Period 5 LEQ
- Repeated sectional compromises in the first half of the 19th century successfully held the Union together and averted civil war. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 admitted Missouri to the United States as a slave state and Maine as a free state in an effort to preserve the balance of power in Congress between slave and free states. Another success, the Compromise Tariff of 1833 was adopted to gradually reduce tariff rates following southerners' objections to the protectionism found in the Tariff of 1832 and the 1828 Tariff of Abominations, which had prompted South Carolina to go as far as threatening secession from the Union. Finally, the Compromise of 1850 admitted California to the Union as a free state, divided the remaining former Mexican territory in two with no restriction on slavery, settled a border dispute between New Mexico and Texas in New Mexico’s favor, assumed Texas’ debts, allowed for slavery in Washington D.C. but no slave trade, and enacted a stronger fugitive slave law. Despite numerous earlier successes in sectional compromises, compromise failed in 1860-1861 due to the development of a new party system, the deterioration of previous compromises, and slave and free states’ unequal rates of expansion.
- In 1860 and 1861, there was a new political party system in place (Republicans vs. Democrats) that was more distinctly divided along sectional lines (North vs. South) than the previous party system (Whigs vs. Democrats) that had been in place during earlier successful compromises
- Northern political leaders had formed the Republican Party only a few years prior to 1860, in large measure to combat the spread of slavery in America
- Slavery was now not only a sectional issue but a partisan issue, meaning people had less party ties with people of the rival North and South sides of the issue to unite them and make compromise easier
- Many southern states preferred disunion to the rule of newly elected Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, who won the election almost entirely on the strength of northern support and so seceded without attempts at compromise
- Additionally, by 1860 and 1861, earlier compromises that had been successful for a time had been stretched to their breaking points
- Early on, when compromises over the sectional conflicts between North and South had been created, there was still quite a lot of room for compromise as sectional disagreements were broader and less precisely defined, but as time passed these conflicts became much more specific and heated and thus more difficult to resolve through compromise.
- A specific example of an initially successful compromise that eventually failed is the Missouri Compromise of 1820. In 1856 in response to the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, ruled that the Missouri Compromise, whose provisions prohibited slavery north of 36°30’ in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase territory, was unconstitutional. The compromise, declared Taney, violated the Fifth Amendment’s protection of property (including slaves). Although the earlier Kansas-Nebraska Act had already effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise, the Court’s majority now rejected even the principle behind the compromise, the idea that Congress could prohibit slavery in the territories, making future compromise over this issue very difficult.
- Finally, by 1860 and 1861, the South had become painfully aware of slavery’s failure to spread throughout the new territories acquired through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
- Back in 1850, the South had been willing to compromise on the extension of slavery into these new territories in the hopes of maintaining its Congressional balance of power with the North. For example, with the Compromise of 1850, southerners had grudgingly accepted California’s admission to the Union as a free state, since there would be no restriction on slavery in the remaining former Mexican territory. Some southerners believed that slavery could be expanded into these territories despite the fact that their environments were completely different from the rest of the slave-holding, plantation-agriculture South. However, it soon became clear that this area was likely to become free states, foiling the South’s goal of maintaining the equal ratio of slave to free states in Congress. By 1860 and 1861, the South had even less hope of a compromise working in their favor, especially as it was becoming a minority in the legislature. Therefore, it accepted secession and eventually war as the remedy to these sectional conflicts instead of compromise.
- The North and South’s initial goal of resolving their pre-Civil War sectional conflicts through peaceful compromise has a clear connection to relations between the American colonies and Britain pre-American Revolution. In the years leading up to the Revolutionary War, most American colonists did not desire independence from England. They still wished to remain British citizens, they simply wanted the repeal of what they perceived to be tyrannous taxes placed upon them and to acquire some legitimate representation in Parliament if they were to be taxed in this manner. This reflects how the South did not originally want to secede from the Union, they just wanted to preserve their institution of slavery and the way of life that accompanied it. However, both the colonists and the southerners reached a point where peaceful negotiation had become ineffective, and war was necessary to resolve their conflicts once and for all. In conclusion, by 1860-1861, the disputes between North and South had reached a level of severity where compromise was no longer productive, leading to the South’s secession from the Union and the bloodiest conflict in United States history, the American Civil War.