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Sectional Aggression pre-Civil War
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In almost every major controversy there are no clear solutions and no easy answers to settle the intricate problems that arise from conflicting points of views. The North and South controversy was no different in that there were two very different points of views trying to find some kind of middle ground to bridge a gulf that had been widening for quite some time. There were extremists on both sides who would have rather seen the Union come apart than compromise, but they were the minority in this complex web that had been spinning ever since the inception of The Constitution. Each side thought that their rights were being infringed upon, and both were accused of sectional aggression. Different pieces of legislation and events actually made both claims legitimate. The North was not right or wrong nor was the South,. They embodied two very different ideologies based on sectional interests and differences that started to become very apparent in the 1830's and 40's Since there was not a strong centralized government, the republic was brought together by the political parties. The Whigs and the Democrats made up The Second Party System where economic topics were the issue and not sectional ones. Some Whigs were for slavery others were against it. The same was true for the Democrats. When the American Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1833 it created a snowball effect that got bigger and bigger and finally hit the South square in the face in the 1860's. It was the North’s call for abolition that put the South on the defensive and started to take what was once just a geographical difference and turn it into an ideological difference. A small crack was starting to form in the newly made glass that was America, and it would only get larger until finally it shattered. The North and the South started moving away from each other socially and economically around the 1850's. The South stayed agrarian while the North moved towards manufacturing. These differing trends can be traced back to slavery. The South’s very livelihood was in their export crops and those in turn depended upon the labor of slaves. They did not have a need for growth or industrialization of any sort, nor did they desire one. The North on the other hand stressed public education and urbanization. With two very different perspectives on life in general it was only a matter of time before the two titans finally clashed. Polk unknowingly sounded the first bell in the long match between the titans with his aggressive expansionist policy. While the war with Mexico was justified under the banner of “Manifest Destiny”; many deep-rooted problems that had laid just below the surface came floating to the top.
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