1820 To 1860 Dbq Essay

The Compromise of 1850 was an attempt by the U.S Congress to settle divisive issues between the North and South, including slavery expansion, apprehension in the North of fugitive slaves, and slavery in the District of Columbia. The Compromise of 1850 failed because Senator John C. Calhoun from the South and Senator William Seward from the North could not agree on what Henry Clay was putting down. Part of the compromise was to make California a slavery free state which benefits the North, and enforcing a stricter fugitive slave law which benefits the South. Both the North and South opposed what the other was benefiting from. What sparked the failure of the Compromise was the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850.

During the early years of America, agricultural demands drove most of the economy allowing the South to demanded political protection. One of the protective measures was the Three-Fifths Compromise in 1787. The South wanted to count the slaves toward its population allowing for more representation. At the Constitutional Convention, the delegates decided to count a slave as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of determining the population for how many seats each State would have in the House. This solidified Southern control over Politics for several years to come.

They were the Three-fifths Compromise and the Great Compromise. These were all related to the sectional differences between the states. The southern state’s wanted more power, and so did the northern states. Basically the southern state’s had a small population, which meant they did not have a lot of say in government. The southern states population constituted mostly of slaves.

As a result, a compromise was agreed upon. Three fifths, or sixty percent, of a state's slave population would be represented in Congress. This came to be known as the “Three-Fifths Compromise”. A second issue raised during the writing of the Constitution, was whether the government should given the power to regulate slave trade.

There were many important Compromises between the years of 1820 and 1860, some that worked completely and some that didn’t. In the early nineteenth century, people were good at compromising and making things work for everyone. How long did perfect compromising actually last? Slavery began to split the nation apart, causing compromising to become hard to do.

Slavery became a key issue in the arguments of the north and the south. The south was very agricultural while the north was industrial. The south feared the declaration of freedom for the slaves by government leaders in the north. Government officials at the time were not interested in ending Slavery in the slave states, but instead in keeping newly admitted states from becoming slave states. The first official disagreement of this came in 1820.

The three-fifths clause was the most important constitutional compromise because it granted the Southern states more political authority, which the Southerners then used to maintain slavery as an institution in the upcoming decades. The three-fifths clause made it so that three-fifths of a state’s slave population would be used in order to decide how many electoral votes and how many representatives a state could have. It was a compromise between the South (which relied on slaves for its economy) and the North (which had fewer slaves) for the sake of political unity. This clause guaranteed Southern states more political power than Northern States through votes or representation, so that laws would pass that allowed slavery to continue and flourish.

Between 1800 and 1850, western expansion played a major role in the sectional tensions between the North and South in America. Most of this would stem from whether or not new territory would be free or slave states. Later on, there would be compromises in place to alleviate the tension but disunity between the North and South was very prevalent. In 1803, the Louisiana Purchase from the French got a rise out of the New England Federalist party.

In retrospect, the history of the antebellum America is quite fascinating. During this period, the young republic faced several challenges. One of the most serious ones was the slavery issue. Reading the related materials, people might understand that the Founding Fathers had actually pondered about the solution to the issue; however, they did not pursue it because they foresaw possible turmoil in American politics. Unfortunately, the issue kept simmering until it reached the boiling point which resulted in the disastrous Civil War.

Although in the Missouri Compromise, Missouri became a slave state and Maine became a free state, it was an example of disunity. All new states north of the Mason-Dixon Line would be free and new states southward would be slave states. As a result, there was also an unbalanced sectional population between the North and South. (Doc. E & F).

However, that only further benefited Slave states. Slavery was disputed again when Northern states wanted the government to have complete power over trade with the other nations. Southern states depended heavily on trade and feared that the North would get enough votes to interfere with their slave and agricultural

Madison used his political eloquence to keep the House of Representatives uneasy over the question so that secession could be kept away from. He made sure that no constitutional termination was passed and that the board’s final recommendation hid slavery out of federal control. Ellis concludes that neither franklin nor Madison’s intervention discouraged the course of history. The slavery debate finally moved from congress to churches halls where it remained until civil war. Slavery, an underlining theme throughout this chapter, takes center stage in this chapter.

The Great Compromise which was founded at the Constitutional Convention wasn't formed without trouble. Many of the delegates that participated in the convention were wealthy landowners and lawyers, who owned many slaves. They failed to notice the diversity that excited within the nation. As they talked how to repair the Articles of Confederation, issues would arise that would create continuous debates amongst each other. One of the issues that would arise would be the nature of the new government.

The present book became the source of major differences between the North and the South, between lands opposing slavery and states strongly promoting it through the

This led to an influx of pro anti-slavery forces. (Source C) In response abolitionists created an Underground Railroad where they actively helped runaway slaves. Men that were sent to fetch runaways were beaten by abolitionist mobs. Northerners wanted to change the constitution according to what would suit them and expected the South to honour their decisions.