37a - rank and analyze the importance of key issues and events that led to the Civil War including slavery, states rights, nullification, Missouri Compromise, Compromise of 1850, Georgia Platform, Kansas-Nebraska Act, Dred Scott case, and election of 1860
Slavery
By the end of the American Revolution, slavery had proven unprofitable in the North and was dying out. Even in the South the institution was becoming less useful to farmers as tobacco prices began to drop. However, in 1793 Northerner Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin; this device made it possible for textile mills to use the type of cotton most easily grown in the South. Cotton replaced tobacco as the South’s main cash crop and slavery became profitable again. Although most Southerners owned no slaves at all, by 1860 the South’s tied to the region’s economy. But since Georgia had to make more cotton to sell that meant that they needed more slaves to get the cotton. over 50% of Georgia's population was slaves.
states rights
During the American Revolution, the founding fathers were forced to compromise with the states to ensure ratification of the Constitution and the establishment of a united country. In fact, the original Constitution banned slavery, but Virginia would not accept it; and Massachusetts would not ratify the document without a Bill of Rights.The debate over which powers rightly belonged to the states and which to the Federal Government became good again in the 1820s and 1830s powered by the divisive issue of whether slavery would be allowed in the new territories forming as the nation expanded westward. They made slave laws for the slaves to follow
Nullifcation
The Nullification Crisis arose in the early 1830s when leaders of South Carolina advanced the idea that a state did not have to follow a federal law and could, in effect, nullify the law. The idea that states' rights was federal law was promoted by John C. Calhoun, one of the most experienced and powerful politicians in the country, and was, to some extent, a Debt to the secession crisis that would set off the Civil War 30 years later.Calhoun and others from South Carolina were outraged by a tariff passed in 1828 which had raised taxes on imports. In the early 1830s, Calhoun was serving as vice president to Andrew Jackson. With the issue of a tariff again rising to effect, Calhoun resigned his position, returned to South Carolina, and was elected to the Senate, where he promoted his idea of nullification. For a time it appeared that armed conflict might result if South Carolina seceded from the Union.The crisis was finally put to rest in 1833 when a compromise was reached on to stop it.
Missouri Compromise
The Missouri Compromise in 1820 tried to solve the problem but succeeded only temporarily. It established lands west of the Mississippi and below latitude 36 30' as slave and north of the line except Missouri as free. Abolitionist groups sprang up in the North, making Southerners feel that their way of life was under attack. A violent slave revolt in 1831 in Virginia, Nat Turner’s Rebellion, forced the South to close ranks against criticism out of fear for their lives. They began to argue that slavery was not only necessary, but in fact, it was a positive good. Let you chose if you wanted to be a slave or free state.
compromise of 1850
The Compromise was a series of bills passed mainly to address issues related to slavery. The bills provided for slavery to be decided by popular sovereignty in the admission of new states, prohibited the slave trade in the District of Columbia, settled a Texas boundary dispute, and established a slave act.
georgia platform
With the nation facing the potential threat over the Compromise of 1850, Georgia, in a special state convention, adopted a proclamation called the Georgia Platform. Slavery had been the reason of fighting between the North and South. New territorial gains, westward expansion, and the bad attitudes toward the spread of slavery caused a temporary problem in the Union, which in many ways the awful events of the 1860s. In 1850, however, compromise remained the cause to secession and war.
kansas nebraska act
n January 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas introduced a bill that divided the land west of Missouri into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska. He argued for popular sovereignty, which would allow the settlers of the new territories to decide if slavery would be legal there. Antislavery supporters were outraged because, under the terms of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, slavery would have been outlawed in both territories.After months of debate, the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed on May 30, 1854. Pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers rushed to Kansas, each side hoping to determine the results of the first election held after the law went into effect. The conflict turned violent, aggravating the split between North and South until reconciliation was virtually impossible.Opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act helped found the Republican Party, which opposed the spread of slavery into the territories. As a result of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the United States moved closer to Civil War.
dred scott case
the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court held that African Americans, whether enslaved or free, could not be American citizens and therefore had no standing to sue in federal court and that the federal government had no power to regulate slavery in the federal territories acquired after the creation of the United States. Dred Scott, an enslaved African American man who had been taken by his owners to free states and territories, attempted to sue for his freedom. In a 7–2 decision written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the Court denied Scott's request. For only the second time in its history the Supreme Court ruled an Act of Congress to be unconstitutional.
election of 1860
The Democrats met in Charleston, South Carolina, in April 1860 to select their candidate for President in the upcoming election. Northern democrats felt that Stephen Douglas had the best chance to defeat the black people. Although an ardent supporter of slavery, southern Democrats considered Douglas a traitor because of his support of popular sovereignty, permitting territories to choose not to have slavery. Southern democrats stormed out of the convention, Six weeks later, the northern Democrats chose Douglas, while at a separate convention the Southern Democrats nominated then vice president John C. Breckenridge.