows that the founding fathers thought well ahead of their time and created a Constitution that included answers to many questions, although, in general, this document eventually contributed to the collapse of the Union. President Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of America, believing that states were sovereign over the Union
The Constitution includes the three-fifths clause, along with and end to the African slave trade. After the fugitive slave law was enacted, many personal liberty laws were created in the North. Just as Northerners saw flaws in the