Sectional conflict

The Jacksonian era of optimism was clouded by the existence in the United States of a social contradiction – slavery. The words of the Declaration of Independence – “that all men are created equal” - were meaningless for the 1.5 million black people who were slaves. Thomas Jefferson, himself a slave owner, recognised that the system was inhuman. The importation of slaves was outlawed in 1808, and many Northern States moved to abolish slavery, but the southern economy was based on large plantation, which used slave workers to grow cotton, rice, tobacco and sugar.

In 1820, Southern and Northern [politicians disputed the question of whether slavery would be legal in western territories. Congress agreed on a compromise: Slavery was permitted in the new state of Missouri and the Arkansas territory, and it was barred everywhere west and north of Missouri. But the issue would not go away, some organised themselves into abolitionist societies, primarily in the North, southern whites defended slavery with increasing ardour. The nation was also split over the issue of high tariff, which protected northern industries but raised prices for southern consumers.

Meanwhile, thousands of Americans had been settling in Texas, then a part of Mexico. In 1835, the Texans rebelled, defeated the Mexican Army and set up the independent Republic of Texas. May 1846, the war on Mexico was declared. In 1847, Mexico City was captured. In return for $ 15 million, Mexico was forced to surrender an enormous expanse of territory – most of what is today California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Colorado.

In 1846, by settling a long-standing border dispute with British Canada, the United States had acquired clear title to the southern half of the Oregon Country – the present states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Thus America became a truly continental power, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

The acquisition of these new territories revived a troubling question: Would newly acquired territories be open to slavery? The issue of slavery became in American politics, economics and cultural life, the central point.

In 1854, Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois persuaded Congress to allow the inhabitants of the Kansas and Nebraska territories to resolve the question of slavery within their own borders - which voided the Missouri Compromise of 1820.

In 1858, when Senator Douglas ran for reelection, he was challenged by Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party (a new antislavery party unrelated to Jefferson’s Republican Party). Lincoln demanded a halt to the spread of slavery.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 882