leading events

Because the northern and southern parts of the United States has such distinctive goals and desires, states rights were upheld. Such as, the north believed in a strong national government. While the south believed that states had the right to rule themselves. States rights basically stated political powers that were reserved for the U.S state government rather than the federal government. Such as now in present time, but the U.S state government lays down general, more basic laws, while federal government are only allowed to decide on much lighter subject laws within their own borders.  Instead, during this time period, states’ rights allowed states to decide on decisions such as slavery inside their own borders. This later affected the United States negatively by unintentionally giving states more power than they bargained for. States held so much power that the federal government was unable to tax states for revenue. Consequentially, this also gave states the ability to nullify laws, or invalidate any federal laws which that state has deemed unconstitutional. States being able to nullify laws, as they pleased, lead to the nullification crisis. It was the sectional crisis, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson, by south Carolinas 1832 ordinance of nullification. South Carolina was the first to threaten to secede over tariffs amid the “nullification controversy” in 1832. To go more into to detail, the south’s perspective was that it opposed this tariff because it took away profits from cotton farmers based on Great Britain’s vengeful on cotton. The northerners supported tariffs to aid their nestling manufacturing industry against the cheaper products that could be sent to the United States by Great Britain. To settle the tensions, Henry clay proposed the Missouri compromise. It was an agreement between the north and the south to balance of power between slave and Free states. Maine entered the union as a free state whilst Missouri entered as a slave state. Missouri’s southern border is what is what separated slave states from Free states. Following was the compromise of 1850 stating another agreement between northern and southern states admitting California as a Free State and New Mexico and Utah could vote on slavery. This compromise also abolished slavery in Washington DC and stop slave trading in the District of Columbia. Georgia’s way of accepting the compromise was the Georgia platform, declaring that as long as the north honored the federal fugitive slave act, Georgia would remain in the union. The Missouri compromise had been broken once before and was shattered again by the Kansas-Nebraska act, permitting the possibility of slavery above the 36’ 30’ parallel. Stephen a. Douglas, senator of Illinois, was the man behind the Kansas Nebraska act, in who believed in popular sovereignty or the ability for the states to decide for themselves if they would be a slave or free state. 

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