What Constitutional Issues Were in Dispute During the Civil

             Leading up to and throughout the Civil War, many issues were in dispute. These issues became increasingly important to the United States unity. Slavery was abolished and the Union began to come together. The South felt the need for Slavery and therefore ignited a war between Americans. The ending of the Civil War brought hope to African Americans and to the Nation.
             One of the most important and controversial decisions in American history was the Dred Scott vs. Sanford case. In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, declared that all blacks, slaves as well as free, were not and could never become citizens of the United States. Dred Scott, a slave who had lived in the free state of Illinois and the free territory of Wisconsin before moving back to the slave state of Missouri, had appealed to the Supreme Court in hopes of being granted his freedom. Taney, a loyal supporter of slavery who also had the intent on protecting southerners from northern aggression, wrote in the Court's majority opinion that, because Scott was black, he was not a citizen and therefore had no right to sue. The framers of the Constitution, he wrote, believed that blacks "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made by it." Although disappointed, Frederick Douglass, found a bright side to the decision and announced, "my hopes were never brighter than now." For Douglass, the decision would bring slavery to the attention of the nation and was a step toward slavery's ultimate destruction.
             In 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected president in on of the nation's most significant elections. The issue of slavery was finally brought up and a controversy was created. The Southern st
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What Constitutional Issues Were in Dispute During the Civil. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 05:32, March 29, 2024, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/27502.html