The decade leading up to the Civil War featured tenacious animosity between politicians. \u00a0Southern proslavery figures constantly butted heads with their Northern counterparts, and politicians pushing for compromise had extremely limited success in appeasing both groups. \u00a0In both Davis’s and Wilentz’s accounts, slavery legislation seemed to favor the South. \u00a0The North appeared willing to allow slavery to continue where it already existed and simply wanted to slow or halt its expansion. \u00a0The proslavery South, however, never seemed satisfied and continually pleaded for more slavery. \u00a0The repeated threat of disunion revealed excessive Southern discontent and lack of adaptability.<\/p>\n

The South came out of the Missouri Crisis with Missouri as a slave state and even maintained the possibility of more slave states in the future despite growing criticism of the institution. \u00a0This criticism was even limited by the proslavery gag rule. \u00a0Nonetheless, the South kept battling for more slave states, best evidenced by the blatant disregard for the Missouri compromise in the debate of Kansas’s status. David Brion Davis provided a hilarious consequence of overly aggressive pursuits for more slave influence by Jefferson Davis. \u00a0Jefferson Davis’ push for “federal protection of slave property” alienated the North and split the Democratic party (293). \u00a0This split allowed for Southerners’ worst nightmare to come true as Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election as the first outspoken opponent to slavery.<\/p>\n

Southern resistance to popular sovereignty, essentially the only proposed compromise, marked the South as more stubborn. \u00a0In addition, no Northern legislature prior to 1860 infringed on slaveholders’ right to own slaves. \u00a0The Fugitive Slave Act, however, significantly affected and altered lives of antislavery proponents in the North. \u00a0It was no surprise that this Act stirred up the strongest opposition, as it inherently imposed Southern ideals in the North. \u00a0Not to mention its inhumane principles. \u00a0The North seemed much more open to compromise, but this policy clearly crossed the line.<\/p>\n

The South came off as ungrateful and greedy in antebellum politics. \u00a0It had enjoyed prolonged dominance and still maintained its most prized possession, slavery. \u00a0Whether its vigor stemmed from Anglophobia, as WEKING suggests (http:\/\/sites.davidson.edu\/his141\/a-great-experiment-british-abolition-and-southern-paranoia\/), racism, or sheer greed, the South should have been content with the continuation of such a controversial and widely hated practice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The decade leading up to the Civil War featured tenacious animosity between politicians. \u00a0Southern proslavery figures constantly butted heads with their Northern counterparts, and politicians pushing for compromise had extremely limited success in appeasing both groups. \u00a0In both Davis’s and Wilentz’s accounts, slavery legislation seemed to favor the South. \u00a0The North appeared willing to allow … <\/p>\n

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