North versus South – U.S. to 1877

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In this week the main topic was Irish immigrants and their involvement in the civil war. It is very questionable to why the Irish chose to join the confederates in their fight for slavery, and the reading throws out numerous reason why this choice made sense although most “were not slave holders but young, impoverished, unskilled workers.” (Joyce 185) The overall reason behind the Irish choice was their knowledge on the need to be included in a group. In their homeland, they were excluded by the English and terribly mistreated as laws prohibited them from “property ownership, jury trial, the vote, and even a Catholic education.” (Joyce 186) Being the lowest of the low before, the Irish knew that they needed to be accepted socially in America in order to not be put in the same position as they were in their homeland. I feel this aligns to what my classmate AlKarout said in her post as she spoke on how the Irish played on slavery to create their identity in the south.

To go along with their mistreatment, the nativists of the north attacked the Irish immigrants; On the contrary, the southern Catholics accepted them. The Nativist attacks brought the thoughts “that social inclusion mattered as much in America as it had in the land they left behind.”(Joyce 193) On the other hand, the churches of the south offered “social services” to the impoverished Irish in times of need like the epidemic of 1852, and these essential moments were essential to gaining the support of these immigrants. (Joyce 190) Without these churches the Irish would have lacked things like hospital care, money for burials, orphanages, and, most important, a sense of belonging to some group.

A final reason pointed out in the reading was the economic competition between the free blacks and the working Irish. They struggled to battle for the same jobs until the Irish pushed to eliminate free black competition from “exclusively white realm of free labour.” (Joyce 188) With these groups battling for jobs, it makes sense that the Irish would support slavery. Without slavery it multiplies the number of people they have to compete with for the few occupations that the impoverished had the chance of getting.

In The Rise of American Democracy, Wilentz describes the birth and effects of the Wilmot Proviso. This Proviso was introduced to the House by a representative from Pennsylvania. It would create a law that decreed, “‘neither slavery nor involuntary service shall ever exist’ in any territories acquired from Mexico as a result of the war”(Wilentz 316). Obviously this stirred controversy with anyone and everyone supporting slavery and its spread westward. If this were to make it through as a bill, not only would slavery be confined to the southeastern United States, but eventually, slaveholders would lose a considerable amount of power in Congress. Abolitionists would score a major win and the fall of slavery would be accelerated. The Senate did not manage to pass the Proviso in the same session but the House passed a more extensive version during the next session and the Senate again had the chance to vote on it. Calhoun introduced legislation combating the anti slavery bill and declared that it discriminated against states. Soon, the entire nation and all of the parties and smaller factions took stands for or against the Proviso. Both the Democrats and Whigs had to divide North to South because of their interests in slavery.

The reason these divisions are so important lies in future events we already know will happen. Real lines were drawn between free and slave states and the same lines cut through united parties in Washington. Because of Wilmot’s Proviso, “Calhoun…launched a movement for southern rights and unity, which inspired anti-Proviso mass meetings across the South” (Wilentz 319). Did these meetings foreshadow a very real threat of a Confederacy? Though it’d be over another decade before the Civil War, an argument could be made that this movement is one of the first real signs of the South versus North hostile attitude. In Spedwards’s post, it is recognized that westward expansion and the expansion are linked and gravely debated in Congress. I agree that the two cannot be easily separated, if at all. By expanding, the US has to decide, slavery or no slavery. Another decision could be to continue kicking the can down the road and pairing every free state with a slave state. But the Proviso ignited tensions and lit the path ahead that was destined for a split between those who depended on slavery and those who would stop at nothing to end it.

Tag: North versus South

The Mouth of the South

The Foreshadowing of the Proviso