Secession Of Eleven Southern States example essay topic

The secession of eleven southern states has affected America more then any other event or war in history. The secession was followed by fours years of bloody warfare and the lives of one-half million Americans in the Civil War. The Civil War resulted in the loss of many Americans, along with destruction, racial and sectional hatred that still exists today. Almost one and a half centuries later, America is still marked-politically, economically, and socially. Today Historians argue the events that lead up to the Civil War, and what really caused the secession of eleven southern states from the union. Many say that it was an accident and possibly from political misjudgments.

Who's to blame for the secession? Was it President Buchanan's indecisiveness or Lincoln's refusal to accept the Crittenden Compromise? The southerners wanted slavery to be allowed since they have plenty of slaves and needed them to work their crops. The northerners didn't have many plantations so therefore they didn't need any slaves and were all for prohibiting slavery.

But if slaves were given freedom, how would the south work its plantations? How would the economy of the south survive without workers to develop their crops? Many southerners feared the prohibition of slavery because of those very reasons. There were southerners who did not want to secede from the union whom were also non-slaveholders, so of course they didn't want to face problems because of something that didn't even affect them.

A man by the name of Albert Gallatin Brown advocated the idea of secession, he felt that northerners were gaining power and was going to use that power to emancipate all of the southerner's slaves. He also felt that if the south seceded, that war was a bad result but emancipation was worse (Doc 2). In 1860 Lincoln was elected president. Lincoln wanted to prohibit slavery, the southerners wanted Stephen Douglas for president because he was a southerner and knew the southerners feelings towards slavery (Doc 3).

Since Lincoln was elected president South Carolina decided to secede from the union because Lincoln was apart of the northerners and would help in there efforts to prohibit slavery (Doc 6). Jefferson Davis a U. S senator from Mississippi, states that the election was not the cause of secession, but was the last feather that broke the camel's back and that after the election hostilities raised in the legislation because of states raids of organized bodies by the north to southern government (Doc 7). The south was hostile because the northerners did not understand the reason for slavery and their reluctance to discuss it, until California was admitted to the union (Doc 5). The final straw that put the northerners over the edge was Stephan Douglas's efforts to repeal the Missouri Compromise (Doc 5). The Missouri Compromise was an amendment that would gradually abolish slavery in Missouri and forbid future importation of slaves in the state. Douglas's efforts brought about the start of the Civil War, which in the end the south loses.

All slaves were free and slavery was abolished. The secession of eleven southern states from the Union can be explain in so many ways, but what it boils down too was that two nations separated along the 36 degrees 30' parallel could not Co-exist with each other. Whether is was because of the fight to end slavery or because of Compromises that were not benefiting both the sides caused a conflict between them. People to this day still review the events that led up to the secession of the states and the Civil War that followed. The secession of the eleven states is such a fascinating historical event that has effected our government today and every aspect of our lives. Groups have come about due to the war and it's causes, and whether they " re based on hatred or good they have an affected our lives and the way we live.