Dred Scott Essay

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Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas debates were mainly focused on slavery versus free labor, popular sovereignty, and the legal and political status of black Americans. Lincoln criticized Douglas for his support of popular sovereignty and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, while Douglas accused Lincoln of racial equality and disruption of the Union. Douglas accused Lincoln of being too radical on the slavery question, a charge that Lincoln struggled to deny. Lincoln appeared stronger, putting Douglas on the defensive with questions about his views on slavery. Douglas argued that white people should decide for themselves whether or not to allow it, while Lincoln claimed slavery was immoral and should eventually be abolished. Lincoln proceeded to argue that Stephen Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision were part of a conspiracy to make slavery lawful in all the States, old as well as new North as well as South. Douglas argued that slavery was a dying institution that had reached its natural limits and could not thrive where climate and soil were harsh. He asserted that the problem of slavery could best be resolved if it were treated as a local problem. Douglas argued that territories should be settled on popular sovereignty, with the settlers deciding for themselves if they wanted slavery. Douglas wanted people to decide for themselves if slavery should be allowed or not in states because most the southern would move westward with their slaves. Lincoln, on the other hand, regarded slavery as a dynamic, expansionistic institution, hungry for new territory. He argued that if Northerners allowed slavery to spread unchecked, slave owners would make slavery a national institution and would reduce all laborers, white as well as black, to a state of virtual slavery. Lincoln interpreted his decision on slavery by saying that slavery was immoral and the people of United States shouldn’t decide for themselves if slavery should be allowed in the states. Lincoln believes a house divided against itself cannot stand. He believes this Government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. He did not believe the Union would fall, but he did predict that it would cease to be divided. That was the last thing Lincoln wanted because it would cause a civil war. Lincoln wanted slavery everywhere or nowhere, not this half and half. Lincoln didn’t like this for a number of reason, Lincoln didn’t like popular sovereignty because it will diminish the free labor system , meaning if slaves come into the northern and western states they will take all the jobs from the white men. Lincoln wasn’t the true saint we all thought he was said out to be, Lincoln was racist person just like Stephen A. Douglas but at the same time he knew it was immoral to have slaves. He supported the Fugitive Slave Law and opposed any interference with slavery in the states where it already existed. Lincoln didn’t want slave in the northern
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