A Country Divided: The Path to the Civil War

The rapid influx of settlers brought the free soil debate back to life. The “forty-niners” had all settled at once, leaving the makeshift mining camps severely overcrowded and the settlers demanding a formal government. To avoid debate over slavery, Taylor advised California to apply for statehood quickly, and in November 1849, California ratified a state constitution- one that prohibited slavery.

This more than alarmed the Southern politicians. Not only had they lost a large and valuable state to free soil, but this threatened the balance of power between the slave states and free states in both houses of Congress, potentially hurting their interests. Thus, the south was prepared to block the admission of California as a free state unless the federal government passed legislation to protect the future of slavery. Many northern politicians were vehemently opposed to any legisla

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Although both sides suffered heavy casualties (more than all other American wars combined), the South took the most in every battle. The novel embodied the moral principle of abolition, and evoked empathy and outrage in the North. Thus, history was doomed to repeat itself.

Enter Henry Clay and Daniel Webster with a compromise that was nothing short of a brilliant congressional Band-Aid.

Logistically, the South was doomed from the get-go. So why did the South hold on for so long? The Majority of the soldiers in the Confederate Army was poor sharecroppers and had never even interacted with black people. American allies overseas also realized this, and gave no support to the South in the way of imports because they recognized that the North would eventually win. Clay and Webster died soon after the Compromise of 1850 and with it, the possibility for avoiding the Civil War. They had averted secession- but only barely. The Republicans of course retaliated against the Supreme Court, who had wiped out their entire platform in a single stroke, accusing them of a “Slave Power” conspiracy. Up until this point in history, the racism in the United States had always been somewhat non-personal or “matter-of-fact. In his suit, which he filed in Missouri nearly ten years earlier, Scott claimed that his residency in a free state and a free territory made him a free man, although he had previously been enslaved. Thus, (being a political realist) he sought the middle of the road on the issue, and opposed the expansion of slavery. The North got California as a free state, and the slave trade abolished in the District of Columbia. Some of these factions viewed slavery as an economic threat to their interests, while others took the morality perspective and wanted to abolish slavery immediately.

Common topics in this essay:
Gold Rush, Civil War, Republican Party, Logistically South, Clay Webster, Scott Sandford, Slave Act, Confederate Army, Conscience Whigs, Tokyo Bay, civil war, republican party, clay webster, compromise 1850, supreme court, fugitive slave act, california free, slave free, confederate army, free soil, party system,

Approximate Word count = 1809
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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