C121 Task 2 - PDF

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A.

The United States endured many challenges in the beginning. The country was still

adjusting to a new way of government as a united country. The adoption of the Constitution provided strong federal government for the U.S. however, not everyone was in favor of it. Due to the many new opinions of its citizens, a divide was created and resulted in the rise of partisan politics. The first original political parties were the Federalists, those who agreed with the Constitution, and the Anti-Federalists, those who disagreed with the Constitution. The AntiFederalists did not agree with the Constitution believing that it gave the government too much power and wanted the creation of a Bill of Rights. Once the Bill of Rights was added, the disagreements did not end there. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson created the Democratic-Republican party which opposed Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist party. The creation of the Democratic-Republican party was a result of Madison and Jefferson’s believe that Hamilton’s policies favored interests of wealthy businesses at the expense of agriculture (Norton, 2015). They charged Hamilton with trying to undermine republican policies while Hamilton accused Madison and Jefferson of trying to abolish the republic. Both parties had different views on how government and society should be run. These conflicts led to the creation of the First Party Systems.

B1.

The Whig and Democratic parties had different views on many issues. To start, the

Democratic party wanted to expand westward to increase landowning opportunities while the Whig party was wary of this expansion and asked for commercial development within the boundaries that were already placed instead. The Whigs believed in an economically active government while the Democrats pushed for a more limited government. The Democrats opposed the Whigs’ ideas of things such as paper currency and a national bank (Norton, 2015).

B2.

The leaders of the Whig party included William Henry Harrison and John Tyler. Harrison

took office after Van Buren in 1841 with Tyler as his Vice President. The leaders of the Democratic party were Martin Van Buren and Andrew Jackson. Van Buren took office after Jackson. Religion and ethnicity influenced political affiliation. Protestants and free black voters were attracted to the Whigs’ support for moral reform. The Democrats’ promised to expand and open additional land for settlement. This appealed to farmers, wage earners, frontier slave owners, and immigrants. The Whigs’ view of a more controlled westward settlement appealed to black New Englanders and slave owners (Norton, 2015). B3.

When the two opposing parties, the Whigs and the Democrats, formed, it led to the

development of the Second Party System. These parties expanded the laws which contributed to the rise of democratization of American politics. Property restrictions for voters were taken away in the majority of the states and some states allowed foreign nationals who intended to become American citizens to vote. The removal of these restrictions allowed for more people to be eligible to vote which ultimately increased political participation. Women were still not allowed to vote, however, they were allowed to take part in electoral campaigns. The states also transitioned from choosing their party leaders by caucus to choosing them by popular vote (Norton, 2015).

C1.

The pro-slavery arguments were based on the belief that slavery was beneficial for the

economy and that without slavery, the economy would completely collapse. They also used the Bible as a reference believing the “hierarchical view of the social order with slavery prescribed by God” (Norton, 2015). Proslavery arguments were based on racism. They believed whites were far more intellectual and blacks were destined for labor. Abolitionist’s arguments against slavery

were based on moral and economic reasoning. Economic arguments were based on the belief that slavery threatened the entire economy of the South in the long term (WGU, 2016). Enlightenment ideas fueled the moral arguments of natural rights and equality. Abolitionists believe that are men are created equal and the idea of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (WGU, 2016). C2.

With westward expansion came sectional tensions involving whether slavery should

expand as well. Henry Clay enacted the Missouri Compromise in 1820 which maintained a balance between slave and free states. Missouri became a slave state while Maine became a free state. The Compromise of 1850 was put into place to ease tensions. This compromise strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act which was enacted to make California a free state and in return Northerners were obligated to help search for slaves that had escaped from their owners. Among other measures, it also eliminated the trading of slaves in the District of Columbia (Norton, 2015). The annexation of Texas became a controversial issue. If Texas became a state it would become a slave state which would disrupt the balance of slave and free states. Hoping that it would lead to the gradual ruin of slavery, President John Tyler wanted to annex Texas while Secretary of State, John Calhoun, justified that it would protect slavery. Texas was annexed with a constitution permitting slavery (Norton, 2015). C3.

One major event that impacted the outbreak of the Civil War was the Kansa-Nebraska

Act. This act allowed the people in these lands to choose for themselves whether to allow slavery within their borders or not. The act caused a lot of violence between land-hungry settlers. The Abolitionists and religious groups sent armed settlers while southerners sent settlers to establish slavery and keep the northerners from taking over Kansas. This led to an event called “Bleeding

Kansas” where free state settlers were murdered and intimidated by proslavery settlers. This was just the beginning of violent events over slavery disagreements (Norton, 2015). The Dred Scott case was another event that influenced the outbreak of the Civil War. This case involved a Missouri slave and his wife. They sued for their freedom because his owner had taken him free states and territories where slavery was banned due to the Missouri Compromise. After 11 years, the Supreme Court heard his case and declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. This decision stated that Congress did not have the power to prohibit slavery from any territory and that Scott was not a citizen of Missouri or the United States. This ruling increased the divide between the North and the South since the majority of the justices who voted on the decision were Southerners (Norton, 2015). John Brown’s Raid led to the Civil War as well. Brown believed that revolutionary acts were required to destroy slavery. On October 16, 1859, Brown directed eighteen whites and blacks in an attack on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia in hopes to start a slave rebellion. His attempt failed and he was publicly executed. Because of this, white southerners started to fear that abolitionists would start slave rebellions. This influenced the Civil War as it was the start of armed rebellions against slavery (Norton, 2015).

D. Norton, M.B. (2015). A people & a nation. Retrieved from https://lrps.wgu.edu/provision/53540310

WGU (2016) "Abolitionists." [Video] Retrieved from

https://wgu.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=06d2cb33-0b11-450e-

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