The document is a formal declaration from Texas explaining its reasoning for seceding from the United States, dated February 2, 1861. It focuses on slavery, saying it was essential to Southern life and criticizing Northern states for wanting slavery to end. The document focusing on slavery was a huge deal because it was a major reason the Southern States felt they needed to break away. Along with that, the document also complains that the federal government didn’t protect Texas enough from threats and that Northern states did things that Southern states thought were against the Constitution. These issues show how deeply divided the country was, which led to the Civil War. The Declaration of Causes, February 2, 1861 from Texas explaining why it left the United States is what …show more content…
The document listed Texas's complaints against the Federal Government and Northern states, portraying secession as a way to defend Southern ways of life and independence. By presenting the conflict as a response to what Texas saw as Northern aggression and federal shortcomings, especially concerning slavery, the declaration united Texas with other states that also left the Union and helped start the Civil War. Its impact went beyond Texas, shaping public opinion and reinforcing the deep divide in beliefs and politics that led to America's deadliest war. This event is important because it explains why Texas chose to leave the United States. The document shows Texas’s reasons for secession, focusing on the threats they felt from the Federal Government and Northern states, but most importantly, about slavery. The "Declaration of Causes, February 2, 1861," states complaints about states’ rights, economic differences, and social and racial beliefs. It highlights how crucial slavery was to Southern society and its economy and defends the state’s rights against what they saw as federal overreach. The
In the book, Apostles of Disunion, author Charles B. Dew opens the first chapter with a question the Immigration and Naturalization service has on an exam they administer to prospective new American citizens: “The Civil War was fought over what important issue”(4). Dew respond by noting that “according to the INS, you are correct if you offer either of the following answers: ‘slavery or states’ rights’” (4). Although this book provides more evidence and documentation that slavery was the cause of the Civil War, there are a few places where states’ rights are specifically noted. In presenting the findings of his extensive research, Dew provides compelling documentation that would allow the reader to conclude that slavery was indeed the cause for both secession and the Civil War.
In the spring 1861, years of building tensions between the northern states and southern states resulted in the American Civil War. In 1680 an anti-slavery Republican, Abraham Lincoln was elected president causing seven southern states to secede from the union. These seven states included--Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas--. These seven states formed the Confederate States of America. The American Civil War lasted from April 12, 1861 to May 9, 1865 and claimed more than roughly 620,000 lives. So what caused the Civil War? The three main causes of the Civil War were differences between the north and the south in economies, disagreements in abolishing slavery, and whether the State or Federal
The Civil War was a war fought between the the North and South in 1861. The Civil War happen because of hard tensions between the North and South over whether or not slavery rights follows with them in the new states in the westward expansion. The presidential election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 caused seven Southern states to secede from the Union and form the Confederate States of America, four more states later on joined them. The Civil War had many battles and the South had to go against the North and Confederate States which also made it hard for them. The Civil War ended in the
After the election of Lincoln, the Deep South states held conventions that issued ordinances stating why they were seceding and longer statements telling why. At the South Carolina Secession Convention on December 24th, 1860, the “Declaration of the immediate causes which induce and justify the secession of the South Carolina from the Federal Union” declared the immediate reasons for South Carolina’s secession from the Union. This also served as a model for other states as they began to leave the Union. This document began with South Carolina’s 1852 threat to secede, which gave reasons such as, “the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States by the Federal Government of this Union, especially in relation to slavery.” This sentence referred to states’ rights, but then takes a turn. It emphasizes the independence of each state before and during the period when the United States operated under the Articles of Confederation. This declaration provides a view that says, “The law of compact,” claiming that each party can decide on “his own judgement” whether the other has lived up to its terms; if not, the state can do what it wants. South Carolina declared that the Federal Government had violated the Constitution, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the
This Emancipation Proclamation is a copy from the original five-page document which is stored in the National Archives Building in Washington. It was a presidential proclamation and executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war between the north (the Union) and the south (the Confederacy). It is a legal and political text addressed to all the American people but mainly to the people in the Southern states (the Confederacy not under the Union control) of the United States of America. It also reached Europe. The preliminary Proclamation was signed on the 22nd of September 1862, when the Confederacy did not
In Conclusion this Document was written to bring Independence to the United States of America. This document clearly stated the claim and supported it overwhelming good. They continued to give reasoning on why the country was at risk and why they are fighting for their freedom. Every claim made within the document is supported thoroughly by facts from credible educated sources. This document brings to life the citizens of the thirteen states at that time because it was arguing for their freedom. Still to this day we look back at the Declaration of Independence and see it as a back bone to our country’s freedom. Therefore, this is why we celebrate our freedom every 4th of July due to the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
This wasn't the first time Americans has thought about secession before. The founding of the nation's defenders of states rights had conflicts that any states would be able to cancel out any laws that were legalized by the federal government and they could even withdraw from the Union if the felt impelled to do so. A state convention repealed South Carolina's ratification of the US Constitution and voted to withdraw from the Union. It didn't want to be part of a nation in which it had no control. In the next few weeks, more states followed such as Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. Seceding was not a unanimous choice for these Southern states. The planter class was the force pushing the movement. The counties with a
The American Civil War, also known as the War Between the States, or simply the Civil War in the United States, was a civil war fought from 1861 to 1865, after seven Southern slave states declared their secession and formed the Confederate States of America . The states that remained in the Union were known as the "Union" or the "North". The war had its origin in the fractious issue of slavery, especially the extension of slavery into the western territories. Foreign powers did not intervene. After four years of bloody combat that left over 600,000 soldiers dead and destroyed much of the South's infrastructure, the Confederacy collapsed, slavery was abolished, and the difficult Reconstruction process of restoring national unity and guaranteeing rights to the freed slaves began.
The Civil War was an absolute blood bath by the battles end, thousands would lie dead. The wilderness was typical of Civil War battles in that it was indecisive despite its brutality, The technological advancements since the Mexican –American War in weapons technology were significantly responsible for the indecisive and violent nature of Civil War battles.
“Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22nd 1862. The document states that if the states in the rebellion didn’t cease, the proclamation would go into effect” (10 Facts). When the rebellious states decided not to, Lincoln issued the final Emancipation on January 1st, 1863. The proclamation only applied to the states in rebellion. In fact, the proclamation declared, “that all persons held as slaves, within the rebellious, are and henceforth shall be freed” (The Emancipation Proclamation). During the war, the Southern states used the slaves to support their armies in the field and to manage the home front. Lincoln justified the proclamation as a war measure intended to cripple the Confederates use of slaves in war. The book, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End Of Slavery in America, says “No single official paper in American history changed the lives of as many Americans as Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. But no American document has been held up to greater suspicion” (Guelzo 12).
Out of all the documents signed throughout history in attempt to benefit our country, Abraham Lincoln felt that his document, Emancipation Proclamation, was most important. On January 1, 1763, approaching the third year of the very bloody civil war, President Abraham Lincoln released the Proclamation which declared “that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious states, “ are, and henceforward shall be free”(U.S National Archives & Records Administration). However, this only applied to the states that had been labeled as being rebellion, not to the slaveholding border states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and the areas that the Confederacy had already come under the Union Control. Abraham Lincoln released the document at the right time to ensure that it would make a positive impact and change completely, the aim of the war. To this day, the Emancipation Proclamation shows an example of equality and cognizance (Weider History Group, n.p).
America's bloodiest and most deadly battle was The American Civil War. America was never the same after the civil war. America changed and became a different nation. The civil war is noted as one of the most meaningful, impacting, and important events in America’s history. The Civil War was fought between the northern and the southern states. However, its impact was felt by the entire nation politically, economically, and socially. This war cost over 600,000 lives and divided the nation.
The American Civil War is a conflict that started in the years of 1861 through 1865, during the times Northern & Southern states seceded from the Union. In the South dealing with the war throughout the states was also labelled as War of the Rebellion, the war of secession also the war for southern independence. During the time of Civil War, although it had much criticized as inexact they most widely accepted. Not only that the economy of the American civil war was also not a class struggle as many thought. Also throughout the civil war soldiers were dropping like fly and other needed some type of help due to their injury. There was an totally amount of 644,000 soldiers in different types of conflict.
“Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils. The unhappy man who has been treated as a brute animal, too frequently sinks beneath the common standard of the human species. The galling chains, that bind his body, do also fetter his intellectual faculties, and impair the social affections of his heart… To instruct, to advise, to qualify those, who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty… and to procure for their children an education calculated for their future situation in life; these are the great outlines of the annexed plan, which we have adopted.” - Benjamin Franklin. When Benjamin Franklin said this, he was speaking in 1789 promoting the abolition of slavery so long before the civil war. He was one of the many abolitionists that had been fighting for freedom years before the main events of the abolition movement during the abolition movement. Dred Scott was served wrongly by slave owning judges. The Abolition Movement and The Dred Scott decision are about people standing up for others being treated wrongly.
...portunity, is formed from the suffering of others. Weather it was the Indian land we occupied, the slave labor we used, the settlers we sent to tame our lands, or the British blood we spilled, our country was built on rebellion. This document is just a symbol of how through the oppression of a scattered few a union can form into what we today call the United Stated of America, land of the free, home of the brave.