The debate over slavery had begun decades before 1861, going back to the genesis of the United States. The controversial topic of slavery expansion gained momentum with the Compromise of 1850. These measures, introduced by Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, were intended to answer the question of slavery expansion. A resolution was adopted providing that California would admitted as a free-soil state, the territories of New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah be organized without slavery, a new and strident fugitive slave law become adopted, and the District of Columbia abolish the slave trade. President Zachary Taylor would have vetoed the bill if he had not died in office while the debate was raging.
If Clay had expected a groundswell of support, he was sadly mistaken. Northeastern Democrats and Southern Whigs supported it with reservations, abolitionists were outraged, and Northern Whigs in the Senate continued to support Taylor’s plan, which ignored most of the issues covered by Clay’s proposals. After Taylor’s death on July 9, 1850, Millard Fillmore assumed the presidency and was in favor of the Compromise. This was one of the first cracks in the Republic which led up to the Civil War.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
One of the most devastating events to occur during the decade was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. President Franklin Pierce found himself embroiled in a violent partisan struggle for control of the Kansas Territory. Sponsored by Senator Stephen A Douglas of Illinois, the act provided that in the newly formed territories of Kansas and Nebraska the restrictions imposed by the Missouri Compromise of 1820 were null and void. Applying the principle of popular sovereignty, it gave people who migrated to Kansas or Nebraska the right to decide whether their territories could institute slavery.
The passage of this act brought down on the heads of Douglas and Pierce the wrath of the northern majority. The Pierce Administration was accused of pursuing a distinctly pro-southern policy. In 1855, pro-slavery voters in Missouri crossed over into the Kansas Territory and assisted pro-slavery Kansans to legalize slavery. Free-state settlers met in Topeka and drew up an anti-slavery constitution. In the summer of 1856, violence broke out between these factions, causing the territory to be called “Bleeding Kansas.
Weakness of the South
If the South lost the Civil War because it did not have the will to win, one reason was the internal dissension caused by the state-rights interpretation. This theory has been the center of intense debate among Civil War historians for decades. For example, in the fall of 1861, Georgia Governor Joseph E. Brown accused the Confederate government of neglect because of the exposed condition of Georgia’s coast. Some historians would agree that the state-rights controversy hindered the war effort, but others point to mitigating factors which were a result of deeper difficulties
William Tecumseh Sherman’s burning of Atlanta was a pivotal turning point in the war. On August 28, 1864, Sherman rapidly moved his three armies southward towards Atlanta. Confederate General John Bell Hood, although putting up resistance, evacuated the city on September 1. The Democrats had nominated Union General McClellan, who advocated a firm, personal commitment to continuing the war. Lincoln ran as a Union party candidate committed to saving the Union by winning the war. Newspaper editors had sent letters to northern governors to abandon Lincoln. Then, at the critical moment, Atlanta fell and this visible military success changed the political climate. Before moving his forces out, Sherman burnt Atlanta to the ground and marched toward Savannah. This allowed for Lincoln to easily win another term as president.
The Aftermath
The Civil War was the bloodiest and most costly war in history. The root cause of the war, slavery, had been eradicated but equality was decades away. Despite all the theories and explanations, the war destroyed both the concept of secession and slavery. The United States truly became an indivisible nation. The Southern defeat may have been necessary and inevitable to guarantee freedom and justice for all.
Bibliography
Bartlett, Irving H. 1978. Daniel Webster. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Beringer, Richard E., Herman Hattaway, Archer Jones, and William N. Still, Jr. 1986. Why The South Lost The Civil War. Georgia: The University of Georgia Press.
Donald, David H. 1995. Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Hattaway, Herman and Archer Jones. 1991. How The North Won: A Military History of the Civil War. Chicago: The University of Illinois Press.
Leckie, Robert. 1990. None Died In Vain: The Saga of the American Civil War. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
Lunt, George. 1866. The Origins of The Late War: Traced from the beginning of the Constitution to the revolt of the Southern States. New York: D Appleton and Company.
Stampp, Kenneth M. 1990. America In 1857: A Nation on the Brink. New York: Oxford University Press.
