Читать книгу Anglo-American Cultural Studies - Jody Skinner - Страница 49

A main problem caused by admission of new states to the Union was upsetting the balance in the SenateSenate, where each state is represented by two senators ( 5). As long as the number of slave and free states was equal, a balance of powerpower between the two groups in the Senate was maintained. To maintain this balance states were usually admitted in pairs starting with the MissouriMissouri CompromiseMissouri Compromise in 1820 and extending through the Compromise of 1850Compromise of 1850. The balance was finally lost in the 1850s.

not USA but CSACSAFinally states of what was (and still is) called the Deep South, spreading from South CarolinaSouth Carolina to TexasTexas, seceded from the Union and proclaimed themselves to be part of a new union, no longer the USA but the CSACSA, the Confederate States of AmericaConfederate States of America (CSA). Some border states were torn between their loyalty to preserving the Union and their laws, which allowed slavery. After VirginiaVirginia seceded from [44]the Union, part of the state seceded from Virginia to become the state of West VirginiaWest Virginia.

slavery, tariffs, right to secedeWe’ve now heard about some individual causes of the Civil War starting with the abolitionistabolitionist movement including John BrownBrown, John’s raid, the heroism of the conductors on the Underground Railroad like Harriet TubmanTubman, Harriet and Frederick DouglassDouglass, Frederick, the shock caused by Harriet Beecher StoweStowe’s portrayal of slavery in Uncle Tom’s CabinUncle Tom’s Cabin and by the Supreme CourtSupreme Court decision Dred Scot v.Sandford. All these aspects are connected to the slavery issue. We can add two other broad issues that also separated the two parts of the US. The southern states relied on agriculture and the need for low taxes on imported goods versus the northern states’ industrialization and their need for protection against imports from abroad. And there was one question that the North and the South answered very differently: Did one state have the right to secede from the Union? South CarolinaSouth Carolina believed it had the right to secede, and that is exactly where the first shots of the Civil War were heard.