Why Should The South Leave The Union Essay

The secession of South Carolina on December 20, 1860, by a vote of 169-0 was a response to the election of Abraham Lincoln of 1860. Lincoln perceived as an abolitionist wanted to contain slavery rather than ending it. The majority party above the Mason-Dixon line were Republicans and below were primarily Democrats and Republicans were viewed as abolitionists. The election of a Republican threatened the South’s status quo. The primary catalyst for secession was based on slavery. Different social cultures and political beliefs developed due to the South’s intimate and reliant relationship on slavery. Southern whites feared the end of slavery and this paranoia was shared among plantation slave owners and white Yeoman farmers. Southern whites felt that the North were threatening the supposed tranquility of the South. The South’s agrarian economy, honor, and independence were believed to be in danger. Slavery was intertwined with the South’s social, cultural, and economic makeup. As a result of slavery, the South developed a paternalistic culture and racial ideology of white supremacy. The perceived notion that the North was influencing it’s political and social beliefs on the South lead them to believe that secession was the only act of self-preservation. The growing differences between the South and North made it difficult to negotiate. This fear was exaggerated and accelerated the South’s eventual implosion. The South believed that without slavery it would self-destruct and

     The South seceded in part out of growing awareness of its minority in the nation. The Union held twenty-three states, including four border slave states, while the Confederacy had eleven. Ignoring

They further claimed that the fugitive slave act was not being enforced therefore the compact was no longer protecting the property, the general welfare or securing prosperity for the south. South Carolina’s economy was driven by slave labor and slaves were seen as property. None compliance of the Fugitive Slave act did impact the future economy and prior investments of the citizens in South Carolina. It is also noted that domestic tranquility was being disrupted with the increasing number of abolitionists from the North. Having broken these promises in the Constitution allowed re-lease from obligation to the Union. With no justice the South would not be able to have an arbiter so were entitled to judge for themselves the facts and failures of the contract. It also allowed the South to determine the consequences for the failure. The South chose secession as the consequence. Using these claims the Southern leaders justified secession of the South.

Southern states left the Union because they thought they had more power than the Federal Government. “Many Southerners favored secession as part of the idea that the states have rights and powers, which the federal government cannot legally deny”(Doc 5). This means that Southerners thought that the Federal Government could not deny their right to have slavery so they left. Southern states left the Union because Abraham Lincoln banned slavery and it was their only way to make a

“John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was a radical abolitionist from the United States, who advocated and practiced armed insurrection as a means to abolish slavery for good. He led the Pottawatomie Massacre in 1856 in Bleeding Kansas and made his name in the unsuccessful raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859. He was tried and executed for treason against the

In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Law was passed. This law plainly stated that citizens were required to help slave catchers if inquired upon to do so. This law would make it immensely difficult for slaves to successfully escape slavery. Slaves would have to be even more careful not to run into the wrong person.

Politically, slavery became one of those hot topic issues that politicians usually like to avoid speaking about because the country was divided into two different view points, pro-slavery and anti-slavery, and politicians wanted to be in everyone’s good graces to win come election time. However, when the argument came about weather or not newly inducted states could ban slavery or not, tensions rose in the government. This led to the Compromise of 1850, which allowed for stricter fugitive laws, but allowed California to be free, and New Mexico and Utah to make their decision based on popular sovereignty (the idea that the people of that state should choose). Politically, slavery left a whole mess of confusion for the new states. For example, in the Kansas- Nebraska act a railroad was to be built crossing over two new territories (Kansas and Nebraska) that allowed

John Brown’s beliefs about slavery and activities to destroy it hardly represented the mainstream of northern society in the years leading up to the Civil War. This rather unique man, however, has become central to an understanding and in some cases misunderstandings about the origins of the Civil War. The importance of Brown’s mission against slavery was colossal to accelerating the civil war between the North and the South. His raid on Harpers Ferry in1859 divided the United States like nothing else before, and could have been the main event leading to the Civil War.

There were many reasons the Southern States cried secession and often they exerted this. Southern states viewed slavery as a constitution right and slaves as property and commodity over the humility this shadowed. The north viewed slavery as in humane and that all men should be free as written in the constitution. These different views clashed when new territories in the west were forming. The Southern sates seen this as an opportunity, to establish pro-slavery states in California and New Mexico. The president elect Zachary Tailor revealed his new ideas of slavery and the western states to congress. Congress did not want to pick a fight with the fire eaters so they quickly made California and New Mexico states and have their state government

This shows that South Carolina had the right to secede because it was a sovereign state. It also shows how the South should have had the right to decide whether they would want to secede from the country or not. Another example is that when the Southern states joined the Union, it was voluntarily (Appleby et.al 556). “Nowhere in the Constitution is there any mention of the union of the states being permanent.” (http:/civilwar.bluegrass.net). This shows that they should have the right to leave the Union if they choose to. They had this right because the South had no bind with the Union stating that they had to stay except for the United States constitution in which the North had already violated. Even though the United States constitution was what they looked at as a contract, the Union already desecrated its’ terms before this dispute. It also shows how the right was their own and the government could not control their choices in staying or not. These reasons and examples show how the South had to right to secede because of various reasons regarding the political state the government was in.

The election of Lincoln in November 1860 was the final trigger for secession.[74] Efforts at compromise, including the "Corwin Amendment" and the "Crittenden Compromise", failed. Southern leaders feared that Lincoln would stop the expansion of slavery and put it on a course toward extinction. The slave states, which had already become a minority in the House of Representatives, were now facing a future as a perpetual minority in the Senate and Electoral College against an increasingly powerful North. Before Lincoln took office in March 1861, seven slave states had declared their secession and joined together to form the Confederacy.

South Carolina and the other southern states to follow, announced their intentions to leave the Union. They believed that since they voluntarily joined the Union, they could voluntarily withdraw as well.[7] During Lincoln’s attempt to stop the secession, more southern states joined the Confederates, and thus due to, but not only to these political factors, the civil war was slowly induced.

One reason for the secession of the Southern states was the Election of 1860. The reason being that the winner of this election was Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was not only from the North, but also supported all the North’s ideas. He wanted to end slavery in the west, he supported the free soilers in the North, and he liked the protective tariffs. The Southern states were enraged at finding the abolitionist won the election, and actually said something along the lines of “They will never be at peace under the presidency of Abraham Lincoln”. This sparking one motivation why the South decided to secede from the U.S.

Southern states seceded from the Union because of slavery, political power, and social and economic differences. Slavery was not good. Slavery has a big debate, people could go on all day about the pros and cons of slavery. Southern states had way less than the North. The population made a huge differences in the

John Brown was a white man from the North. He believed that the only way to end slavery was with violence. Brown being plotting an attack to overthrow slavery in the south. In 1859, he planned to attack Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, which known today as the John Brown Raid. Brown plan was to seize weapons and distribute them to slaves, which would cause as uprising. However his plan fail for various reasons. First, the twenty members in neither Browns raid had nor previous military training. Secondly, the slaves in area did not know what they were supposed to do in advance. Thirdly, Virginia was efficient in military force, so Browns group was quickly surrounded in either captured or killed by the superior military force. Brown was captured then