By Eli Greenawalt Foster

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Slavery and States' Rights were the two causes of the Civil War in the United States. They came before the people in a variety of forms, which, in spite of repeated compromises, only widened the sentiments between the North and South. The Missouri Compromise was the first of a series of enactments and struggles between the two sections on the subject of slavery. The election of Abraham Lincoln on a platform opposed to the extension of slavery was the last of the series, which grew more bitter and antagonistic until it culminated in the firing upon Fort Sumter, South Carolina on April 12, 1861.

The Nullification Act of South Carolina, in 1832, was the first serious manifestation of the doctrine of States' Rights, which ended, finally, in the secession ordinances of the Southern States and precipitated the great American conflict.

State Rights

State's rights.

Different views were held by statesmen from the very beginning of our national history as to the nature of the bond which held the States together. It was maintained by one class of statesmen that the Union was a league or confederation, which might be dissolved at the will of any of the States. Under this theory a failure on the part of the General Government to protect the rights, expressed or assumed, of any of the States, entirely released these States from obligations to the Union, and restored them to their former position of separate sovereign States.

Another class of statesmen held that the Federal Union constituted a nation, with a strong central government, and that no State could secede from the Union without the consent of all the others. These were the different constructions placed upon the Constitution, from which no serious conflict arose until certain material questions came before the people for solution. Chief among these were those which related to tariffs and slavery. The South, which was engaged entirely in agricultural industries, demanded free trade. The North, which derived much of its wealth from manufacturing industries, called for protection. When the Tariff Act of 1832 became a law, it caused intense opposition among the people of the South, and led South Carolina to declare the act null and void, and to threaten to secede from the Union if the Federal Government should endeavor to enforce the law. The prompt and vigorous action of President Andrew Jackson in sending troops to the rebellious State, restored order; and Henry Clay's Compromise of 1850 pacified the leaders for a time. They however did not abandon the principle of secession, but only shifted it from the tariff issue, in which they had scored a victory, to the much compromised and yet uncompromising issue of slavery extension.

Differences Between the North and South

People who settled these two sections were entirely different in thought, habit, and customs. They sprung from different classes, though most all were of English origin. The North was settled by the Puritans, who fled from the oppression and religious persecution of England in search of freedom and a purer system of faith and worship. The early settlers of the South were the Cavaliers, who were loyal to both the State and the religion of their king. The Puritans belonged to the middle class --laborers and minor land owners and came to establish homes for themselves. The Cavaliers belonged largely to the aristocracy and nobility, and came in search of wealth. The representatives of these two classes of society impressed themselves upon the development of the respective sections in which they settled, and molded the customs and institutions for a more varied class of settlers who followed them. The character of the settlers in the North, as well as the nature of the soil and climate, tended toward the cultivation of small estates. But, the early settlers of the South brought with them from England the idea of large estates, which climate and the introduction of African slavery aided to perpetuate. The North was strongly imbued with the love of liberty and a desire for equal opportunities for all. Free schools were established, manufacturing sprung up, and cities multiplied. The South, on the other hand, became agricultural, and educational advantages were confined to the wealthy. This contrast in the character of the people, the difference in the industries of the two sections, and the different conditions of climate and soil, made slave labor more profitable in the South than in the North, and showed how easily one section could become slaveholding States and another free States.

Growth Of Slavery