Manifest Destiny and the Civil War - Essay Example

MANIFEST DESTINY AND THE CIVIL WAR Expansion brought sectional antagonism to the boiling point. Perhaps the most significant social factor at work in the US in the late 1700s, and throughout the 1800s was slavery. This economic and social fact at work within society was considered, though, to be a political issue. Legal debates and decisions were largely made to enforce the Constitutional acknowledgement of slavery, not to make rulings about slavery being right or wrong. Political solutions were sought to the question of slavery, rather than legal solutions.

Slavery also became the most significant point of division between the Northern States, and those in the South. By 1787, slavery was recognized in the Constitution (General History of the United Sates Supreme Court, accessed 2011). Slavery was not regulated within States through Congress. Until 1808, only the movement of slaves into States, or between States up to that date, was taxed and hence regulated (US Constitution: Art. I Sec. 9 Para.1). Slavery was, then, accepted as a fact which existed within States, and the federal Government restricted its involvement in the affairs of individual States.

States made their own decisions about whether they were “Free States”, or whether they would allow slavery, and Congress respected those decisions. This meant that as the United States expanded, new States were declared, and in fact could make their own decisions about whether slavery was to be allowed or not. In 1819, Missouri appealed to be included in the Confederation as a slave-owning State. This appeal was met by much resistance from the Northern States – in which Abolitionism was dominant – and the Midwestern States – where economies without slave labor would struggle against the slave-owning State economies.

But Missouri entered the Confederation as a slave-owning State in 1819. By 1847, the Courts of the United States were declaring that the Constitution was ultimate, and that slavery was a political, not a legal issue (Jones v. Van Zandt, 1847: General History of the United Sates Supreme Court, accessed 2011)). It is important to note that the Missouri Compromise – which declared that Congress could exclude slavery from Missouri Territory north of the 36-degree, 30-minute line – had been made invalid when the Kansas-Nebraska Act had been adopted on May 30, 1854, when Congress had intentionally removed itself from legislating slavery issues in territories, and stated its intention as “… not to legislate slavery into any territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom” ((General History of the United Sates Supreme Court, accessed 2011)).

As such rulings continued States defied the Federal Government. In 1855, Wisconsin declared the fugitive slave laws unconstitutional, while judges who made rulings according to the Constitution were accused of favoring the Southern States for political reasons. By 1854 a Bill was passed to enable the building of a railroad system to cross the continent, and it expressed overtly that regions, and the people themselves, could decide on slavery issues, rather than the Federal Government. By 1856-7, however, Abolitionism in the Northern States was becoming more powerful as a political force, and the feeling was that the South was unacceptably being favored.

Within this context, the case known as The Dred Scott Case began with a lawsuit initiated by Dred Scott, a slave, against the widow of Dr Emerson, the slave owner. This petition was heard in the Missouri Circuit Court, and it was ruled that Scott was not free, despite the fact that his owner had taken him to Illinois, and to an area, now part of Minnesota, where the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, and the Missouri Compromise were in effect. Thus he had traveled to areas in which he would be regarded as a free man, not a slave, and thus had become a free man.

On appeal, in 1850, the same verdict – that Scott was not a free man – was read. And once again, the State Supreme Court, in 1852, ruled similarly, decreeing that Scott was subject to the laws of Missouri, and thus remained a slave. The Dred Scott decision determined whether the Federal Government would take ultimate power over States in the question of slavery, or not. The Supreme Court decided that by February 15th, 1857. Scott, as he was a slave in Missouri, was not a citizen and thus not entitled to sue in a US Court.

The matter of the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise was also directly ruled upon, on March 6th, 1857. While individual States could give citizenship to whomever they liked, this State citizenship did not have to be recognized by other States, and would certainly not be recognized federally. Black slaves were not recognized as the “sovereign peoples” of the United States, referred to in the Constitution (General History of the United Sates Supreme Court, accessed 2011). Therefore, the Missouri Compromise was not to be recognized at all.

Immediate reaction from Abolitionists was to reject the ruling in its entirety. The validity and impartiality of the US Supreme Court was directly questioned. Sectionalism between Northern and Southern States, and between Abolitionists and anti-Abolitionists, as a result of this ruling, and other factors such as the continued expansion of the US and an increasing desire for slavery in individual States, grew to the point where a Civil War was inevitable. References General History of the United Sates Supreme Court and overview available online at http://www.

supremecourt.gov/ accessed July 5th, 2011 The Constitution of the United States of America: Overview available online at http://www.supremecourt.gov/ accessed July 5th, 2011 Prescribed Text: “The Sectional Debate” from The Unfinished Nation (Chapter 13) Prescribed Text: “The Crisis of the 1850s” from The Unfinished Nation (Chapter 13) Prescribed Text: Map Source: “Slave and Free Territories under the Compromise of 1850” from The Unfinished Nation