The Civil War A Building Block Of The Constitution

The Civil War was a building block of the Constitution we have today. If the Civil War would not have been fought, the United States would look very different -- it would be divided, years behind in its addressing of racial issues, and certain Constitutional issues, especially involving states’ rights, would never have been resolved. After decades of heated tensions between the Northern and Southern states over state rights and federal authority, slavery and westward expansion it finally exploded into the Civil war on April 12, 1861. The presidential election of anti-slavery republican Abraham Lincoln in the year 1860 caused 7 southern states to secede from the union. After the first shots of the civil war were fired 4 more states joined†¦show more content†¦The congress then kept the peace and agreed on a two part compromise granting Missouri its request upon entering the union as a free state and also admitted Maine as a free state. The Missouri compromise also was a product of an amendment that was passed creating an imaginary line across the former Louisiana territory establishing the boundary of free and slave states. The Missouri Compromise held the union together for about 30 years until it was repelled by the Kansas-Nebraska act of 1854. The Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed by the U.S. Congress on May 30, 1854. It allowed people in the states of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether they did or did not allow slavery within their borders repelling the Compromise which prohibited slavery north of latitude 36 °30 ´. Three years later, the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, stating that congress was prohibited by the 5th amendment from depriving citizens from private properties such as slaves. Basically stating that even though the north has banned slavery, they are still required to return fleeing slaves to their rightful owners. Fort Sumter was the scene where it all went down. Located on Charleston Harbor in South Carolina was a fort meant to protect the state from amphibious attacks. U.S. Major Robert Anderson took over the unfinished fort not long after North Carolina Seceded from the Union. The Union forces