What Are The Causes Of The Missouri Compromise

Dred Scott v. Sandford is one of the darkest cases in the history of the Supreme Court. After years of slavery, parts of the United States were beginning to head in a direction away from slavery. The establishment of the Missouri Compromise and gaining some territories as slave states and others as free states, was proof of this shift from slavery, especially in the north (Pearson Education Inc. 2005). The Scott v. Sandford decision, in which an African American man was denied both his freedom and his citizenship to the United States, did not link up with this new way of thinking.

Nine years later in 1845 the United States annexed Texas. The Mexican government despised this and war broke out for two years eventually ending with the Treaty of Guadalupe

No single event is to blame for Lady Liberty’s stubborn outlook on compromise. The new land of opportunity was in a rush to put together the pieces of their new lands and in turn created conflicts along the way on too wide of a span of issues. The debate of what launched our new United States of America into it’s first war onto itself because of our failure to seek compromise is largely debated. It is arguably because of the succession of the South and failure of the Compromise of 1850 that propelled America into war amongst its peoples. From the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Lincoln 's Presidency, polarized political interests, to the Mexican American War… America was far too divided on too many issues with polarized hopes and interests.

In the “The Mexican War and the Compromise of 1850” lesson I learned that the abolition movement began as a religious phenomenon rather than a political. And in 1840 the United States had faced many pertaining to slavery. The lesson also talks about how Henry Clay and the Whigs saw the democrat’s position as foolish and dangerous because it amounted to saber rattling with two power full nations. I also learned that President John Tyler signed a bill annexing Texas before James Polk took office in 1845, which then Polk sent troops into the Texas-Mexican border to ensure a war with Mexico. But he avoided war with Great Britain by negotiating a settlement for half of Oregon.

Slavery has sadly been in America from the start. Many have different opinions about slavery whether it should stay or be abandoned and forgotten. Although one person has written to Thomas Jefferson about one of history’s most important subject. Banneker starts it off by writing his strong views on how wrong slavery is not just listing all the problems, but in a letter that he uses strategies to make his view convincing. Benjamin Banneker uses rhetorical strategies such as ethos, logos, and various style elements to argue against slavery.

After the 1860 election, Lincoln made a firm public decision not to accept the expansion of slavery into the territories. In other words, Lincoln 's early position as president was that, slavery could remain in current slave states but could not expand to new states or territories. Although, Lincoln’s views on slavery often shifted some of them seemed to contradict one another. On another note, current slave states could vouch to keep things the way that they are but, Lincoln still felt that if a nation was divided it would be almost impossible to survive. Lincoln 's views at this time were politically motivated, and they focused on ending the war and preserving the Union.

The cause of most political dispute around 1820-1860 was mostly about slavery. There has been division between the North and the South, though compromise had usually serve in calming the disagreement. However, nearing 1860, political compromise appeared useless. Comprises simply postponed addressing the issue, and led to even more greater issues than needed,compromise wasn’t working politically, socially,and economically for our nation.

P.6 Compromises seemed to be working in 1820 as a solution to political issues that America agreed to disagreed on. As seen in the Missouri Compromise, where Henry Clay made slaves free in twelve states and not free in the other twelve; in order to keep everything balanced. But between the period of 1820 to 1860, compromising took a shift and no longer seemed to be the solution. Compromises worked with Henry Clay in the Missouri compromise in 1820 but by 1860 due to a series of geographic, political, and social changes compromises were impossible.

Prior to the Civil war, contentious issues had threatened to corrupt the national unity within the United States, but none more controversial and prominent than slavery. Congress, with multiple attempts, failed to seek compromises that pleased the North and South. In many scenarios, Congress often satisfied one side, but failed to do the same with the other, which created more turmoil. For instance, the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision were two prime examples of the unsuccessful compromises, revolving around the prominent disagreement: slavery. Conclusively, Congress failed to find a way for the North and South to coexist cordially, which in the end divided the two to a greater extent, making the Civil War inescapable.

Despite the fact that the Constitution did not employ the term “slavery”, Article IV provided for the return of persons who escaped from their masters “held to service or labor” such as fugitive slaves. After 20 years of the confirmation of the Constitution in 1808, Article I provided the end of the slave trade. Many questions were left non responsed by the Constitution, especially, about the statue of slavery in the new territories obtained by the United States. (ibid) The failure to treat the comprehension and the honesty with slavery in the Constitution guaranteed a conflict over this issue and was particularly one of the leading motivations for war and those reasons were demonstrated in the quotation of the American Civil

With no final agreement, the country had no other choice but to go to war with itself. The slow decline of the, once powerful, Southern economy and the major issue of the abolishment of slaves are what led to the cause of the American Civil War. While economics and political structure played an important role in the cause of the Civil War, slavery was the main reason why altercations arose. Many historians and teachers try to hide the fact that slavery was such a huge factor in the cause of the Civil War because they looked at slavery as the “norm”. To them, the differences between the Republicans and Democratic formed great disagreement.

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.

The northwest ordinance created a lot of problems for the government. Such as How many people must be in a territory before it could apply for statehood and join the rest of the states. Or how many states could develop in that area. But one of the bigger topics was slavery. What would the government do about the question of slavery, or at least how far would they go?

Regarding the sectionalism policies, Andrew Jackson was one notable president who has made an impact on sectionalism. For instance, the First Seminole War was originated in 1817, and this war was originated because Native Americans and American services faced a quarrel as they attempted to evoke African American slaves residing between Seminole groups. Throughout this particular war, Jackson obtained the authority in opposition to the Seminoles. Throughout the duration of this campaign, Jackson apprehended Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister. Both Arbuthnot and Ambrister were British and they worsened this issue through delivering weapons for the Seminoles, and they also advocated the Seminoles to battle with Americans for their property

To replace the problematic Articles of Confederation, Washington, Hamilton, Jay, Franklin, and others organized the 1787 Philadelphia Convention and started to compose a new law of the country, the United States Constitution. However, it wasn’t easy to make every state come into an agreement on things written in the Constitution, since all the state wanted to make sure they were equally and fairly treated. As a result, several major compromises in the ratified version of the Constitution, including the Great Compromise, Three-Fifths Compromise, Slave Trade Compromise and the compromise on the Bill of Rights. The Great Compromise is the a compromise about state representatives, and it was made between large states and small states.