The Antebellum Period in American history is, for the most part, thought to be the period before the civil war and after the War of 1812, though a few historians claim it extended to every one of the years from the appropriation of the Constitution in 1789 to the start of the Civil War. It was depicted by the ascent of abrogation and the continuous polarization of the nation amongst abolitionists and supporters of slavery. Within this same time, the nation's economy started moving in the north to assembling as the Industrial Revolution started, while in the south, a cotton blast made manors the focal point of the economy. There was a tremendous impact of western expansion on the social, political and economic development of the United States during the Antebellum Period because of the fortification of American independence and of Manifest Destiny; the possibility that Americans and the establishments of the U.S. are ethically better and Americans are ethically committed than spread these foundations. …show more content…
Westward extension, especially west of the Mississippi River, affected American political issues.
The Monroe Doctrine put forward a strategy of Manifest Destiny that the United States ought to stretch out from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Coast. This extension made various political emergencies that spun around the growth of conquest, dispossession of Native Americans and government landholdings in the West. The spread of servitude in the West turned into the principal political issue of the better part of the nineteenth century. To keep up a harmony amongst free and slave expresses, a trade off was come to in 1820 in which Maine was conceded as a Free State and Missouri as a slave state. The southern limit of Missouri framed the 1820 Missouri Compromise line in which slavery would not be permitted north of this line, except for
Missouri. Initially, most Americans had limited access to resources. The westward expansion affected the economy positively since it made Americans richer. Getting access to more land and more resources made the country enjoy tremendous economic developments. It helped to promote the idea that the US had an evident fate to be a great power. It made it possible for investments and implementation of money making strategies. Generally, expansion was based on taking land from people who were considered mediocre. This backed up the idea that Americans were better than others and deserved more power. It is said to have helped create a more democratic and distinctive nation. Through exploration of the west, people became more self-reliant because they had to face hardships on their own. This expansion played a big part in revolutionizing the American economy and raising people’s level of income. There were also a few related social changes that came about because of Westward Expansion. One noteworthy change was that the Native Americans were consigned to just the edges, truly and allegorical, of the national talk. The prospecting for both valuable metals and dollars brought about Native Americans to be totally displaced as a result. The extension presented a set of opportunities for the eastern people since it gave the illusion that it was their last chance to go west causing a lot of immigration. This westward expansion also resulted in the reduction of food prices for the eastern people since the western lands food production was relatively more efficient and cheaper. This consequently improved the living standards of Americans regardless of their level of income. The impacts of the westward expansion are the major reasons as to why the United States is a superpower today. Developments that occurred during the antebellum period set the pace that saw America reach its targeted absolute destiny.
Congress was put in a tough position when Missouri applied for statehood, for they couldn’t have an uneven number of states. If they didn’t have an even number, they would have to come up with another idea to make slave states and free states equal, such as adding a state or neutralizing an existing slave state. Instead of making one of the existing twenty-two states neutral to slavery they accepted Maine as free state. The acceptance of Maine as it’s own state did not occur until 1820, but the addition of it did even the amount of slave states and free states to twelve and twelve. The Missouri Compromise did not only ban slavery from Maine and allow s...
In “Antebellum Southern Exceptionalism: A New Look at an Old Question” James McPherson argues that the North and the South are two very different parts of the country in which have different ideologies, interests, and values. Mcpherson writes this to show the differences between the north and the south. He gives perspectives from other historians to show how the differently the differences were viewed. These differences included the north being more industrialized while the south was more agricultural. He gives evidence to how the differences between the north and south came together as the south produced tobacoo, rice, sugar and cotton, which was then sent to the north to be made into clothing or other fabrics. Mcpherson analyzes the differences
The Missouri Compromise was a law passed in 1820 to allow Missouri, a slave owning state, and Maine, a free state, to become a part of the United States. This law had prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory, with Missouri as an exception. This law was deemed necessary by the North in order to preserve the unstable balance between the Free and Slave states. Though this does not seem like it would affect history that much, aside from adding to the land of the U.S., this law, or rather the repeal of this law, would only cause the North and South to drift further apart causing a feud that would eventually lead up to the Civil War. In 1817, the Territory of Missouri applied for statehood, which was considered by Congress in 1819.
2) Was there any degree of autonomy in the lives of enslaved women in the revolutionary or antebellum America? Use the documents to address the question of whether or not an enslaved woman could protect the humanity and if so, explore how this might be achieved. Also include how the specific era (revolutionary or antebellum) affected her autonomy.
There are two mind paths to choose when considering the statement that the compromises of the 1800s were not really compromises, but sectional sellouts by the North, that continually gave in to the South's wishes. The first is that the compromises really were compromises, and the second is that the compromises were modes of the North selling out. Really, there is only one correct path between these two, and that is that the North sold out during these compromises and gave the South what it wanted for minimal returns. The three main compromises of the 19th century, the compromises of 1820 (Missouri) and 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 each were ways for the south to gain more power so that eventually, it could secede. First, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 established the slavery line that allowed slavery below it and forbid slavery above it.
The Antebellum Era between the years of 1825 to 1850 was abundant with many reform movements that signified great change within the people of the nation. Although many of these changes were good and lasting reforms, extremists’ stark views did the contrary and inhibited change. Luckily, reform movements such as the women’s rights movement, the abolition of slavery, and temperance all led the nation in the right direction towards the expansion of democratic ideals. These ideals encompass the belief that all citizens are equal and are entitled to certain unalienable rights.
As the country began to grow and expand we continued to see disagreements between the North and South; the Missouri Territory applied for statehood; the South wanted them admitted as a slave state and the North as a free state. Henry Clay eventually came up with the Missouri Compromise, making Missouri a slave state and making Maine it’s own state, entering the union as a free state. After this compromise, any state admitted to the union south of the 36° 30’ latitude would be a slave state and a state north of it would be free. The country was very much sectionalized during this time. Thomas Jefferson felt this was a threat to the Union.
Additionally, the majority of states had conflicts between slavery in their territory, one of them dealt with missouri. Missouri applied for admission into the Union as a slave state; this became a problem because missouri ruined the balance for free slaves and slave states. The northern states wanted to ban slavery from occurring in missouri because the unbalanced situation it put towards the other states. In response, the southern states declared how congress doesn’t have the power to ban slavery in missouri. However, Henry Clay offers a solution, the missouri compromise of 1820. Missouri admitted as slave state and Maine becomes a free slave state. Slavery is banned in Louisiana creating a 36 30 line in missouri’s southern border; this maintained the balance in the U.S senate.
“The United States emerged from a virulent, intense, and inhumane civil war and evolved into a new nation during this period. This transition was the culmination of political, economic, social, and cultural movements which transformed the nation. E Pluribus Unum - out of many United States, one nation; the United States was forged in the cauldron of these revolutions." -Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History
In 1820 Missouri wanted to join the Union as a slave state. As this would ruin the balance between Slave states and Free states in the Senate, Henry Clay proposed the Missouri compromise. This arranged it that while Missouri was admitted as a Slave state, Maine was also admitted as a free state. It also created an imaginary line along the 36o latitude, where slavery was allowed below it but prevented above it. However they limited themselves by only applying the Compromise to lands gained in the Louisiana purchase. This led to conflict after the Mexican war in which America gained new territories in the West. This doomed the Missouri Compromise, which was probably the most promising of the three. Had the Compromise been applied to all American lands then perhaps it could have succeeded. Instead the Missouri Compromise failed and only led to further conflict between north and south in the future.
Near the end of the Antebellum Era, tensions and sectionalism increased as the states argued over what was constitutional. The South had later seceded from the United States and had become the Confederacy of America while the North had remained as the Union. The South had fully supported states’ rights while the north had strongly disapproved it. However, westward expansion, southern anger with the abolitionists, and the secession of the South that had destroyed the feeling of unity in the country because of the disagreement over slavery had been the main factors to the cause of the Civil War. Therefore, since slavery was the primary reason for the discontent in the country, it had been the primary cause of the Civil War.
During the antebellum period, the North and the South were complete opposites. This led to each side viewing itself as superior and viewing the other as "backward." Each side believed itself to be superior, in all aspects, to the other. The reasons for these opinions can be found in the different economic, social, and cultural systems found in these two regions.
The years after the civil war left one half of America, the north, satisfied and the other half, the south, mostly dissatisfied. Therefore the last third of the nineteenth century, 1865-1900, was a time period in which America was mending, repairing, improving, reshaping, and reconstructing its society, economy, culture, and policies. Basically it was changing everything it stood for. This continual change can be seen in the following events that took place during this time. These events are both causes and effects of why America is what it is today. These are some examples: the reconstruction of the south, the great movement towards the west, the agricultural revolution, the rise of industrialism, the completion of the transcontinental railroad, and America's growth to gaining world power. All of these are reasons and events that characterize America as being an ever-changing nation.
Correspondly, the senate passed the Missouri Compromise in February 1820, which allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state and Maine to enter as a free state, making the free and slave states balanced once again. Another amendment was passed to prohibit slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase north of the southern border of Missouri. This event envisioned a possible threat to the relationship between the North and South. Moreover, the United States began to believe in a manifest destiny, a god-given right to expand its territory until it had absorbed all of North America, including Canada and Mexico.... ...
While the North consisted of Free States with slavery illegalized, the South heavily depended on slave labor. This caused numerous disagreements between the two sections of the country on whether slavery should be allowed to expand or not. With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the debate on whether the new states entering the Union should be allowed to come in as slave states. During that time the United States consisted of eleven free states and eleven slave states, which allowed equal representation of both sections in the government. The Compromise of 1820, also known as the Missouri Compromise, was created due to the tension that arose when Missouri applied for admission to the Union.