Tuesday, September 24, 2013
What causes a crisis?
Historians usually refer to the period before the American Civil War as a crisis in some way. The crises took many forms, however--sectional, social, and they even transcended directly into the polical arena (i.e. the caning of Charles Sumner). After reading the introductory piece on the war's causes, what stands out to you the most as a cause of crisis? Defend your position--as we all know, there were myriad causes to this war.
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After reading “the causes, course and effects,” I believe that the Missouri Compromise was the cause of the crisis. Though, Ulysses S. Grant "regarded the fugitive slave act as a major cause of the Civil war," there are other aspects to be considered. Missouri, yet another state, applied for statehood as a slave state. This application was denied by representative Tallmadge. For the first time, slavery was getting national attention. Now, with people preoccupied with the new issue of slavery, the stage was set for a crisis to occur.
ReplyDeleteI think the main cause of the Civil War was the western frontier starting to be opened up. The west offered more land for people to move to and it also brought up the question of slavery. Of course many southerners wanted the expansion of slavery while Northerners wanted slavery to be no existent. This disagreement lead to the formation of the Missouri Compromise which stated that any territory north of the designated line stretching all the way across the country was to be a free state and anything south could issue slavery. This became a problem because there were numerous states that fell in the middle of the line and there was no was to decide it except with a population vote. This lead many abolitionists to move out west along with many pro slavery southerners.
ReplyDeleteI believe the expansion of the United States into the West was one of the leading factors of crisis. Because of this new territory the already split parties of the US federal government now have to decide and pass legislation determining whether the states of this new land would be slave states or free states. It also began to disrupt laws already in place that determined slave/state ownership as well as a dispute with countries like England and France as to who owned Oregon and eventually Alaska. It seems that the bigger the US becomes the more problems it is bringing with it. At least there was gold in California to offset the crisis'.
ReplyDeleteI feel the opening up of the United States Of America into the west was the main reason for the problem. Because the Western Frontier was opened up it gave a lot more land to the people to move to it and also gave more room for slavery to occur. feel the more land these slaveowners have for slaves to work on the more slaves they need and the bigger the crises is. Since the land expanded there were changes/problems with the law and even problems throughout the world on who own's what land.
ReplyDeleteExpansion to the west seemed to the main cause of the civil war. Because the two parties had different takes on what laws about slavery should be put in place. This was a major conflict because more people wanted to start settling westward. It also caused a dispute about laws already intact because if the laws weren't passed westward it could eventually mean that the laws down south could eventually be terminated.
ReplyDeleteFollowing the reading, I believe the reason for the civil war was ignited because of the opinion of slavery between the north and south, and also the two political parties. Also the expansion of the western frontier created more room for slavery so this became a major reason why the civil war started
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