Civil War Topic

Okay our debate now is going to take place way back when in the 1851, at this time, the North And South parts of America were rapidly accelerating to the Civil War. Here is some background to what was going down- read everything…. (In real life this time was called the Crisis of the 1850's and the result was the Compromise of 1850)

The entire southern economy depended on Slavery. Especially after the cotton gin was invented, slavery boomed in the Deep South. Two thirds of all of exports from America was cotton. Most of the wealth in the South was invested in slavery. Thus, Southerners fiercely defended slavery. To defend it, they came up with the pro slavery argument.

This is the main ideas with the pro- slavery argument-

Slavery is the only way that both whites and blacks can live together

The conditions for slaves is much better than the condition of factory workers in the North.

Cotton is key to American prosperity

The North is filled with corrupt greedy people, and the slavery system is the only way to avoid that way of life. Also, city life

is dirty and horrible and the southerners did not want that.

Slaves are unfit to take care of themselves

Slaves are biologically inferior

The Southern politicians wanted to see slavery expand so that there could be more slave states in the Senate. They were always fearful of the Senate outlawing slavery. If slavery was for some reason outlawed, the entire Southern economy would fall apart.

In the north, the free- soil idealogy became the main basis for attack of slavery,

THIS IDEALOGY WAS NOT MORALLY AGAINST SLAVERY BECAUSE IT WAS WRONG AND WHAT IT DID TO BLACKS

Slavery caused stagnation in social classes it made equal opportunity difficult to attain. Slavery preserved an entrenched aristocracy, which there was.

While the Northern economy was booming with new industries, the Southern economy was stagnating

They claimed that the Southern aristocrats wanted to expanded slavery, thus replacing the equal opportunity economy of the north with the closed aristocratic economy of the South. Thus, slaver could not expand.

Okay those were the two ideologies behind the North and South’s position on slavery, now im going to summarize how these ideas clashed in a series of events

In the early 1800’s America was expanding its borders. New states were being added to the union everyday. In the Missouri Compromise, the politicians of America had decided to extend a line halfway through America and all states North of it would be free states and all states South of it would be slave states. But, after the Mexican War in 1848ish, new land was added to America. The state of slavery in this new land was undecided. Most Northerners wanted that all states gained from Mexico should be free-states. The South fiercely fought this idea. They wanted slavery to exist in the new land. With the California gold rush, California had enough people in it to become a part of the Union. There was a lot of controversy on how California should be accepted into the Union.

Not only California could be accepted into the union but other free states could potentially come as well. This would lead to a majority of the states in the Senate to be free states, that would be a nightmare for Southerners. Some people wanted the Missouri Compromise Line to be extended, while others wanted the states themselves to decide on the issue on slavery based on how many slave owners and non slave owners there were.

To make things work, Northerners were trying to abolish slavery in Washington D.C

And, to make things even more worse, Northerners passed laws in which Fugitive Slaves (slaves who ran to the north to escape slavery) would not be hunted down by the police and returned to their owners. This was a direct violation of the constitution which already had Fugitive Slave Clause that made sure escaped slaves would come back to their owner. These laws were called Personal Liberty Laws.

Okay with all this anti-slavery forces working, the South was really really angry and they were even talking of seccession and forming their own country. Sooooo it’s the role of the North to make the Southerners happy and not leave cause if they did that would be really bad (as the Civil War shows). At the same time it is the role of all the Southern delegates to protect slavery.

With that being said, lets assign states, MAKE SURE TO BRING A PLACARD TO THE MEETING WITH YOUR STATES NAME ON IT. AND BRING A POSITION PAPER BECAUSE IF YOU DON’T YOU HAVE ALMOST NO CHANCE OF GOING TO CONFERENCES WHERE WE MEET WITH OTHER SCHOOLS AND DEBATE. The position paper should include your senator’s stance on the issue and what you think should happen to the new states. Also, briefly talk about if there is slavery in your country. A really good source to use in doing your research is the www.senate.gov and of course wikipedia.org. It would be smart to do a little extra research on everything. And, use your American History Textbook if you have it and go to page 359.

North

Massachusetts- Kevin Allan & Julia Kelley

Pennsylvania- Tushar Swamy

Ohio- Ayesha

Iowa- Divya

New York- Rabya Saraf

Maine- Varun

Rhode Island- Alex Polyak

Vermont- Faisal Waged

Indiana- Mike Rabinovsky

Illinois- Simon Choi

Connecticut- Kevin Nayer

New Jersey- Olivia Domba

Michigan- Hanah Yoo

New Hampshire- Anuj Desai

South

Alabama- Alex Falcon

South Carolina- Jen Mo & Josh Eiinis

Kentucky- T2 (me)

Virginia- Julie Sun

North Carolina- Mujtaba & Michael Bogen

Missouri- Eli Schwarchchild (I spelled your name way wrong haha)

Georgia- Omer Zaidi

Louisisiana- Alex Polynak

Tennessee- Nick Kondratiev

Delaware- Bassel

Mississippi- Tareq

Texas- Marius Bernotas

Zackory Taylor- President of the U.S- Eli Keimach (Eli you die of a violent stomach cancer in 1850 so you cant come to the second meeting... just kidding haha)

Millard Fillmore- Vice President- Simon Choi