Long Essay Question: Analyze the ways in which controversy over the extension of slavery into

Western territories contributed to the coming of the Civil War. Confine your answer to the time

period 1845 to 1861.

There were high tensions between the North and the South firstly because the North

firmly disbelieved in slavery and were abolitionists. Secondly because the South supported

slavery, making a controversial and divided country already. The Mexican session and the

expansion of the US into Western Territory like Oregon caused both political and economic

tension between North and South.

Polk’s presidency was focused on the expansion of the US and he used COIL as his

guide to do so. He wanted to overtake California and Oregon as US territory. Also during this

time period the cotton industry was booming in the South and as well as the industrial revolution

in North. Millions and Millions of immigrants from Germany and Ireland were moving into

Northern United States in the search for jobs. During this time period also, Kansas and Nebraska

entering the union, Kansas as a slave state and Nebraska as a free state. This was done in attempt

to keep the House of Representatives equally free and slave supporting. Due to the massive

amount of numbers of Northern immigrants the North’s population was higher than the South’s

by nearly thirteen million. As the expansion of the US grew, so did tension between North and

South.

The North was growing in population as well as many economic ways including the

industrialization and millions of dollars in loans from Southern plantation owners in Northern

banks. With the expansion into Western land the North could have more land for their massive

immigrant population and with that more customers to buy Northern manufactured goods (i.e.

steal plows and reapers). Therefore, the North wanted this Western land and they wanted it to
stay free. The South, on the other hand, wanted to be able to acquire more area for farmland and

plantations. However, with the expansion of Southern plantations and farmland, came the

expansion of slavery as well. The North did not want slavery to expand any further than it

already had into the West.

The North was angered by William Lloyd Garrison’s gag resolutions where no abolition

statements would be read by government officials and by the Kansas – Nebraska Act (which

stated that states would be decided free or slave by popular sovereignty). The Kansas – Nebraska

Act and popular sovereignty disregarded the Missouri compromise, angering the North and

heightening tensions. Lastly, David Wilmont advised a plan called the Wimont Proviso to

abolish all slavery in the Mexican session – resulting from the Mexican American War, but it

was stopped in senate. With the North and South lacking compromise options regarding Western

land and tensions peaking, war was on the verge between North and South. Henry Clay steps in

at this point and creates one last compromise, prolonging the war for ten more years. However,

with popular sovereignty still being practiced, abolitionism continuing to grow in the North, and

the unknown supremacy of federal power in the South – war began when Lincoln was elected

president. South Carolina warned the US union that they would break away if a republican

president (Lincoln) was elected, and he was in 1860. This election started the South’s cession

from the union. At this point war was enviable because slavery and abolitionism hate one another

and cannot coexist.

The expansion of the US into Western territories plays a huge role in the starting of the

civil war and is what set off the tension between North and South. If looked at from a moral

standpoint, the North was correct in not supporting the expansion of slavery onto a much larger
scale. It is wrong for a person to own another person because everyone is equal. Both sides went

to extremes in this case resulting in war, but were forced by one another to do so.

This account in the US history can be related to the nullification crisis and the bank war.

The North was angered with the South and vice versa. The South threatened to break away from

the union, just as they did during the expansion into the West and when Lincoln was elected.

However, before during the nullification crisis, South Carolina threatened but never followed

through breaking away, therefore prior to the civil war some did not believe the South would

truly break away from the union.