Slavery and Southern Politics

Slavery and Southern Politics

Introduction

Questions relating to the institution of slavery led to the sectional strife that eventually erupted in war. Most men and women at the time would have agreed with Abraham Lincoln's assertion in his second inaugural address that slavery "was, somehow, the cause of the war." Earlier, Alexander H. Stephens, the Confederacy's vice president, had proclaimed that slavery "was the immediate cause of the late rupture and the present revolution" to establish Southern independence.

Discussion

The framers of the U.S. Constitution had compromised regarding slavery, creating a democratic republic that sought to ensure its citizenry's freedoms while ...