Preview

Civil war political system

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
558 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Civil war political system
Was the failure of the political system to end slavery the cause of the civil war? I think yes. There were many events that led up to the civil war that I think sparked the start of it. For example, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Fugitive Slave Act, and the famous book Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was one of the sparks to the civil war. This Act allowed Kansas and Nebraska to become a territory in the United States. But there was a law called Popular Sovereignty. In these two new territories there were pro-slavery people and anti-slavery people. Popular Sovereignty stated that the people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska could vote on whether or not there would be slavery in the territory. Now if you think about it there are people that are for slavery and people that are against slavery in the same territory voting on whether or not there should be slavery in that territory. Of course there was going to be some tension between all the people, and tension leads to fights and arguments. Fights and arguments lead to wars, civil wars! The next cause is the Fugitive Slave Act. This was a law passed in 1850 stating that every runaway slave must be captured and turned back in to its master. I think that this is a cause of the civil war because some slaves were actually free. So if there was a black person somewhere where black people usually aren’t then someone would tell on that person and they would go back to being a slave. Anti-slavery people hated this because they wanted slavery to be done with and they thought that it wasn’t fair that even if a slave became free they never got any proof that they were free so if someone turned them in there was no way for the free slave to prove that they have actually been freed. So this of course made the anti-slavery people mad and there was probably fighting and arguing. This causes even more tension build up between the pro-slavery and the anti-slavery people. Lastly I think that the book Uncle

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Civil War

    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Civil War had many causes, some of them were long term causes and some of them were immediate causes. The long term causes were the problems that seemed to never be solved between the North and South. Slavery for instance was a long term problem because it was never completely solved; however continuous compromises were made between both sides, but the disagreements would not disappear. On the other hand, the immediate causes were the problems in which guaranteed that the North and South would have a Civil War. These causes include The Fugitive Slave Act, The Kansas-Nebraska Act and the election of Abraham Lincoln. If these specific events had not occurred, the War would not have happened, but because war was the only option left in attempt to solve the disagreements, the North and South had to have a Civil War.…

    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Civil War Origins and Legacy

    • 2553 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Origins and Legacy The origins of the Civil War can be found at the time of Thomas Jefferson when he wrote in the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Although Jefferson wouldn't know that this would start a war a hundred years after he wrote them, they were used in debates by both supporters and combatants of slavery. However, slavery was only a part of the reason that the Civil War happened. Other factors such as economic differences between the northern and southern states, government influence and population also contributed to the beginning of the war. The war did not break out until all these things broke the southerners back and they decided to…

    • 2553 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Causes of the Civil War

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages

    A cause of the Civil War was that the economy was splitting. As said in document 2, the slaves were needed to work on plantations, which helped the South prosper in cotton production. But the south needed a lot of manufactured goods that the North made because the south didn’t have factories to make guns, ammo, textiles, and many other things. As a result of this, the South had to pay a tariff on everything they got from the North. Which meant the north basically made the laws now. Before Lincoln took office, seven states had declared their secession from the Union. South Carolina was the first to secede on December 20th 1860.…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Causes of the Civil War

    • 1136 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The causes of the Civil War are many, the obvious being slavery, however that is merely on the surface. The underlying causes were far more detrimental to the health of the union, the main cause being money. The economic disputes between the North and the South, which were partially over slavery, were the root to the South seceding. The resentment felt by the South towards the North, because of the growth of cities, ports, and the economy there in general, in addition to the idea of the abolishment of slavery, which would put a serious dent into the economy of the South which was already struggling led them to secede. It has been said that money is the root of all evil, and it certainly is in this case.…

    • 1136 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Civil War Sectionalism

    • 794 Words
    • 4 Pages

    America was a divided nation during the Civil War, starting in 1861 and ending in 1865, the battles were fought on Northern and Southern lands. The Union was faced with eleven states in the South for secession, who wanted nothing more than to be disconnected from the United States. This war was fueled by many disputes, sectionalism being the leading cause. Sectionalism within the United States hindered unity within the country due to expansion issues and conflicting views on slavery.…

    • 794 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Finally, the Civil War was caused by slavery as it was a main issue both sides were fighting for. It was not inevitable it eventually was going to happen both sides just…

    • 241 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Civil War Causes

    • 692 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Another cause of the American Civil War was the fight for whether the government would value federal rights over states’ rights. Economic and Social differences caused the Northern States to view certain subjects differently than the Southern States. The South was also afraid that they would be outnumbered in Congressional representation and not properly exhibited. However, the Constitution allows each slave to be counted as three-fifths of a person for population count, which in turn gave the South the advantage when it came to representation. In 1857, the Dred Scott Decision declared the “freed” Negroes did not have citizenship. Northerners were very shaken by this and the South attempted to force them to return freed or runaway slaves to their owners. Not too long after, Abraham Lincoln, an anti-slavery Republican, was elected into presidency. He was convinced that slavery would never be allowed to be adopted in new territories and will ultimately be abolished. His victory ensured the South that they had drawn the short end of the stick. This sparked a fire in the South and they fell to their only other alternative. South Carolina published its “Declaration of the Causes of Secession.” They knew Abraham Lincoln was anti-slavery and believed he would give preferentiality to northern interests. His election resulted in the secession of eleven southern…

    • 692 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    By this time, so many more Northerners had become opposed, morally, to slavery and had spoken out against. Many people were opposed to slavery because the white families had a very hard time competing against the inexpensive labor of the slaves and could not rise above to grasp what everyone wanted, the American dream. When the Kansas-Nebraska Act was put into place in the hopes that popular choice would make Kansas a slave state and Nebraska a free state which would maintain balance and would also organize even more territory coming in from the Louisiana Purchase in order to further the railroad construction. This conflict instigated dramatic change in addition to the change created by negating the Missouri Compromise Line. Because it repealed the Missouri Compromise in which slavery was not to expand north of the 36’30 line and also because many in Kansas were thoroughly against slavery, both morally, and for their financial well-being which led to the event known as Bleeding Kansas where bloodshed had become evident over the dispute, this change also involved the end of peaceful compromise. Those opposed to the spread of slavery like John Brown went to Kansas and killed pro-slavery Southerners. Those who thought the political strategy of popular sovereignty would maintain balance were proved wrong when the territory became chaotic.…

    • 820 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Civil War Compromises

    • 469 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Compromise helped delay the Civil War by maintaining the balance of both slave and free states, discontinuing the slave trade in Washington D.C. and returning slaves to their original owners with the Fugitive Slave Act,…

    • 469 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kansas Nebraska Act Dbq

    • 542 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Kansas-Nebraska Act that was passed by Congress in 1854 increased the already building tension between the North and the South. It caused a civil war in Kansas and many people believed that it was one of the causes of the American Civil War. The disastrous effects that were caused by the Kansas-Nebraska Act serves as an example of what could happen if people in America today were to become as divided over an issue as they were over…

    • 542 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Civil War was the bloodiest war in all of America's history.But some things still remains a mystery in the Civil War.There were many reasons to how the Civil War was cause.A lot of people thinks that slavery was the cause,but it is only one of the many causes.Slavery, Economy, and State's Rights were the main cause to the Civil War.The slavery brought tensions,many differences in economy,and fighting for a cause.Tensions rose as Republicans and Democrats fight for a solution in slavery,the North and South many differences in their economy,and reasons to fighting in the Civil War.The Civil War was fought for slavery, economy, and State's Rights.…

    • 678 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Civil War Dbq

    • 598 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Both sides felt they were preserving liberty. The south felt that the founders intended on white men owning black slaves, because it was written into the constitution by them. Though it is possible that they did not know why it was written in as such. Our original “rights” for the first ten years came from the Articles of Federation. While negotiations over a new article they felt it was better to appease the southern farmers than to be a broken nation. Other countries would view a divided America as weak and vulnerable, and that they may take advantage of this and start wars. The North felt that it was hypocritical that we were a nation of freedom and liberty and that all men were created equal but yet the slaves did not enjoy any of these rights that whites…

    • 598 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    If asked, most people would blame as the cause of the civil war the issue of slavery. This is understandable; many people in the U.S. at the time were against slavery, going to far as to help runaway slaves escape to the free north. But, while slavery at face value was a major factor, international politics and economics played a major role. Several factors, including the election of Lincoln, the raid on Harper 's Ferry, the Dred Scott decision, and, most importantly, the fugitive slave law, contributed to the growing rift between the North and South and, eventually, the Civil War.…

    • 888 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One of the most important causes of the civil war in my opinion would have to be the Nullification Crisis of 1832. This Crisis was unlike many others due to the people it involved, and the way the certain people handled the situation. In 1832, President Andrew Jackson was one of the primary founders of the democratic party. Jackson was a major supporter of states rights, but that all changed during the Crisis in 1832. This crisis was a confrontation between South Carolina and the federal government. The reasoning behind the crisis was that South Carolina felt that the tariffs of 1828 were unconstitutional and refused to pay them. Ellis (1989) said that Jackson struggled the most with tariffs during his presidency, and found the tariffs to be…

    • 245 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Civil War Position Paper

    • 409 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The bloody fighting between northern and southern voters in Kansas was another step in the path of the civil war. Due to the popular sovereignty act suggested by Senator Stephen Douglas the people where able to vote on whether that territory would’ve been a free state or a slave state, this caused voters from both the north and the south to pour into these states hoping to tip the scale in their favor in doing this conflict between the two erupted as homes were burned and people were murdered.…

    • 409 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays