The history and perceptions of the secession crisis Research Paper

The history and perceptions of the secession crisis - Research Paper Example The conflict between Northern and Southern politicians was brought about by the massive western territories acquired by the United States in 1848 through the peace agreement with Mexico (Bartkus 1999).Southerners petitioned for the freedom to bring slavery into the newly acquired territories if the circumstances allowed lucrative ventures; Northerners demanded slavery clearly and completely abolished (Reynolds 1970). As stated by Huston (2000), the dispute had been raised by David Wilmot in 1846, yet it only reached an agreement in 1850 when the different sections of the Compromise of 1850 were ratified in Congress. Following the congressional resolution is the electoral affirmation that this agreement was definitely amenable (Crofts 1989). The congressional elections in the 1850 spurred Democratic wins of the compromise procedures in the North, which were eventually clearly reconfirmed in the 1852 presidential election (Wakelyn 1996). The reaction of the South to the Compromise was dissimilar. States in the upper South, namely, Delaware, Missouri, Maryland, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina, willingly agreed to the actions taken by Congress; however, states in the lower South, namely, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina initiated a large-scale controversy about secession (Barnwell 1982). In 1850, particularly in the gubernatorial and congressional elections as well as in state conventions, the Southern states that agreed to the Compromise of 1850 largely succeed ... rther, according to Huston (2000), for a number of historians, the major concern, and hence the core of their interest, was the secession debate, not the debate over union, and the common assumption has been that the cotton-dependent Southerners refuted secession as a remedy to the suspected Northern incursions on the constitutional rights of the South. Few recognize the attempt of Southern unionists to mitigate the secession conflict in 1850 (Wakelyn 1996). The Southern States Rights, those supporting either provisional or immediate secession, have gained most of the attention. The victors of the elections in the state of the Deep South, the Constitutional Unionists or the unionists, have been given very little emphasis (Wakelyn 1996). It is not occasionally claimed, specifically by scholars of the nineteenth century, that the winners did not only enjoy the rewards, they also gained much of the historians’ interest (Barnwell 1982), and history is thus presented from the stand point of the victors. Basically, fury over the compromise stemmed mostly from Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. South Carolina, in particular, was willing to secede but demanded for the secession of the other states as well (Coppieters & Sakwa 2003). Governor Whitemarsh Seabrook had been given advise that other states harbor low judgments of the emotional security and intentions of South Carolina policymakers that if the state decided to act prematurely, other states would refuse to follow (Wakelyn 1996). George W. Towns, the governor of Georgia, requested to the state legislature in September 1850 the permission for a special election to commission representatives to a state conference to give opinion on the Compromise procedures (Huston 2000). John A. Quitman, the expansionist