History of the United States

by John Clark Ridpath

Meaning of the Constitution.

THE most general cause of the civil war in the United States was the different construction put upon the Constitution by the people of the North and of the South. A difference of opinion existed as to how that instrument was to be understood. One party held that the Union of the States is indissoluble; that the States are subordinate to the central government; that the acts of Congress are binding on the States; and that all attempts at nullification and disunion are disloyal and treasonable. The other party held that the national Constitution is a compact between sovereign States; that for certain reasons the Union may be dissolved; that the sovereignty of the nation belongs to the individual States; that a State may annul an act of Congress; that the highest allegiance of the citizen is due to his own State; and that nullification and disunion are justifiable and honorable.

2. This question struck into the very heart of the government. It threatened to undo the whole civil structure of the United States. In the earlier history of the country the doctrine of State sovereignty was most advocated in New England. Afterwards the people of that section passed over to the advocacy of national sovereignty, while the people of the South took up the doctrine of State rights. As early as 1831 the right of nullifying an act of Congress was openly advocated in South Carolina. Thus it happened that the belief in State sovereignty became more prevalent in the South than in the North.

Systems of Labor.

3. A second cause of the civil war was the different system of labor in the North and in the South. In the former section the laborers were freemen; in the latter, slaves. In the South the theory was that capital should own labor; in the North that both labor and capital are free. In the beginning all the colonies had been slaveholding. In the Eastern and Middle States the system of slave-labor had been abolished. In the Northwestern Territory slavery was excluded from the beginning. Thus there came to be a dividing line drawn through the Union. Whenever the question of slavery was agitated, a sectional division would arise between the North and the South. The danger arising from this source was increased by several subordinate causes.

4. The first of these was the invention of the Cotton Gin to replace hand-labor in separating the fiber from the seeds of the cotton plant. It was invented in 1793 by Eli Whitney, of Massachusetts, and through its immediate adoption cotton suddenly became the most profitable of all the staples. In proportion to the increased profitableness of cotton, slave-labor grew in demand and slavery became an important and deep-rooted institution.

5. From this time onward, there was constant danger of disunion. In the Missouri Agitation of 1820-21, threats of dissolving the Union were freely made in both the North and the South. When the Missouri Compromise was enacted, it was the hope of Mr. Clay and his fellow-statesmen to save the Union by removing the slavery question from politics.

6. Next came the Nullification Acts of South Carolina. The Southern States had become cotton-producing; the Eastern States had given themselves to manufacturing. The tariff measures favored manufacturers at the expense of producers. Mr. Calhoun proposed to remedy the evil by annulling the laws of Congress; and another compromise was found necessary in order to allay the animosities which had been awakened.