Paper Topic:

American History

POLITICAL MANEUVERING TO DISSOLVE CONFLICT

During the War of 1812 , the British troops promised emancipation to slaves that would support their side and fight for them . The war was not won by the British , and this promise was not valid any longer . There were those on the American side that , during the war , had aregued for reform and change in the laws governing slavery . However , by the end of the war , the momentum for antislavery reform , state by state , appeared to run out of steam , with half of the states having already abolished

br slavery , prohibiting it from starting or committed to eliminating slavery , and half committed to continuing to allow slavery forever

The potential for conflict over slavery was substantial because of the way that slavery had been approached in different ways by different states . Specifically the political conflict at a federal level caused politicians to question and be concerned regarding the way that the power would be balanced in the U .S . Senate . This was presented because of the fact that each state was represented by two Senators . The states that opposed slavery would clearly disagree with the states that were committed to allowing it . More significant was that there was an equal number of slave states and free states , meaning that the United States Senate was equally divided . This divide began to change when the population of the free states began to outstrip the population of the slave states . This lead to control of the House of Representatives by free states , while the Senate became the preoccupation of slave state politicians interested in maintaining a Congressional veto over federal policy in regard to slavery . The result of these concerns was that the slave states and free states were brought into the Union in pairs so that there was a constant balance between slave state and free state This political decision was made to prevent a tremendous upheaval in the way that the country handled the issue of slavery

However , this political policy did not resolve all potential issues There was significant controversy concerning the entry of Missouri into the Union . Specifically the concern was whether Missouri should be admitted as a slave state or not . This controversy led to the Missouri Compromise of 1820 . This compromise stated that the Louisiana Purchase territory north of latitude 36 ? 30 , which described Missouri 's southern boundary , would be organized as free states and territory south of that line would be held for the organization of slave states . Part of this compromise included the decision to bring Maine in to the Union as a free state to balance the entry of Missouri

Due to the difficulty of identifying the territories which could be organized into additional slave states caused a delay in the opening of the western territories to settlement . The slave state politicians sought a solution to this problem and eventual efforts were made to acquire Cuba and to annex Nicaragua - both to be slave states . However in 1854 the Missouri...

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