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Civil War Dbq

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One of the most defining periods in American History was the Civil War and the Antebellum years of the 1840’s and 1850’s. These times were filled with turmoil and rare bloodshed. Slavery was rapidly expanding into western territories and quickly pushed the fragile political relations between the North and the South over the edge. Southern views of slavery were essential to their way of life, and Northern views strongly opposed the spread. In the period spanning the Antebellum years and the Civil War, the prospect of slavery expanding westward pushed regional tensions to the tipping point, sparking the beginning of the civil war. U.S. victory in Mexico and the ensuing 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo gave the United States expanded territory in the southwest. This left the significant question of what was to be done with the new land. Free Soilers and Northern Whigs opposed the expansion of slavery, but the Southerners wanted more states to become slave states in order to further their cause. Eventually, Congress accepted Henry Clay’s Compromise of 1850, which stated that California would enter as a free state if Mexico and Utah were carved from the Mexican Cession. Furthermore, this compromise …show more content…

In the 1960 presidential election, Abraham Lincoln was able to win without winning the vote in a single southern state (some Southern states did not even have his name on the ballot). The South threatened secession in order to maintain slavery and their way of living. Another key event that sparked controversy was the Dred Scott Case in 1857. Chief justice Taney declared that Scott had no right to sue, for he was not a citizen. He also declared that he was still a slave despite being brought to a non-slave state. The ruling of this inherently contradicted the Missouri Compromise. Not surprisingly, Northerners were outraged that slavery had the potential to exist in the entire

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