The Antebellum Period Essay

The Antebellum period, which included the first half of the 19th century, saw a division in the United States over the issue of slavery and was the cause of sectional tensions throughout the country. For decades, the United States continued to fulfill its Manifest Destiny, achieving a nation that extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. However, with this expansion came a division among the political, economic, and social views of the country. The North and South were split between those who advocated for slavery and those who wished to abolish slavery. The events that were caused by the sectional tensions among the North and South eventually led to a break in the Union, plunging the United States into a Civil War.
Slavery was

an American economic institution that the leaders of United States continuously refused to discuss. It was vital to the economy in the South, though many questioned its ethics, many also believed that the abolition of slavery would leave the country in shambles. In a letter of Sterling Ruffin to Thomas Ruffin in 1804, Sterling Ruffin states,
“That they [slaves] are a great civil, political, and moral evil no Person will deny, but how to get rid of them…without fixing on any rational, or probable means to make their situation more comfortable, without endangering the political safety of the State, and perhaps Jeopardising the lives, property, and everything sacred and dear of the Whites.” (Ruffian)
He emphasizes that many people knew that slavery was intrinsically wrong, however, he argued that it would negatively impact nation and the white people who depended on slave labor.

Even before expansion of the United States, slavery was an institution that many people advocated for, but was also being continuously

questioned.
The United States adopted the concept of Manifest Destiny to justify its ambitious expansion to the West. Many people wanted to secure the West because of the fear of other countries being too close and having an advantage over the Americans. In the book The Jacksonian Era, Glyndon G. VanDeusen states, “Some [expansion] sponsors declared that the natural rights of man included a right to safety which could only be achieved by acquiring areas in which strong foreign powers might easily gain menacing positions of strength.” (VanDeusen, 171) The United States used its self-entitled divine right of Manifest Destiny to gain control of land in the West. Due to the unaddressed issue of slave states and free states, this expansion eventually led to problems as the territories sought statehood. To attempt to solve the problem, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 was passed, admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. However, this also prohibited slavery in the Louisiana territories above the 36º 30 latitude line, but this rule would later be overturned in the Compromise of 1850. This compromise was an attempt to postpone the discussion of slavery in Congress and was not effective as the United States continued to expand and admit more territories.
As the United States continued to ignore slavery, it fought against Mexico in the Mexican-American War. When the war came to a close, the Wilmot Proviso was debated over incessantly in Congress. If passed, it would have banned slavery in the territories which America acquired as a result of the war; this territory included a large part of the Southwest to California. Though the Wilmot Proviso was never passed, it sparked the debate over slavery and showed the serious tensions between the advocates for slavery and the abolitionists (Battlefields). A different solution, offered by Henry Clay in 1850, was created to keep the balance of 15 free states and 15 slave states in the Senate. The Compromise of 1850 was an attempt to relieve the tension between the North and the South. It admitted California as a free state while creating the Fugitive Slave Act and revoking of the 36º 30 rule. The tension in the country only grew as a result of this failed compromise. Many people from the North who were once indifferent about the issue of slavery quickly changed their minds as they were forced to search for and return slaves that ran away from their owners in the South. The tensions only continued to increase between the North and the South as they fought for freedom or slavery.
The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 turned the tensions between the pro-slavery and anti-slavery advocates into violence.

This act allowed new territories to decide if they become a free state or a slave state based on a popular vote among the people in the territory. (Battlefield) People from both the North and South immediately moved to Kansas in hopes of tipping the vote in their direction. For five years there were outbreaks of violence that eventually led to the death of fifty-six people. This event along with the Compromise of 1850 caused a split in the Whig party as the Southern Whigs were drawn to the Democratic party and the Northerners along with anti-slavery advocates and became the Republican party. (UShistory.org) These new parties fostered more animosity between the North and the South and showed that even before the war started, the United States was already a divided

nation.
As the election of 1860 approached with Abraham Lincoln as the Republican candidate, sectional tensions were high. Southerners despised Abraham Lincoln and his plan for the “ultimate extinction” of slavery which they believed would threaten their livelihoods on their Southern plantations. (“Abraham Lincoln”) Though most Southern states didn’t even put his name on the ballot, Abraham Lincoln won the election and South Carolina immediately seceded from the Union along with several other Southern states. The Unites States was plunged into the Civil War, a war fought for freedom by the North and the protection of slavery by the South.
After decades of ignoring the issue of slavery, none of the compromises created by the United States could have preserved the Union. The United States failed to address the issue of slavery as it spread its borders to the West and by the time the issues were addressed, it was too late. The distinction between the two sides of the issue were too great for it to be resolved by ignoring it. The sectional differences caused by those who wanted to abolish slavery and those who wanted to keep it were too intense to avoid a fight between the two. Pro-slavery and anti-slavery could not co-exist in the growing nations and the only way the country could resolve this issue was with the Civil War.