Enormity Of The Civil War

874 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The significance of brown v board of education

The Civil War is one of the most important events in United States history. The conflict changed the lives of millions and forever left an indelible mark on this country. The enormity of the conflict makes us wonder how “We the People” became a people divided. It is important to understand the core themes and narratives that led to the war between the states. In my view, there were numerous issues that led to deep sectional divisions that eventually led to war. However, I feel there are three core themes that drew the sections into war were nullification, radical abolitionism, and political realignment. Additionally, I feel the ideas of these three themes were represented by Dred Scott, John Brown, and Stephen A. Douglas, respectively. The …show more content…

Nullification, in this context, is when states decide not to adhere federal law. In the United States Constitution, federal law trumps state law. Nonetheless, states on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line had used the nullification of federal law to “protect” what their leaders saw as their state sovereignty. Particularly in the South, governors and state legislators believed their states’ rights superseded the importance of the powers of the federal government. Eventually, and perhaps most consequentially, northern states used nullification to void the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, part of the Compromise of 1850, created punishments for those in the North that helped and did not arrest runaway slaves. Those who did not help southerners recover their slaves could be heavily fined. Additionally, Southerners could claim a slave as theirs with …show more content…

John Brown was the epitome of radical abolitionism with his attack on Harpers Ferry and his role in the violence in Kansas. Just as Dred Scott and the Slave Act of 1850 helped rally Northerners together the events at Harpers Ferry united Southerners. People in the South began to worry about radical Yankees threating their lives and of potential slave revolts in the aftermath of what they deemed as northern aggression. Furthermore, many Northerners celebrated what John Brown had done. I think there is parallel fears emerging in 1850s in the North and South that led to conflict. The south had previously threatened succession before 1860, but I believe the threat of violence made them feel 1860/61 was the right time to finally

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Michael F. Holt's The Political Divisions That Contributed To Civil War

    809 Words  | 2 Pages

    Both sides desired a republican form of government. Each wanted a political system that would “protect the equality and liberty of the individuals from aristocratic privilege and…tyrannical power.” (404) However, the north and south differed greatly in “their perceptions of what most threatened its survival.” (404) The secession by the south was an attempt to reestablish republicanism, as they no longer found a voice in the national stage. Prior to the 1850s, this conflict had been channeled through the national political system. The collapse of the two-party system gave way to “political reorganization and realignment,” wrote Holt. The voters of the Democrats shifted their influence toward state and local elections, where they felt their concerns would be addressed. This was not exclusively an economically determined factor. It displayed the exercise of agency by individual states. Holt pointed out, “[T]he emergence of a new two-party framework in the South varied from state to state according to the conditions in them.” (406) The “Deep South” was repulsed by the “old political process,” most Southerners trusted their state to be the safeguards of republicanism. (404) They saw the presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, a member of the “the anti-Southern Republican party,” as something the old system could not

    Read More

  • Sectionalism Versus Nationalism and the Era of Good Feelings

    627 Words  | 2 Pages

    The United States began to dissatisfy some of its citizens and so the concerns of sectionalism, or the split of the country began to arise. There was a continuous riff between the south and the north over a few issues, a major one being slavery. The south argued that the slaves were necessary to support the southern economy. According to document A, the south were angry that the north was creating taxes that hurt the southern economy, thus increasing the need for slavery since they had to make up for the expense of the taxes. The south felt that the north was able...

    Read More

  • Apostles of Disunion by Charles B. Dew

    961 Words  | 2 Pages

    In Apostles of Disunion, Dew presents compelling documentation that the issue of slavery was indeed the ultimate cause for the Civil War. This book provided a great deal of insight as to why the South feared the abolition of slavery as they did. In reading the letters and speeches of the secession commissioners, it was clear that each of them were making passionate pleas to all of the slave states in an effort to put a stop to the North’s, and specifically Lincoln’s, push for the abolishment of slavery. There should be no question that slavery had everything to do with being the cause for the Civil War. In the words of Dew, “To put it quite simply, slavery and race were absolutely critical elements in the coming of the war” (81). This was an excellent book, easy to read, and very enlightening.

    Read More

  • Differing Perspectives of the American Civil War

    910 Words  | 2 Pages

    The decades leading up to the American Civil War showed a great divide in the economic, political, and regional attitudes between the North and South. These divisions still plague the country today. However, there is a divide on whether economic anxieties or political differences were the major factor in the run up to the Civil War.

    Read More

  • Themes Of Redemption The Last Battle Of The Civil War

    982 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the historical narrative Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil War, Nicholas Leman gives readers an insight into the gruesome and savage acts that took place in the mid-1870s and eventually led to the end of the Reconstruction era in the southern states. Before the engaging narrative officially begins, Lemann gives a 29-page introduction to the setting and provides background information about the time period. With Republican Ulysses S. Grant as President of the United States of America and Republican Adelbert Ames, as the Governor of Mississippi, the narrative is set in a town owned by William Calhoun in the city of Colfax, Louisiana. As a formal military commander, Ames ensured a

    Read More

  • The Sectionalism of the 19th Century

    1108 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...mfortable and stubborn, resisting the change that was coming about in the country. The North being so eager to expand and industrialize the country and establish their independency from the British. Somewhere along the road, the states stopped working toward a common goal and became more concerned with their own well-being. With each attempt made to keep the states united, they were only building up more harsh feeling toward each other. Even with all the ill feelings between the regions because of their sectionalism, the South succeeding from the union and a war being fought within our own nation, our people against our people, the United States managed to struggle through the sectionalism of 19th century and remain one nation, united.

    Read More

  • What Were the Key Issues Leading To the Civil War?

    2033 Words  | 5 Pages

    The North and the South had been sectionalized for years on many issues, yet the majority of the congressmen had still come together when necessary for the good of the Nation, up until 1854. After Lincoln won the election in 1860, the nation was divided by sectionalism. Due to the Nation being divided and the Southerners being paranoid about the slaves being freed, I believe both issues were causes that led to the Civil War. Works Cited Brands, H. W.. American Stories: A History of the United States. New York: Routledge, 1998 2nd ed.

    Read More

  • The American Civil War: The Inevitable Confrontation

    1753 Words  | 4 Pages

    Since the beginning of the Market Revolution, the institution of slavery became the leading factor that intensified the relations between the North and the South. Regarding the geographic differences between the North and South, the South was primarily agrarian and the North was mainly urban. Therefore, the North rapidly industrialized while the South remained relatively rural and cotton-slave based. As a result, the Market Revolution economically separated the North and the South and created a second party system. Thus, the issues of pro-slavery and anti-slavery arose between the Southern Democrats and Northern Republicans in the 1850s. The North desired to halt the expansion of slavery into western territories while the South strongly opposed. These two opposing parties led to radical abolitionism in the North, William Henry Seward and John Brown, and extreme secessionism in the South, James Henry Hammond, and South Carolina Ordinance of Secession. Due to their strict ideologies regarding slavery, both parties could not compromise on the issue of the expansion of slavery. Therefore, according to Americans in the years prior to the Civil War, conflict was inevitable.

    Read More

  • Slavery, The Constitutional, And The Origins Of The Civil War

    1066 Words  | 3 Pages

    In The article “Slavery, the Constitutional, and the Origins of the Civil War”, Paul Finkelman discusses some of the events that he believes lead the United States to have a Civil War. He discusses how both the North and the South territories of the Untied States did not see eye to eye when it came to ab...

    Read More

  • The Secession of the South

    778 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tensions between the North and South had grown steadily since the anti slavery movement in 1830. Several compromises between the North and South regarding slavery had been passed such as the Nebraska-Kansas and the Missouri act; but this did little to relieve the strain. The election of President Lincoln in 1861 proved to be the boiling point for the South, and secession followed. This eventually sparked the civil war; which was viewed differently by the North and the South. The Northern goal was to keep the Union intact while the Southern goal was to separate from the Union. Southern leaders gave convincing arguments to justify secession. Exploring documents from South Carolina’s secession ordinance and a speech from the Georgia assembly speech will explain how the Southern leaders justify the secession from the United States.

    Read More

  • The Road to the American Civil War

    1339 Words  | 3 Pages

    The majority of speculations regarding the causes of the American Civil War are in some relation to slavery. While slavery was a factor in the disagreements that led to the Civil War, it was not the solitary or primary cause. There were three other, larger causes that contributed more directly to the beginning of the secession of the southern states and, eventually, the start of the war. Those three causes included economic and social divergence amongst the North and South, state versus national rights, and the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Dred Scott case. Each of these causes involved slavery in some way, but were not exclusively based upon slavery.

    Read More

  • The 1860 Presidential Election

    1204 Words  | 3 Pages

    The presidential elections of 1860 was one of the nation’s most memorable one. The north and the south sections of country had a completely different vision of how they envision their home land. What made this worst was that their view was completely opposite of each other. The north, mostly republican supporters, want America to be free; free of slaves and free from bondages. While on the other hand, the south supporters, mostly democratic states, wanted slavery in the country, because this is what they earned their daily living and profit from.

    Read More

  • Slavery as the Cause of the American Civil War

    1746 Words  | 4 Pages

    The American Civil War was the bloodiest military conflict in American history leaving over 500 thousand dead and over 300 thousand wounded (Roark 543-543). One might ask, what caused such internal tension within the most powerful nation in the world? During the nineteenth century, America was an infant nation, but toppling the entire world with its social, political, and economic innovations. In addition, immigrants were migrating from their native land to live the American dream (Roark 405-407). Meanwhile, hundreds of thousand African slaves were being traded in the domestic slave trade throughout the American south. Separated from their family, living in inhumane conditions, and working countless hours for days straight, the issue of slavery was the core of the Civil War (Roark 493-494). The North’s growing dissent for slavery and the South’s dependence on slavery is the reason why the Civil War was an inevitable conflict. Throughout this essay we will discuss the issue of slavery, states’ rights, American expansion into western territories, economic differences and its effect on the inevitable Civil War.

    Read More

  • Civil War Essay Outline

    1063 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Economic Causes To The Civil War

    991 Words  | 2 Pages

    By the year of 1860, the North and the South was developed into extremely different sections. There was opposing social, economic, and political points of view, starting back into colonial periods, and it slowly drove the two regions farther in separate directions. The two sections tried to force its point of view on the nation as a whole. Even though negotiations had kept the Union together for many years, in 1860 the condition was unstable. The presidential election of Abraham Lincoln was observed by the South as a risk to slavery and many believe it initiated the war.

    Read More

More about Enormity Of The Civil War

Open Document