American History - Civil War Term Paper

The Role of Federalism, Foreign Tariffs and the Western Territories:

The period before the American Civil war coincided with the evolution of the modern American federal court system, particularly with respect to the nature of the relationship and the respective authority of the federal government and sovereign state courts (Murrin 2006). Landmark Supreme Court cases had begun chipping away at the rights of states to decide issues related to slavery, but equally serious were the other threats imposed by federal authority on the economic independence of the southern states.

In general, the concept of political democracy and government by the people was embraced much more in the American North than in the South. Specifically, the southern (white) population was largely uneducated poor who owned no land of their own but worked for wealthy plantation owners from whom they leased small parcels of land. The political climate of the South resembled European aristocracy much more than American democracy, in that a very small wealthy segment of the population controlled virtually every facet of state politics (Murrin 2006).

With every exercise of federal authority that usurped their autonomy and control over state affairs, resentment toward the North grew among the influential decision makers in the South. Perhaps no single issue apart from slavery antagonized the southern states more than the taxes and import/export tariffs imposed by the federal government on foreign trade designed to balance foreign trade competition. These measures applied equally to all the American states but were felt much more directly in the southern agricultural states. Whereas the industrialized North manufactured most of the infrastructure and equipment necessary for its own economy, the South relied much more heavily on imported European products for which it paid with cotton in trade.The federal imposition of taxes and tariffs hit the South on both ends of these transactions, threatening to undermine the economic viability of the southern states, even without abolishing slavery (Murrin 2006)

Finally, the growing conflict between the slaveholding states in the South and the free states in the North increased with the addition of new American states in the unsettled territories. With the national issue of slavery looming over the country, every new state admitted to the Union threatened to tip the balance of power either in favor of slavery or in opposition to it. State like Alabama and Mississippi were admitted to the Union as slave states without significant opposition from the North, but Missouri was another matter entirely (Nevins 1992).

When Missouri requested ratification as an independent slaveholding state within the American Union in 1817, northern states fiercely opposed the recognition of a slave state so far north. Resolution came in the form of the Compromise of 1820, pursuant to which Missouri was recognized as a slave state but Maine as a free state, thereby maintaining the balance of representation in the senate. It was the first of a series of similar compromises intended to avoid outright conflict between the North and South over the underlying issue of slavery. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hartshorne, T.L. (2005) the Social Fabric. Longman.

Lakwete, a. (2004). Inventing the Cotton Gin: Machine and Myth in Antebellum America. Johns Hopkins University.

Murrin, J.M. (2006) Liberty, Equality, Power, Vol. 1 Wadsworth.

Nevins, J.,….....