The Civil War Was A Long Term Issue - 1622 Words

The Civil War was a momentous time in American history. America was a country divided with two regions waging war on each other. The north and the south were split apart into the Union and the Confederacy. South Carolina was the first to secede from the Union and was followed by ten more states. The complexity as to why eleven states seceded from the Union has been a question that historians have explored for years. Explanations such as political and economic issues have been uncovered. Slavery has also been an explanation as to why the Civil War was caused. Historians have looked into the years before the Civil War to discover that slavery was a long term issue that caused many disputes and compromises. From how to give power to slave†¦show more content†¦The first time an issue appeared was at the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. There, delegates argued over how to count African Americans in a state’s population for apportionment in the House of Representatives. Th e north, who had already abolished slavery in some states, proposed to only count free persons. This idea would hurt the south because the majority of their population were enslaved African Americans. The resolution provided was called the three-fifths compromise; every five slaves would count as three people. This solution worked for about two decades until the United States doubled its size with the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 (Earle 9). Since the United States had more territory to settle after the Louisiana Purchase, the north and south were both attempting to add free states and slave states to the country. There was an equal amount of slave states and free states in the Union until Missouri applied to be a slave state. The addition of Missouri would make for twelve slave holding states and eleven free states. The disproportion of slave states to free states caused an uproar in the nation over the expansion of slavery into the new territory. The compromise to this issue was comp osed by Speaker of the House, Henry Clay. Clay proposed, â€Å"†¦and the said state, when formed, shall be admitted into the Union, upon an equal footing with the original states, in all respects whatsoever.† (Transcript of Missouri 1). The state of Missouri