American History Paper

There is near consensus that the polarization of the United States, into South and North, which even offtually lead to the American Civil War was caused by slavery (Hutchison, 2003). The instruction that has taken currency on this issue is that the grayers were fighting for the perpetuation of slavery while the Northerners had taken the moral high ground of mop uping it. However, the two respective stands taken by these two groups smacks of self-centeredness (Hutchison, 2003).First, the grey States were using the equality of all citizen in the United States as a scapegoat to support the subsequence of slavery because their economic prosperity was dependent on slavery while their northern compatriots supported its abolition not because they did not benefit economically from it but because they never wanted the Southerners to share in those benefits emanating from slavery, that is wherefore they used the excuse of criminalizing any expansion on slavery in the territories that h ad been acquired from Mexico while not including their dominion (North) in that abolition.Because of this discord between these two regions a number of compromises were brokered the most popular being the 1850 compromise. However, thither reached a time when not even the 1850 compromise could hold on, that is when the union eventually broke asunder. at one time that the 1850 compromise had failed to contain the South and the North territories from engaging in the debate on slavery, another stem had to be sort in order to reduce hostility between these two territories. This is how the Kansas-Nebraska tirade came to being.Therefore the Kansas-Nebraska annotation can be looked on as another compromise brokered after the failure of a prior compromise (1850 compromise). Why the Kansas-Nebraska bill succeeded for some time where the 1850 compromise failed was because while it kind of tried to end slavery in the Southern as was being propagated by the Northerners the Kansas-Nebraska bill gave the Southerners a say in making that decision which they exercised by voting for the continuation of slavery in their territory which was against the wishes of the northerners (WikiAnswers, 2009).By giving the Southerners the designer to solely decide on this explosive matter of slavery, this bill declared the 1850 compromise null and vacuity thereby watering down the advances that had been make by the 1850 compromise in ending slavery which even president Abraham Lincoln conceded was an evil enterprise. It should also be annotationd that the compromise of 1850 was reached by the representative of the Southern and Northern States while Kansas-Nebraska bill though passed by congress which is another representative assembly gave multitude from the respective regions the sovereign power to decide on the right to own slave.Another important point to note about the two is that they were both premised on the need to bring peaceful coexistence between the two territories in a larger union although both only succeeded in further dividing them (Hutchison, 2003). It can also be argued that by giving the two territories the power to vote separately on this issue of slavery, the Kansas-Nebraska bill made any effort at unity futile. That is why the Southerners found no fault in the bill while the Northerners were extremely outraged by it content.The 1850 compromise just like a number of compromises that had been infatuated prior to it had succeeded in maintaining a semblance of peaceful coexistence although there was inner rage which was building in each of the territories which is why eventually both territories decided enough is enough and maintenance of the status quo became indefensible (Hutchison, 2003). First, the 1850 compromise was unable to address exhaustively the issue of slavery which was the explosive issue that was the subject of the discontent from both sides.This was because it created an environment of suspicion on both territories each not sure whether their demand had been met by the compromise. For instance, the Southerners after years of being treated as second class citizen by their Northern compatriot believed that the 1850 compromised was a perpetuation of that bigotry while the Northerners who all with had been used to dictating terms to their Southern compatriots did not ingest a reflection of that superiority in the 1850 compromise. The Kansas-Nebraska bill on the other hand might gull made a mark in enhancing the equality of people from both territories.However it neither anticipated nor turn to the resistance that the Northerners would have most definitely put against any effort towards equalizing them with the southern compatriots whom they had all through considered inferior when it came to the enjoyment of rights. Being a product of legislation from a representative assembly, the Kansas-Nebraska bill was a democratic instrument unlike the 1850 compromise that was just a product of the deliberation o f a skew representation forum which is probably why it was viewed by the Southerners with suspicion.This bills also failed to the test of pragmatism in that it failed to cherish the fact that the Southerner would obviously vote for slavery which was increasing being viewed as an infringement of the peoples right (slaves), this is one of the reason why it did not hold water for much longer contempt the fact that it gave people from both territory a right to influence decisions at the national level.References Hutchison, E. Craig, (2003). The civic war Why? Compare and Contrast. Retrieved 23 July 2010 from