The Decades of Crisis
The 1850s have been referred to as the Decade of Crisis based on the sectional crises that faced the United States and even threatened its own existence. The crisis decade basically started in 1850 particularly on the territorial gains that the United States achieved from the 1846-1848 Mexican-American War that initiated an argument on whether slavery should be given the opportunity to expand within the United States (Overy, 2016). Some of the events that led that led the period to be referred to as the Decade of Crisis include the compromise of 1850 which allowed for admission of California as a free state of the United State as New Mexico and Utah would use popular sovereignty to decide on slavery based issues, and only slave trade was prohibited rather than the slavery itself (Hamilton, 2015).
Besides, there was the crisis of Uncle Tom’s Cabin written by Stowe Harriet Beecher in response to the Fugitive Slave Act (Harriet, 2016). He simply turned a constitutional or political issue to an issue of moral crusade. It brought different perspectives from both the South and the North. While the North saw the incident as that which was aimed at showing how unjust and heartbreaking slavery is, the South saw the incident as one ignited to cause outrage from them and basically aimed at ensuring that people turned on them. According to the north, this was a book full of lies that should not be given any attention.
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Additionally, there was the Kansa-Nebraska Act that repealed the Missouri Compromise and gave room for the popular sovereignty to decide on slavery issue leading to several skirmishes such as the Pottawatomie Massacre and the Sack of Lawrence (Konhaus, 2015). Kansas was ‘bleeding.’ It is as well important to note the Lecompton Crisis which brought the debate on whether slave owners who were staying in Kansas when it was granted a state should continue keeping their slaves. The issue turned emotive when President Buchanan endorsed it and Douglas in the Democratic Party felt out with him. Basically, these are some of the crisis that led the 1850s to be referred to as Decade of Crisis since they were entirely responsible for the civil wars in the United States.
References
Overy, R. (2016). The Inter-war Crisis. Routledge.
Harriet, B. S. (2016). Uncle Tom's Cabin. Aegitas .
Hamilton, H. (2015). Prologue to Conflict: The Crisis and Compromise of 1850. University Press of Kentucky.
Konhaus, T. (2015). Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World , 234.
