After the Revolutionary War, the next big thing America would fight for would be slavery. It became a hot issue, and many people began to go against. Benjamin Banneker decided that, instead of take up arms, he would write about it. So, when he wrote his letter to Thomas Jefferson, he know it would have to work. And what else would help with that but some well placed, well used rhetorical strategies?
Lincoln did believe that slavery was morally wrong, but there was one big problem; It was allowed by the highest law in the land, the Constitution. The nation’s founding fathers, who also struggled with how to address slavery, did not explicitly write the word “slavery” in the Constitution, but they did include key clauses protecting the institution, including a fugitive slave clause and the three-fifths clause, which allowed Southern states to count slaves for the purposes of representation in the federal government. Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation as a military measure, it didn’t apply to border slave states like Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, all of which had remained loyal to the Union. Lincoln also exempted selected areas of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control in hopes of gaining the loyalty of whites in those states. In practice, then the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t immediately free a single slave, as the only places it applied were places where the federal government had no control.
Moreover, abolitionists argued out on the issue of violence and when it was to be use was or else accepted in the society as a means of gaining political and social change. Many abolitionists who were denoted Christians and principled in religion termed violence to be against God’s teachings hence a sin. After a long revolution against slavery, many people came to accept violence as a means of fighting against slavery and racial segregations (research). work cited Abolitionist Movement — History.com Articles, Video, Pictures and Facts. (n.d.).
They felt this was unfair because Texas being a part of the union should be protected and funded by the federal government. Texas felt the north and its citizens were breaking earlier agreements of returning escaped slaves back to the south. Instead they were harboring them . Slavery was a major argument in the ordinance because the south felt that slavery was a god given birth right to the white race; stating that “It is the revealed will of the almighty creator as recognized by all Christian nations”. They felt that it was against the will of god to abolish slavery.
234) Some of the conflicts were that the Constitution promised the choice of slavery in federal acreage. A South Carolina Senator joined the southern Democrats in vetoing it. The Whigs started separating along district lines. The Southern individuals from both sides were for allowing servitude in the new terrains, while the northern folk disagreed with the process. The Compromise of 1850 allowed slavery to continue until the territories became part of the states.
“Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.” One side rather to make war while the other side accepted war and that’s what started the war. The South wanted slavery to end. Lincoln also says that we all share the quilt of slavery. The South unjustly asks a “just God’s assistance” in unjustly stealing the efforts of others. Adam’s curse was the bread from the “sweat of other men’s faces”.
Lincoln was associated with this name because he opposed slavery expansion in his debates and speeches before getting elected in 1860. Lincoln viewed that African- Americans should have rights, but whites were and always would be the superior race. Therefore, Lincoln was not an equalitarian. He didn’t agree with the reality that white people could enslave blacks or darker skin toned individuals. He states, “If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B.
By doing so, it created one of the many disagreements between the North and South, the institution of slavery. When the Fugitive Slave Act was placed in the Compromise of 1850, it created even more hostility between the two parties. But it was in no comparison to the outburst that was formed from Uncle Tom’s Cabin. This book created a face for the slaves, it gave everyone an understanding of how slaves were treated and the injustice they suffered in reaction to the Fugitive Slave Act. “It transformed abolitionism, bringing the movement, whose extreme rhetoric many Northerners had previously viewed with disapproval, to the edge of respectability” (Goldfield 378).
Civil War history begs the question why? Ask the average person what caused the American Civil War and they will probably answer slavery. They are right; of course, slavery was the primary and most obvious cause of the war. There had been tension over slavery since the nation’s founding in 1776 and numerous compromises over the slavery issue had served to quell tensions for a time, but never to eliminate them. The most famous was the Compromise of 1820.
The Civil War began as a conflict regarding states’ rights. The South argued that the Federal Government’s powers were limited by the Constitution. Southerners also believed the Federal Government abused its powers. According to the South, slavery was a state issue, not an issue to be decided by the Federal Government. The Northern view of America before the Civil War was one of progress.