The Crisis of the Union DBQ

In the decade prior to the Civil War, it can be firmly stated that the war became inevitable because sectional difference grew beyond the capacity for compromise. Many events took place that supported this statement, one of which is the Compromise of 1850, which conceded to both the North and the South. Terms of the compromise include the inclusion of California as a free state, the division of the remaining Mexican concession into New Mexico and Utah, allowing state government to decide slavery status in the aforementioned states, eliminating slave trade in Washington, D.C., and passing a fugitive slaw law. The law would later be called “a statute which enacts the crime of kidnapping (Document B).”Preston S. Brooks, who did not hesitate to strike Charles Sumner in the Senate chamber, is depicted in Document F’s Southern Chivalry. The portrayal clearly lays out the extent of passion when it came to the issue of slavery between the North and the South.

African American matters, as well as slavery, only rolled downhill with the Dred Scott decision. It denied blacks the right to citizenship, worsening the position of the immense black southern population (Document G). Another event that further split the crack was the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” The book infuriated northerners, who could not believe the feral southern behavior. “It will keep ill-blood at boiling point, and irritate instead of pacifying those whose proceedings Mrs. Stowe is anxious to influence on behalf of humanity… (Document C)”The Kansas-Nebraska act is one more prominent obstacle in the course to avoid Civil War. It was introduced to help solve the problem of slavery in the territory of Nebraska, which was to be split into Kansas and Nebraska. Each would then vote to be either a free or slave state. The south happily approved while the north was again left furious (Document D).

There is much evidence to support the rapid deterioration of the North-South relations, rather than the opposite. These occurrences separated northern from southern populations, to the point where sectional difference could only lead to war.