Essay about Slavery: American Civil War and Slavery

Submitted By jaqueahlers
Words: 636
Pages: 3

Between disputes over the politics, economics, and culture of slavery both in the White House and in the Supreme Court and the outrageous differences in opinions the North and South had the Civil War was in fact inevitable. The South was strongly determined about wanting to keep slavery a thriving business. They also wanted it to spread in to the North. The North disagreed completely and wanted nothing to do with slavery other than getting it to be completely abolished all throughout the states. The American Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865 between the Union, or Northern states, and the Southern slave states. In April of 1803 Thomas Jefferson purchased 828,000 square miles of territory for 3 cents an acre. This more than doubled the size of the United States. What would be done with the territory developed? Now the question was, were they going to make slavery legal in some states, and illegal in others? Or, make it Legal everywhere, or illegal everywhere. Henry Clay was the creator of the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri Compromise was a line placed under Missouri that marked where slavery was and wasn't allowed. Above the line there was to be no slavery, and below the line slavery was legal. Already there is evidence that in 1820 we have a country split into, by this line dividing legal slave states(more of the south) and illegal slave states(more of the north). As Lincoln once said “A country divided cannot stand”.
In the House of Representatives, South Carolina’s Charles Pinckney, the only member of Congress in 1820 who had served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 stated in his speech to Congress, “The great body of slaves are happier in their present situation than they would be in any other, and the man or men who would attempt to give them freedom, would be their greatest enemies.” Was he right? In a miniscule amount, and unordinary circumstances, yes, in some parts of the south slaves were treated “well” and given more freedoms than others. But that didn’t make the fact, that slaves were looked at and treated as animals in other parts of the country, go away.
In a letter to John Holmes, Jefferson voiced the fears of many Americans that conflicting views of states' rights, slavery, westward expansion, and the powers of the federal government had brought the