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Was the institution of Slavery in the southern states responsible for the civil war? Discuss with examples.

1.introduction
Slavery in America began when the first African slaves were brought to the North American colony of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, to aid in the production of lucrative crops such as tobacco. Slavery was practiced throughout the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries, and African-American slaves helped build the economic foundations of the new nation. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 solidified the central importance of slavery to the South’s economy. By the mid-19th century, America’s westward expansion, along with a growing abolition movement in the North, provoked a great debate over slavery that tore the nation apart in the bloody American Civil War (1861-65). While the revolution of 1776-1783 created the United States, the civil war of 1861-1865 determined what kind of nation it would be.


2.Foundation of Slavery in America
In the early 17th century, European settlers in North America turned to African slaves as a cheaper, more plentiful labor source than indentured servants (who were mostly poorer Europeans). After 1619, when a Dutch ship brought 20 Africans ashore at the British colony of Jamestown, Virginia, slavery spread throughout the American colonies. In the 17th and 18th centuries, black slaves worked mainly on the tobacco, rice and indigo plantations of the southern coast. After the American Revolution (1775-83), many colonists (particularly in the North, where slavery was relatively unimportant to the economy) began to link the oppression of black slaves to their own oppression by the British, and to call for slavery’s abolition. After the war’s end, however, the new U.S. Constitution tacitly acknowledged the institution, counting each slave as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of taxation and representation in Congress and guaranteeing the right to repossess any “person held to service or labor” (an obvious euphemism for slavery).
In the late 18th century, with the land used to grow tobacco nearly exhausted, the South faced an economic crisis, and the continued growth of slavery in America seemed in doubt. In 1793, a young Yankee schoolteacher named Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, a simple mechanized device that efficiently removed the seeds. His device was widely copied, and within a few years the South would transition from the large-scale production of tobacco to that of cotton, a switch that reinforced the region’s dependence on slave labor.
Slavery itself was never widespread in the North, though many of the region’s businessmen grew rich on the slave trade and investments in southern plantations. Between 1774 and 1804, all of the northern states abolished slavery, but the so-called “peculiar institution” remained absolutely vital to the South. Though the U.S. Congress outlawed the African slave trade in 1808, the domestic trade flourished, and the slave population in the U.S. nearly tripled over the next 50 years. By 1860 it had reached nearly 4 million, with more than half living in the cotton-producing states of the South.

3.Slavery as a factor for outbreak of war


i. Slavery

The burning issue that led to the disruption of the union was the debate over the future of slavery. That dispute led to secession, and secession brought about a war in which the Northern and Western states and territories fought to preserve the Union, and the South fought to establish Southern independence as a new confederation of states under its own constitution. The agrarian South utilized slaves to tend its large plantations and perform other duties. Slavery was interwoven into the Southern economy The states of the North, meanwhile, one by one had gradually abolished slavery. A steady flow of immigrants, especially from Ireland and Germany during the potato famine of the 1840s and 1850s, ensured the North a ready pool of laborers, many of whom could be hired at low wages, diminishing the need to cling to the institution of slavery.

ii. Abolitionist Movement
A group of people emerged, who wanted to achieve emancipation of all slaves and the ending of racial segregation and discrimination. The American Anti-Slavery movement was formed in 1833 and slavery was declared a sin. Through the spread of literature, the movement gained national attention and slavery became an intensely debated national issue. Some prominent figures of this movement were William Garrison, Fredrick Douglas and Harriet Stowe.

iii. Underground Railroad
Some abolitionists helped slaves to escape to the North with help from people along secret routes called the "Underground Railroad". To the slave holding states this meant Northerners wanted to choose which part of the constitution they would enforce while expecting the southerners to honor entire document. The most famous activists of the underground railroad was 'Harriet Tubman', a nurse and spy in the civil war and known as the Moses of her people


iv. The Missouri Compromise
The Missouri compromise was an effort by congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of the Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery would be permitted. The congress speculated that admission of Missouri as a slave state would upset the balance, it would also set a precedent for congressional acquiescence in the expansion of slavery. The bitter debate lasted less than a year, Southerners, like Senator WilliamPinkney of Maryland held that new states have the same freedom as the original 13 and were thus free to choose slavery if they wished. While Northerners led by Senator Rufus King on New york argued that congress had the power to prohibit slavery in a new state.
A compromise Bill was worked out by henry Clay known as Missouri Compromise in which Missouri was admitted to the Union as Slave State and balanced by Maine as free state.

v.Kansas Nebraska Act
In 1854, the Missouri Compromise was repealed by Kansas and Nebraska Act. In this act the question of slave state or free state was left to the inhabitants. After this a mad race started between North and South to send free men and slaves in Kansas to get the verdict of the public in their favour . as the Northerners outnumbered the Southerners, Kansas was admitted as a free state in 1861.

vi. Dred Scott case
Dred Scott was a slave who sought citizenship through the American legal system, and whose case eventually ended up in the Supreme Court. The famous Dred Scott Decision in 1857 denied his request stating that no person with African blood could become a U.S. citizen. Besides denying citizenship for African-Americans, the Missouri compromise was also declared unconstitutional by the supreme court in Dred Scott decision. Which ruled that congress did not have the authority to prohibit slavery in the territories.


vii. Election of Abraham Lincoln

“Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves
Abraham Lincoln

The election of the anti-slavery republican Abraham Lincoln as president in 1860 caused seven southern states to secede from the Union to form the confederate states of America.
Abraham Lincoln openly said that this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free. It was well known to the Southerners that Lincoln stood for abolition, of slavery.

"Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself."
Abraham Lincoln

Conclusion





Q:Critically examine the significance of the issue of slavery in American History?
is the above outline correct for this question?

You did not conclude. In the end you should mention the events of civil war and consequently the abolition of slavery on paper but discrimination and segregation continued for a long time.

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you mean the events of Civil war as well? shall i give headings for the civil war and its outcomes?
or a paragraph in the conclusion narrowing down the events of civil war will work?

because the question is asking for role of slavery in erupting civil war. this is what i understood.
Was the institution of Slavery in the southern states responsible for the civil war? Discuss with examples.

The above question need a critical analysis?




Sir Naveed, did help me to understand the critical analysis pattern. but i am lacking the basics, in what type of question we must include critical analysis or we can include it in every question?