A message to our Leadership in America

[denuseri]

The South, made up many reasons to succeeded from the North, but slavery in and of itself was the primary central motivating factor.

There were fundamental economic, social, and political differences between the two, but again, slavery was the core issue in that it's use made the basis for allmost all of the others.

An example of their different views was the South wanting to become an independent nation. Westward Expansion was a period were people of the 19th Century were bribed with land to move west for future expansion of the new territory the United States had bought. The main reason the South wanted to succeed had to do with the North’s thoughts on slavery.

The only way to have avoided the War was to abolish slavery but this could not be done because slavery is what kept the South running plain and simple.

Slaves were a huge investment to Southerners and if taken away, could mean massive losses to everyone. An example of the use of slavery was in effect when the cotton gin was invented and the demand for slavery doubled. By 1804 seven of the northern states had abolished slavery. During this time there were demands for political equality and economic and social advances. Some of the Northern goals were free public education, better salaries and working conditions for workers, rights for women, and better treatment for criminals. All these views eventually led to an attack on the slavery system in the South.

When new territories became available in the West the South wanted to expand and use slavery in the newly acquired territories, fearing that if it did not, it would loose any numerical advantage it had in votes. The south previously had insisted upon the 2/3's compromise so they could increase their voting power but counting 2/3s of each slave it owned to be cast on its side in any decisions.

Although the North opposed, and wanted to limit slave states in the Union, many Southerners felt that the government dominated by free states could endanger existing slaveholdings.

In 1819 Missouri asked to be admitted to the Union as a slave state even though the North disapproved. Congress soon passed the Missouri Compromise of 1820. This Compromise regulated the extension of slavery in the United States. Meanwhile, Maine also applied acceptance to the Union as a free state. Future states admitted North of 36 degrees 30 minutes North latitude would be free states, and states admitted South of 36 degrees 30 minutes North latitude would be slave states.

In 1848 the Union acquired a piece of land from Mexico. This opened new opportunities for the spread of slavery for Southerners. However, it was disliked because it aided the free farmer much more than the slaveholding plantation owner. Passing the Compromise of 1850 was to solve this problem. This compromise allowed abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia and admission of California as a free state. Another part of the compromise was the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which required the return of runaway slaves to their masters.

This compromise said that the territory east of California given to the United States by Mexico was divided into the territories of New Mexico and Utah, and they were opened to settlement by both slaveholders and antislavery settlers. The results reflected great hostility between the slave and free states.

In 1854 the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed. It was introduced by Stephen Douglas, and it stated that the two states vote for themselves on the issue of slavery. A conflict developed in Kansas between pro-slavery settlers from Missouri and antislavery newcomers who began to move into the territory from the northeastern states. This was known as “Bleeding Kansas.”

The abolitionists played a major role in shaping the views of many Northerners as well as the formation of the Republican Party. (Ironic how the Republicans allowed Hubert Humphry to steal the promotion of an equal rights agenda as its new minority platform just days before they themselves had been planing to announce its addition to their own in 1948, which only made sence since the Republicans had been the party to free the slaves to begin with.)

These people were fully against slavery and its expansion and most of the time took matters into their own hands to get their point across.

The last main conflict that led to succession was during the presidential election of 1860. Nominated was Abraham Lincoln a Republican, who said many times he didnt wish to force the abolisanist agenda on the south in an attempt to aleviate potential voter's in those regions fears. (Funny how most southern states refused to even put him on thier ballots anyway)

Now with Lincoln being elected the South really felt that expansion was being threatened, and because expansion was vital to the survival of slavery they also felt their way of life was being threatened.

Lincoln said that succession was illegal and said that he intended to maintain federal possessions in the South. He also said many times when speaking to his own base in his party how the condition of slavery was not acceptable in any civilized society.

Initially, Lincoln expected to bring about the eventual extinction of slavery by stopping its further expansion into any U.S. territory, and by offering compensated emancipation (an offer accepted only by Washington, D.C). Lincoln stood by the Republican Party platform in 1860, which stated that slavery should not be allowed to expand into any more territories. Most Americans agreed that if all future states admitted to the Union were to be free states, that slavery would eventually be abolished. Lincoln saw the Kansas issue as a repeal of the 1820 Missouri Compromise which had outlawed slavery above the 36-30' parallel.

Southerners hoped the threat of succession would force acceptance of Southern demands, but it didn’t. South Carolina was the first to adopt an ordinance of succession and after that many other states followed. This achievement outraged the North, which caused the the Civil War. The first shots of which were fired upon the North by the South at Fort Sumpter in SC when they wouldn't surrender the garrison there. Blood had been spilled.

The existence of slavery was the central element of the conflict between the North and South. Other problems existed that led to succession but none were as big as the slavery issue. The only way to avoid the war was to abolish slavery totally although the South depended on slaves a great deal; creating a unescapable paradox. Technological progressions did nothing to stop the Southerners reliance on slavery before, if anything it promoted it and nothing sugested that they would wish to abolish it in the South at some as for unseen magical date. Really there were no ways of avoiding a conflict other than the South adhearing to the Constitution (which it chose to disregard) because the North and South had opposite views of slavery.

In some places in the south, despite the war and the constitution, a state of peonage was even enforced by white southerners on blacks in some communities that extended well in to 20th century.