Constitution Responsibility For Sectional Discord and Secession
When the founding fathers drafted the Constitution of the United States of America, the convention became divided over the continuation of slavery within the nation. Northern delegates, who already detested the institution on moral grounds, were further opposed to it due to added concessions to southern states (Document 1). One concession allowed for slaves to be counted as three-fifths of a person for representational purposes, and therefore gave the South an advantage in the House of Representatives, which assigned number of votes based on size of population. From the southern perspective these concession were necessary to preserve an economic system they were completely dependent on. Southern delegates went so far as to concede control on commercial regulation in exchange for the protection of slavery. The threat of southern delegates abandoning the convention forced northerners to compromise on this issue in order to ratify the Constitution. While the delegate’s compromise established initial unity between the North and South, it set out a precedent for sectional concessions, which became increasingly intolerable to the other side. Increased sectional tensions eventually resulted in southern secession. The debate over slavery arose again after the Mexican-American War, when Congress had to decide the status of new territory acquired from Mexico. Although the Constitution gave Congress no ability to rid the nation of slavery, it allowed for Congress to determine the qualification future state's admission. This made it possible for a majority of either section to manipulate a new state's status through making the abolition or the protection of slavery necessary for the state to become organized. An earlier compromise in 1820, was the result of a struggle for sectional control over the status of Missouri. Congress choose to appease both sides by admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. The compromise created a westward line dividing the