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Political impacts of the civil war
Political impacts of the civil war
Political impacts of the civil war
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One of the most relevant compromises during the years leading up to the Civil War was the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Various other compromises were made to keep all the states content and amiable as well.The Kansas-Nebraska act was still one of the most important compromises because it pushed the states over the edge of their arguments; they turned to violence to solve their problems. This ruined all of the government's attempts at keeping the peace. The first major conflict was in Kansas from 1854-1861. It was called “Bleeding Kansas”. Eventually, the violence in Kansas grew even more, and it eventually turned into the Civil War. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was a compromise passed in 1854. It said that the new states of Kansas and Nebraska would
each get to decide if they would become a free state or a slave state by themselves through a process called popular sovereignty. This meant that the people would vote on if they wanted to allow slaves or not. This law was passed to try and keep the number of slave states to free states equal. The congress thought by having the two states vote, probably hoping that one would become a slave state and the other free, that everyone would still be pleased with the decision. However, the Congress was wrong, and many northerners were vexed by the law. Northerners were upset because they thought the compromise favored the south, as it repealed a previous law that prohibited slavery north of Arkansas. Following the signing of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, violence erupted in the the new state of Kansas during its first election. This violence was called “Bleeding Kansas”. The bloodshed began when a group of pro-slavery forces that were referred to as “Border Ruffians” rode into Kansas to try and force the election of a pro-slavery legislature. This means the state would then allow slavery. The pro-slavery forces and anti-slavery forces then fought for control of the vote. In the end, Kansas entered the nation as a free state, but the Civil War would soon follow. In the final analysis the Kansas-Nebraska act was one of the most crucial parts of beginning the Civil War because it was one of the last attempts to salvage the new nation and prevent more fighting. Many other compromises pertaining to to slavery were made too. After “Bleeding Kansas”, even more violence erupted when the Civil War began, showing that the Kansas-Nebraska act and other compromises ultimately failed.
To put it simply (as I recall and it's been years since I've had to read about this subject)a new territory was opened to settle in. It was decided that the settlers of these states would decide whether or not slavery would be permitted. This gave birth to the new Republican Party which opposed slavery. The Act was designed by Stephen A Douglas a Democratic senator from Illinois (the same who would later defeat a young Abraham Lincoln for the senate in 1858) and repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Thousands of settlers both pro and anti slavery rushed into Kansas particularly and bloody, murderous fights broke out among the groups hence the nickname "Bleeding Kansas". It was actually one territory but this Act divided it into two states.
It allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The Act served to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36°30´. Results of the Kansas-Nebraska Act were numerous and for the most part fatal to the country. The Act caused the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850 to be virtually nullified, and caused compromising between the North and the South to be nearly impossible in the future.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Collapse of the Whig Party and the Rise of the Republican Party
It also gave the South another slave state in Missouri and the north a free state in Maine. Although each region gained a state in the Senate, the south benefited most from the acquisition because Missouri was in such a pivotal position in the country, right on the border. Later on with the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, Missouri had a big role in getting Kansas to vote south because many proslavery Missourians crossed the border into Kansas to vote slavery. The Missouri Compromise also helped slavery because the line that was formed to limit slavery had more land below the line than above it. Therefore, slavery was given more land to be slave and therefore more power in the Senate, when the territories became state.
The Missouri Compromise of 1820 was a debatable decision for the north and the south. A decision towards whether or not Missouri should come in as a slave state. In congress, those on the side of the north, found out that Missouri was going to be placed as a slave state and were dramatically upset. They were upset due to the fact that it would cause an unbalance. During the 1800’s there were an equivalent of eleven slave states and eleven free states. Naturally, ...
Western expansion and the Louisiana Purchase both led to the formation of the Missouri Compromise because more states started applying for statehood, and this distorted the balance between the slave and free states. Division between the North and South increased as a result of the Missouri Compromise. It created a line that separated the Union and set it to the path of Civil War. At first, the North and South saw the compromise as a successful document that maintained the balance between the number of slave and free states; however, when the Union gained more territory through Mexican War, Congress decided to modify the existing compromise. Finally, the repeal of the compromise made the final push that led to the explosion of animosity between the North and South, which led to the Civil War. Slavery in the new territories remained the main issue that caused the necessity of forming the Missouri Compromise. Jefferson accurately stated that the Missouri Compromise stood only as a temporary solution that eventually led to the full-fledged sectional war between
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was one of the first events that demonstrated Lincoln’s disapproval yet tolerance for slavery. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, proposed by Stephen A. Douglas and signed by Franklin Pierce, divided the region into two territories. The territory north of the 40th parallel was the Kansas Territory and the south of the 40th parallel was the Nebraska Territory, the controv...
During a time of great brutality due to the controversial idea of Kansas being either a free or slave state, otherwise known as “Bleeding Kansas”, Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois composed the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which would repeal the Missouri Compromise and set the foundation for Kansas to solely decide its stance on slavery, an idea otherwise known as popular sovereignty (United States Senate). Charles Sumner spoke out against the Kansas-Nebraska Act in his “Crime Against Kansas” speech in which he maintained that the intention of the “Slave Power” was to “rape a virgin” and give birth to a slave state and spoke in favor of prompt affirmation of Kansas as a free state (Meade)...
The Kansas-Nebraska Act was a great victory for the south. The greatest benefit to the south was the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which established the sacred 36-30 line. If the Missouri Compromise had stayed in place, there would have been no more possibility for the expansion of slavery, since there was no land left south of the 36-30 line; under the Missouri Compromise southern expansion was hampered by the existence of the Gulf of Mexico. As a result of the line being repealed, it was possible for slavery to exist in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska because of popular sovereignty.
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.
On December 14, 1853, Augustus C. Dodge of Iowa introduced a bill in the Senate. The bill proposed organizing the Nebraska territory, which also included an area that would become the state of Kansas. His bill was referred to the Committee of the Territories, which was chaired by Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois.
middle of paper ... ... The Civil War that was tamed after the Missouri Compromise of 1820 finally broke out. After four years of fighting, the war was over and the Union won. There were many events, laws, and people that provoked the Civil War.
After winning the Mexican-American War in 1848, the United States gained the western territories, which included modern-day California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, as well as parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma. However, controversial topics, that helped cause the Civil War, arouse with the addition of these new territories. Primarily, the people of the United States wanted to know whether the new territories would be admitted as free states or slave states. In order to avoid fighting between the slave states of the South and the free states of the North, Henry Clay (Whig) and Stephen Douglas (Democrat) drafted the Compromise of 1850. Although the compromise was created to stop conflict ...
Between the period of 1820-1861 there was a number of political compromises done in order reduce the sectional tension between the North and the South. While each of the compromises created helped the issue that the country was facing at that time, they did not help overall. The compromises were only a temporary fix to the country’s problem of sectionalism. Therefore, while political compromises were effective in reducing the tension between the North and the South, it did not help in preventing the civil war. The North and the South had a vast amount of political differences, one of the major ones was slavery.
The biggest cause was a social difference between slave and anti-slave states. Also, the growth of the abolition movement added to the turmoil. Most importantly is the land gained from the Mexican War, and what should be done with the land gained. To try and resolve the conflicts over the land, congress kept making compromises. The first major compromise was the Missouri Compromise, which was an imaginary line across the thirty-six and thirty degrees latitude. Anyone above was a free state and anyone below was a slave state. However, when new lands were added to the United States, people did not want slavery to expand and created the Wilmot Proviso which banned slavery in new territories. This outraged many people so they then decided to allow slavery to be determined in each state by popular sovereignty. However, with this idea came threats for individuals to vote for one side, and caused many fights in Kansas, hence, the Bleeding Kansas. All this social issues contributed to the Civil War.