The constitution is a depiction of social justice progress in American society. The document has undergone significant reforms as officials strived to rectify existing social injustices and constitutional inadequacies. As such, it can e argued that the constitution is based on a myriad of compromises meant to represent the entire society. Some of these compromises are the Three-Fifth, Missouri Compromise of 1820, Compromise of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Dred Scott Decision. This paper will examine the outcomes of these compromises before discussing slavery incompatibility with the American economic and political system.
Three-Fifth Compromise
Acquiring freedom from Great Britain came with a set of challenges that the new nation had to resolve. One such issue was representation and taxation which emanated from the tendency to undervalue land with the intentions of limiting the tax burden. As such, a special committee recommended an approach to apportion taxes based on the population size, a move that could have varying impacts on Northern and Southern States. Note that the North had the advantage of a vast population which meant high representation in the House of Representation but high tax burden. On the other hand, the South had a small population which translated to low representation and low tax burden. The political deadlock was resolved in 1787 when the Northerner delegates decided to abandon their moral qualms in favor of unifying the South and North, a compromise that came to be referred to as the Three-Fifth.
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Other than increasing the power held by the Southern States, the Three-Fifth Compromise had a negative effect on the enslaved and indigenous population (Craemer, Thomas, 2018). After independence, the North opposed slavery as they believed that the ideology was not in line with the new-found nation. However, the practice was critical in the South for its economic benefits. The Three-fifth Compromise meant that the North had to abandon the notion that countered slavery leading to the spread of slavery. Additionally, the compromise resulted in the eviction of Native Americans from their lands.
Missouri Compromise of 1820 and 1850
The Missouri Compromise that occurred in 1820 was as a result of the South’s objection of the move to admit Missouri as a free state. This move would upset the balance between free and slave states which will, in turn, affect the congressional representation reducing their power to protect their interest. The compromise proposed that Maine be treated as a free State, but slavery was permeated in Louisiana North of 36 degrees 30 minutes. Historians have demonstrated that the Missouri compromise managed to keep the Democrat-Republican Union, but it did not resolve the pressing issue of slavery. Additionally, the amendment introduced an imaginary line within Louisiana which separated the slavery and free states (Zeitz, 2000) .
As mentioned before, the compromises made in 1768 and 1820 reduced tensions between slave and free State but did not resolve the underlying issue. Thus in 1850, the North and the South were faced with another challenge of admitting the newly-acquired territories in the wake of 1846 to 1848 Mexican-American war. Congress passed five separate bills in 1850 meant to defuse political tension between free and slave states. The outcome was the admission of California as a free state and allowing New Mexico and Utah to decide whether to be slave or free states. Another consequence was the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act that made it easy for slaveowners to recover runaway slaves.
Kansas-Nebraska Act
This bill was created to repeal the Missouri Compromise of 1820 which had drawn a line in Louisiana. Nebraska and Kansas were in the Northern territory of the Louisiana line thus re-opening the issue of slavery expansion. Even though the Kansas-Nebraska Act was meant to open up farms as well as a feasible Transcontinental Railroad, it exacerbated tension that existed within the Democrat-Republican Party. The first outcome was that the Act allowed the people in the two territories, i.e. Nebraska and Kansas, to decide on whether to be slave or free states. Second, the Kansas-Nebraska Act divided North and South, which served as a prerequisite for civil war.
The Dred Scott Decision
Dred Scott decision is a controversial Supreme Court case ruling where a former slave lost the case despite having lived in a free state. Failure of the Supreme Court to declare Dred Scott as a free man outraged abolitionist who thought that the court’s decision was meant to stop debates on eliminating slavery. The outcome was the divide between the North and the South, which culminated to the break of the Southern territories from the Democrat-Republican Union. Secondly, the Dred Scott decision leads to the creation of the Confederate States of America and finally, the emancipation proclamation of 1862.
Incompatibility of Slavery with the American economic and political system
History indicates that slavery had been around in different parts of the world way before the US got its independence. Even though slavery was not in line with the newly-formed State, the Southern territory opted to continue with the practice. As such, slavery becomes one of the most contentious subjects of 1800s politics. The first reason why slavery is considered incompatible with the American political and economic system lies in the fact that the practice was not necessarily used to earn profits. Note that slaves were viewed as possession and most Southerners used slaves as show off items rather than an investment to expand the regions financial wellbeing (Beckett, Burgin, & Hudson, 2014). Second, slavery was the most contentious issue of the 1800s, causing tension in the Democrat-Republican Party which later culminated into violence. Lastly, the South’s insistence on continuing with slavery bared the region from seeking other economic beneficial practices, thus suppressing economic growth in the area.
Forces that led to civil war
The first force that led up to the civil war was political changes that rendered the Kansas-Nebraska Act unconstitutional and the death of the Whigs political party saw the entrance of two free State into the Union. An upset in the balance of free versus slave states meant that the election of a President (Republican) who was less sympathetic to slavery meant that the South would not be powerful enough to fight for its way of life, i.e. slavery practice. The second force is the fact that the faction between the South and North established two different States within a common Nation. Note that the South was an agrarian society whose dependence of farming meant that in crop failure would force them to rely on loans offered by London (Blattman & Miguel, 2010, p. 3).
On the other hand, the North favored industrialization which gave it financial freedom. For Southerners, the anti-slavery movement promoted by the North only served to attain political dominance to expand industrialization in the newly-acquired Western States. Lastly, the election of President Abraham Lincoln, who was a Northerner and the consequent secession of the South culminated into a full-blown war as he was determined to prevent the South from breaking away from the US.
References
Beckett, S., Burgin, A., & Hudson, P. J. (2014). Interchange: The History of Capitalism. Journal of American History , 503-536.
Blattman, C., & Miguel, E. (2010). Civil War . JSTOR , 3-57.
Craemer, Thomas. (2018). International Reparations for Slavery and the Slave Trade . Journal of Black Studies .
Zeitz, J. M. (2000). The Missouri Compromise Reconsidered: Antislavery Rhetoric and the Emergence of the Free Labor Synthesis . JSTOR , 447-485.
