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Initial discussion post
Question 1:
Discuss the various issues confronting the nation in the 1850s ……….What issues would likely create this situation?
Joining the California Union in 1850 again upset the balance of power between the two regions, triggering a third crisis in North-South relations that lasted almost a year. In his last speech, delivered to him in the Senate on March 4, 1850, the dying Calhoun said that a nation can be saved only if the South gets "equal rights to the acquired territories" and adopts an amendment to the constitution, restoring the imbalance between the sections. But at that time, such demands were already unrealistic.
By the middle of the nineteenth century. balance of forces that existed at the end of the eighteenth century. between the two regions was completely disrupted. The North in 1860 doubled the South in terms of population, almost three times the length of railways, it owned 90% of the national industry. There was also a political weakening of the South. Due to low population growth, migrations to the West, the southern Atlantic states were losing ground in Congress. For 1830-1860 the number of members of the House of Representatives from Virginia decreased from 21 to 11 people, from North Carolina from 13 to 7. Despite the increase in the number of deputies from the new states, the South as a whole lost parity with the North in the House of Representatives. However, the situation in the Congress did not suit the North either. The northerners, surpassing more than twice the white population of the South, had in 1850 (Berkin, Miller, Cherny & Gormly, 2011).
The threat of loss of political influence in the Union pushed the South towards expansion. The desire of the southerners for the annexation of Cuba and other countries of the Caribbean is explained not so much by economic reasons - the need for new lands due to depletion of soils (in 1860, 2/3 of uncultivated lands remained in the South), but by political considerations - to strengthen the shaken influence in the Union . However, the North and the South were equally prone to expansion, as they conducted extensive agriculture; both sought to use new territories to strengthen their political weight.
By 1850, the question of the secession of the South was a foregone conclusion; it was only a matter of time. Nevertheless, the third conflict between the two regions ended in yet another compromise - a complex system of six laws, again prepared mainly by the highly experienced G. Clay: California was accepted into the Union as a free state; the territories of New Mexico and Utah were organized without restrictions for slavery - the population itself had to decide on it; the District of Columbia prohibited the slave trade; but the new law on runaway slaves allowed them to be persecuted even in the states of the North. However, this time the compromise turned out to be fragile, provoking already in 1854, a clash around the Kansas-Nebraska bill. (Rash, 2019).
The hostility of the two regions grew rapidly. The southerners were unhappy that California, located below the 36 ° 30 'parallel, had become a free state, and the northerners - that Wilmot’s amendment did not pass and a strict law on runaway slaves was passed. The decision of the Supreme Court in the case of slave Dred Scott in 1857 actually crossed out the Missouri compromise of 1820, confirming the legality of slavery throughout the country. 1850s - the time of the gradual retraction of the two sides in a military conflict. The war in Kansas and the rebellion of John Brown were the first armed clashes
References
Berkin, C., Miller, C., Cherny, R., & Gormly, J. (2011). Making America: A History of the United States, Volume 2: From 1865. Cengage Learning.
Rash, W. (2019). Election Security Bills Finally Progressing in Congress. EWeek, N.PAG. Retrieved from https://search-ebscohos com.southuniversity.libproxy.edmc.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=134020039&site=eds-live
Reply post Randy Chrisp
Thankyou Randy for your post and first of all I would like to say to thanks for your interesting posts throughout course and finally we are reached at final week. The problem of slavery, having become nationwide, led to the split of political parties and the collapse of the second party system. In 1854, the Republican Party was organized, which included all anti-slavery forces (free-sailors, Whigs, Democrats, abolitionists), although in its ranks there was no unity on the issue of slavery. Moderate Republicans assured that they did not infringe on the right of ownership of the southerners, but only wanted to limit slavery to the existing territory. The radicals openly recognized such a measure only as the first step towards its abolition.
Reply to Allyson Stewart
Thankyou for your post and first of all I would like to say to thanks for your interesting posts throughout course and finally we are reached at final week. The economic conditions of Southern society, the system of large plantations made the region less sensitive to the need for a tight network of communication routes. It is especially in the West that viability work and the creation of means of transportation were necessary for immigration. The construction of the Erie Canal, carried out by the enlightened initiative and stubborn energy of Witt Clinton, brought the attention of the people to the attention of the people, and the new states, whose resources were limited, continued to demand the attention of the people. federal contest for the transformation of their deserts into centers of civilization.
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