In the 1840s, there were more immigrants coming to America than ever before.

These

immigrants mostly went to the North, giving the North more power in the House of

Representatives. This made the South nervous, so they needed to keep the balance in the Senate

and gain any other political power they could. The 1840s to the 1860s was a high point of the

first Industrial Revolution. The North was growing increasingly industrial, while the South was

growing increasingly agricultural. The North and West were also being connected through new

canals and railroads. Growing cotton depletes soil of nutrients, so plantations needed to keep

moving westward to new land to grow cotton, and maintain high profits. The North did not want

slavery to expand, so small farmers could settle in the West, so there would be more need for

industrial products, like the steel plow. Since the Second Great Awakening, abolitionism had

also been increasing at the same rate as the need for slavery. Controversy over the extension of

slavery into western territories in the period 1845 to 1861 contributed to the coming on the Civil

War through the conflict for economic and political power, but the extension of slavery was not

the only contributor to the Civil War, as the moral division of abolitionism also contributed to

the Civil War.

The Election of 1860 was an example of conflict for political power that led to the Civil

War. In the election, Abraham Lincoln was the Republican nominee, and Stephon Douglas and

John Breckinridge were the Democrat nominees. The Democrats were split because in the

Lincoln-Douglas debates, Douglas said that although the Supreme Court said slaves could not be

taken away at all because they are property, states could make laws that are unfriendly to slavery,

to keep it out of the state. Since he said this, the Southern Democrats voted for Breckinridge, and

the Northern Democrats voted for Douglas. Since the Democrats were split, Lincoln won. Before

the election, South Carolina claimed that if Lincoln won, the state would secede, because the
republicans were opposed to the expansion of slavery. South Carolina did not want to lose more

political power to the North, because Lincoln supported a Northern view of slavery. When

Lincoln won, South Carolina seceded, and several other states soon followed, splitting America

into the Union and Confederacy, and the Civil War soon followed.

Bleeding Kansas is an example of conflict over political and economic power that

contributed to the Civil War. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in 1854, and it split the

Nebraska territory into Kansas and Nebraska, and the issue of slavery in both would be decided

by popular sovereignty. This repealed the Missouri Compromise, angering Northerners. It was

assumed that Kansas would be a slave state and Nebraska a free state. To settle the question of

slavery in Kansas, proslavery and antislavery forces fought violently, and proslavery “ruffians”

came from Missouri to vote for slavery and fight. The two groups fought over the expansion of

slavery because whichever section of the country, the North or the South, was able to win Kansas

could also expand into the state, and use it to increase economic profits and because a slave state

would give the South more power in the Senate, balancing political power for them. The city of

Lawrence was burned by proslavery raiders. As retaliation, abolitionist, John Brown and his

supporters killed five slavery supporters with broad swords at Pottawatomie Creek. Massive

retaliation and violent occurred in the state for years. This conflict increased tensions in the

Union, and led to further division in the country, and showing the possibility of war, leading to

the Civil War.

John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry shows how the moral division of slavery was a

large contributor to the Civil War. Abolitionism had been increasing at the same rate as slavery

since the Second Great Awakening, and John Brown was a radical abolitionist who also had a

large role in Bleeding Kansas. In 1859, John Brown and his followers seized an arsenal in the
Virginian town Harper’s Ferry, killing innocent people. Brown hoped that he could start and arm

a large slave rebellion, but no slaves came to him. He was arrested and hanged for murder and

treason. Because of his attack, the South became fearful of an attack from the North, and the

South began to arm themselves for war.

In the early 1800s Missouri wanted to become a slave state from the Louisiana Territory.

The North would not allow it to be a slave state, and South would not allow it to be a free state,

because it would upset the balance of the Senate. Henry Clay created the Missouri Compromise.

Missouri would become a slave state, Maine would be made a free state, and in the Louisiana

Territory, slavery would be allowed south of the 36 30’ line and prohibited north of it. This

settled the conflict. This shows that in the 1840s and 1850s there was a fear over political

balance just like in the early 1800s.