Thesis Statement
Slavery was influential in shaping the life of Americans following the birth of a constitutional republic and its abolition was the most divisive cause of the Civil War.
Describe two (2) outcomes of the 3/5ths Compromise, Missouri Compromise of 1820, Compromise of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska Act, the Dred Scott Decision.
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3/5ths Compromise
Apportionment of direct taxes and slaves in states within the Union based on their representatives.
The Southern states improved their political status by illegally increasing the number of slaves and breeding them.
Missouri Compromise of 1820
Maine, which was an anti-slavery state and Missouri, which was a slave state were included in the union to maintain the balance between the power of Free states and slave states. Therefore, they were both declared as Free states.
Slavery was prohibited in the territory of Louisiana north of the 36° 30´latitude line. This was an imagery line placed by the amendment, which divided Louisiana territory into two single regions, that is the anti-slavery region and the slavery region.
Compromise of 1850
California was acknowledged to the Union as the 16 th Free State from slavery.
More lax legislation on Fugitive Slave Law were ratified, which required the northerners to give the runaway slaves beck to their owners. This law helped to ease the tension between free and slave states.
Kansas-Nebraska Act
Originally, the Act was established to foster achievement of a Transcontinental Railroad and to open up new farms. However, it undermined the Compromise of 1850 and Missouri Compromise of 1820 by revoking some of its sections.
The Act divided the nation and pushed it towards the civil war by fighting between the anti-slavery and pro-slavery factions.
The Dred Scott Decision
The Act considered slaves to be property to their owners. Under the Constitution of the United States, they were not recognized as slaves. Therefore, they could never become U.S citizens. The African American people were not recognized as people as provided under the 1787 constitution, which made it clear on the position of the government regarding the issue of slavery.
The Missouri Compromise 1850 was affirmed to be unconstitutional. This decision generated more tension on the issues surrounding slavery and slave trade in America. Therefore, the decision created more tensions in the U.S that exploded in the Civil War ( Malavasic, 2014).
Suggest three (3) reasons why slavery was and is incompatible with our political and economic system.
Slavery was a common aspect in the early history of Americans. Slavery was and is incompatible with the U.S economic and political system because:
It prevented the Southerners to develop capitalism.
The South were not looking for profits accrued from slavery and slave trade. The slave owners focused more on showing off their massive number of slaves and huge plantations than aiming for investments and profits. Capitalism itself was against the use of slavery and thus suppressed it, meaning slavery was incompatible with the American politics an economic system (Genovese, 2014). Therefore, this was an obstacle to the development of capitalism in the Southern states.
Slavery created tension and division between the Southern states and the Northern states
Another reason for the incompatibility was that slavery created tension and division between the Southern states and the Northern states. Slavery contributed to diversification of economic activities, which generated challenges to the Southern states. The diversification of economic activities by the Northern states made it challenging for Southern states to establish any type of manufacturing industry, which forced them to depend on the imports from the North. This hindered the Southern from developing economically and thus created more tension between these states. The tension between these states contributed to split of the union, which ultimately exploded into violence (Genovese, 2014).
Declaration of independence
The third reason for slavery incompatibility was the declaration of independence, which provided equality to all people to pursue happiness, liberty, and life. The independence promoted shared freedom and rights as a common nature of all human beings that should be respected, which resulted in abolishment of slavery and was declared illegal (Brass, 2015). Therefore, slavery could not fit in the provision of the political and economic system of the country anymore.
List three to five (3-5) driving forces that led to the Civil War
Slavery
The contentious debate over the issue of slavery lead to significant tension between the Southern and Northern states that disrupted the union. The Southern wanted to preserve the institution of slavery, because they needed their labor on their large plantations to carry out other duties. On the other hand, the Northern were against slavery and wanted it to be abolished. The tension culminated and exploded during the Civil war (Dew, 2017).
Election of Abraham Lincoln as the President
Lincoln political platform was against the expansion of slavery in the U.S. The Southern were afraid that his election would stop the expansion of slavery and this sparked the war (Dew, 2017).
State Rights vs. Federal Rights
The South argued that each individual state has the right to leave the union. The North opposed the South idea arguing that it is the right of the federal government to control and even abolish slavery in the individual state. The struggle was instigated by the differences in social and economic differences, which focused mainly on the institution of slavery. The South had a plantation and slave life while the North led an industrial life (Dew, 2017).
References
Brass, T. (2015). Towards a comparative political economy of unfree labour: Case studies and debates . Routledge.
Crews Jr, C. (2016). Missouri's Platte Purchase and Michigan's Stunted Statehood: Common Property Allocation by Territorial Logroll.
Dew, C. B. (2017). Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War . University of Virginia Press.
Genovese, E. D. (2014). The political economy of slavery: Studies in the economy and society of the slave South . Wesleyan University Press.
Malavasic, A. E. (2014). The F Street Mess: Southern Power in the Antebellum Senate and the Passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act . State University of New York at Albany.
