The Road to Civil War – Westward Expansion, The Fugitive Slave Act, and Dred Scott v. Sanford

The Road to Civil War – Westward Expansion, Slavery, and Dred Scott v. Sanford

Westward expansion and the civil war in 1860 and why slavery was the primary cause of the war

Since the 1787 drafting of the Constitution, the Northern and Southern parts of America grew further apart in terms of society, ideology, and economy (Mountjoy, 2009). The North feared that the South would enforce the peculiar slavery institution on the entire US. These fears were realized when Congressional debates arose from the Western territories’ infiltration of slavery. The federal government averted an impending civil war by resolving the issue with compromises. However, the compromises appeared to be one-sided, and they resulted in more pronounced North and South sectional divides.

The North prospered because of the Industrial Revolution, while the South relied on slavery to sustain its cotton-growing culture on plantations. Most Northerners did not agree with slavery, but neither did they believe in racial equality (Filler, 2017). The non-slaveholder white settlers did not desire to compete with slaveholders in new territories in the Westward expansion. The Missouri Compromise brought Missouri to the Union as a slave state, while Maine was brought to the Union as a free state.  This resolved the Louisiana Purchase slavery problem by ignoring the slavery issue and placating the northern and southern state politicians (Jenkins, 2017). Wilmot’s Proviso aimed at addressing the extension of slavery into Texas following a war between the Union and Mexico. The proviso suggested the prohibition of slavery in newly acquired territories of Mexico. Many northern state politicians backed the amendment by Wilmot, while the southern state politicians blocked the amendment from being passed, terming it unconstitutional (Shi and Tindall,2016).

Nebraska and Kansas petitioned for statehood and wanted to join the free states of the Union. However, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed, which repealed the Missouri Compromise, which allowed the people of Nebraska and Kansas to vote and decide their own fate. It was during the voting session that votes from Missouri were snuck into Kansas to make the states slave territories. This caused tension to arise and violence erupted. Six years later, the nineteenth-century compromises failed to settle the slavery issue and westward expansion as the compromises appeared to favor pro-slavery states more than they did the free states. Antagonism became more distinct, and this led to a civil war between the states of North and South (Tyrell, 2015).

The Fugitive Slave Act

The Fugitive Slave Act was a federal law that allowed for runaway slaves to be captured and returned to their territories within the US. The Act was enacted by the US Congress in 1793, which authorized local governments to capture and return escaped slaves and impose penalties on anyone who aided their escape (Campbell, 2012). The Act was repelled by the Northern states as it was in direct violation of their individual state laws and many argued that the Southerners made the Northerners slave catchers and constables who were bound as good citizens to engage in a business where humanity must revolt. The Northerners further argued that the law was tantamount to legalizing kidnapping, following which some abolitionists organized and built complex safe house networks to aid in slave escape to the Northern states (Cowa, 2013).

Impact on African Americans of the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford

The Supreme Court ruled a decision in 1857 that Americans who were of African descent, whether they were slaves or free, were not considered citizens and, therefore, had no right to sue in a federal court. The court also ruled that slavery within US territories could not be banned by Congress and that slave owners’ rights were protected by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution because slaves were property (Herda, 2013). The decision exacerbated the rising tensions between the North and South and fuelled violence between the abolitionists and the slave-owners. The decision appeared to embolden pro-slavery and validate the national power of the Southerners to expand slavery to the entire nation (Gunderson, 2010). However, after the civil war, the 13th, 14th and 15 amendments of the Constitutions were rectified and overturned the Dred Scott decision. Currently, all people naturalized or born in the US are deemed citizens and can bring a suit in a federal court (Glenn, 2011).

Work Cited

Campbell, Stanley W. The Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850-1860. UNC Press Books, 2012.

Cowa, William Tynes. The slave in the swamp: Disrupting the plantation narrative. Routledge, 2013.

Filler, Louis. The crusade against slavery: 1830-1860. Routledge, 2017.

Glenn, Evelyn Nakano. “Constructing citizenship: Exclusion, subordination, and resistance.” American sociological review 76.1 (2011): 1-24.

Gunderson, Cory. Dred Scott Decision. ABDO Publishing Company, 2010.

Herda, D. J. The Dred Scott Case: Slavery and Citizenship. Enslow Publishers, Inc., 2013.

Jenkins, Philip. A history of the United States. Macmillan International Higher Education, 2017.

Mountjoy, Shane. Manifest destiny: westward Expansion. Infobase Publishing, 2009.

Shi, David E., and George Brown Tindall. America: A narrative history. WW Norton & Company, 2016.

Tyrrell, Ian. Transnational nation: United States history in global perspective since 1789. Palgrave Macmillan Education, 2015.

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Westward Expansion, Slavery, and Dred Scott

Watch the videos below and answer the following question in 300 words or more.

How did Westward expansion help lead the nation into civil war in 1860? Explain why the issue of slavery was the primary cause of the war. What did the Fugitive Slave Act have to do with the progression towards the Civil War? What was the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision on African Americans in the case of Dred Scott v. Sanford?