HIST 405N Week 4 Discussion 1: Stepping Stones to the Civil War – The Compromise of 1850, The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, The Lincoln Douglas Debates of 1858

Document Content and Description Below

HIST 405N Week 4 Discussion 1: Stepping Stones to the Civil War – The Compromise of 1850, The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, The Lincoln Douglas Debates of 1858 Based on the historical facts given i... n this module, assess if the American Civil War was inevitable. The American Civil War is an important piece to the nation's history. The war was ultimately inevitable. The Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, and the Dred Scott Case of 1857 were all factors that contributed to the outbreak of the conflict. The 1850 Compromise generated a great deal of tension. The Fugitive Slave Act was amended and the slave trade in Washington, D.C. was abolished as part of the 1850 Compromise (Drexler, 2019). This agreement also permitted California to become a free state, the territories of New Mexico and Utah to vote on slavery, and the New Mexico-Texas border conflict to be resolved (Drexler, 2019). Despite the fact that the document was intended to resolve conflict, it exacerbated it because not everyone agreed on the terms of the compromise. The 1850 compromise emphasized the structural imbalance that separated the United States. The Fugitive Slave Act intensified the tensions between the North and the South. Former slaves living freely in the North were put in jeopardy by the law (Corbett et al., 2014). The act gave local governments the power to apprehend and deliver fugitives to their owners, as well as levy fines on anyone who helped them flee. (History.com Editors, 2009). All slaves who had escaped their masters in the South had to be captured and returned to them. The North refused to comply with the Act's requirements, which enraged the South. As a result, The Fugitive Slave Act was just another cause that heightened the need for the American Civil War. The Dred Scott case played a role in the war's emergence, as well. The case compromised the complex agreements that existed between slave-supporting and slave-free states. Under the Dred Scott case, the United States Supreme Court decided that Congress had overstepped in the Missouri Compromise because it lacked the jurisdiction to prohibit or abolish slavery in the territories west of Missouri and north of latitude 36°30′ (Urofsky, 2021). In doing so, the Court invalidated laws that had been regarded as a constitutional settlement for nearly four decades, igniting civil tensions and bringing the country closer to civil war (Urofsky, 2021). Slavery impacted practically every aspect of society in both the Southern and Northern states – this is the most important reason why the war could not be prevented. References Corbett, P. S., Janssen, V., Lund, J. M., Pfannestiel, T., Waskiewicz, S., & Vickery, P. (2014). U.S. History. OpenStax. Drexler, K. (2019). Compromise of 1850: Primary documents in American history: Introduction. Research Guides. https://guides.loc.gov/compromise-1850. History.com Editors. (2009). Fugitive slave acts. History.com. https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fugitive-slave-acts. Urofsky, M. I. (2021). Dred Scott decision. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/event/Dred-Scott-decision. [Show More]

Last updated: 2 days ago

Preview 2 out of 2 pages