The civil war was a result of the deep-rooted divide between people of the north and south. The abolitionists and whigs in the north were crashing with democrats and southerners. Neither side wanted to compromise their belief. The statement above is mostly true. People had extreme beliefs and were willing to carry out violence for them, and there were failures of leadership on both sides. However, the reasons why they believe the war was not inevitable, are actually why it was inevitable. Extremism was running rampant across the U.S. on both sides of the spectrum. There were strong believers of slavery and people who were hellbent on stopping it. This great division of people and beliefs was recognized by Abraham Lincoln in document …show more content…
The speech’s historical context was slavery existing in half of the states. This foreshadows a civil war as Lincoln is saying we cannot have such a deeply divided country. Either slavery will spread completely, or it will be stopped and become extinct. This would be achieved with one side winning a war, as the divisions were deep and violent, as seen in Bleeding Kansas. In other words, Lincoln believed the civil war was inevitable. An example of anti- slavery beliefs was shown in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, document 2. It was written when slavery was still legal in many states and was written against the fugitive slave act. The author felt that they were being forced to continue slavery even in free states, as they were with runaway slaves. This led to more polar beliefs in people who read it, and the book was very popular. Her audience was Christians; she wanted them to know slavery was evil, and against their faith. As a result, many more people strongly opposed slavery. Another example of extreme beliefs in America was with John Brown. John Brown was an abolitionist who attempted to lead a slave revolt by giving weapons to slaves. Fredrick Douglas spoke about this in his speech at storer college in document 6 “ …show more content…
In document 5, Stephen Douglas highlights a failure in his 1858 speech, “Our fathers knew, when they made the government, that the laws which were well adapted to Vermont, were unsuited to the rice plantations of South Carolina.” With the point of view of having each state decide its laws, Douglas’ purpose was to expose injustices with having the whole country follow one law. He believes the government can maintain itself while having disparities in slavery laws within different states. This juxtaposes Lincoln’s claim that there cannot be a divided nation. This speech exemplified the failures in the government because the interests of all states were not being considered. The context was the Supreme Court ruling that congress had no right outlaw slavery (Dred Scott case). Douglas disagreed with the verdict of the case. One more failure of leadership is shown in document 7, “Those states have assumed the right of deciding… all the states north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of president of the United States whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.” The context of this speech was Lincoln being elected. The purpose was to show how the north decided who would become president, and went against the constitution and what the government was founded on. They chose someone who opposed slavery and knew that the states who still allowed slavery would soon