The hole that the Constitution left for states rights and the nature of the Union became a deep gash and eventually a dividing line for the United States. Although the Constitution was meant to bring together the country, the unresolved issues favored both sides of the debate. This made compromise impossible, war inevitable, and the collapse of the Union that it had created.
For nearly 75 years the United States of America was a nation that prided itself in its ability to compromise. It was over these 75 years that the unresolved issues of the Constitution had been boiling to the brink of war. The biggest of these unresolved issues, was that of states rights vs. central government power. Arguing that each state prior to joining the Union was completely independent, Southerners agreed that it is entirely their responsibility before God and the world that they allow slavery among them. The Constitution was no longer an agreement between all States, it had now become a central power set up above and over the States. The disintegration of state sovereignty and the rise of central government power aided to the collapse of the Union. .
As a result of the fugitive slave law and the Dred Scott case, it was thought by many Northerners that any law so immoral must be broken. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best in his address to the fugitive slave law, "The fugitive slave law is a statute which enacts the crime of kidnapping, a crime on one footing with arson and murder. A man's right to liberty is as inalienable as his right to life." Emerson also thought that a constitution with such a law, would never stand, and that disunion was inevitable. Although the Constitution doesn't clearly state that slavery is immoral, it uses words intelligently and specifically that meet the necessities of slavery.
This then brought about the question of the nature of the Union itself. Were the states a permanent member, or a voluntary independent? In the South, the Constitution was viewed as an agreement between several states, and that they could lawfully and peacefully withdraw from the Union at will.
DBQ: Disunion During the 1850's, the supreme and absolute Constitution, which had previously seen no topic it couldn't resolve or illuminate in the eyes of its interpreters, was faced with its toughest, unrelenting foe; the issue of slavery, and the locations that it existed in or was desired to exist in. ...
When the United States Constitution was ratified in 1787, it was meant to unite the colonies, protect the rights and liberties of American citizens, and establish laws common throughout the nation. But by the 1850's, it had begun to tear apart the Union it had been created to bring together. In this turbulent period of history, the issue of slavery was pulling the North and South farther and farther apart. The North fought to contain slavery, in the interest of balancing power in the Senate and the Electoral College, and abolitionists in the free states wanted to do away with slavery a...
"By the 1850's the Constitution, originally framed as an instrument of national unity, had become a source of sectional discord and tension and ultimately contributed to the failure of the union it had created". Because of the lack of information in the Constitution, the United States lost its sense of unity. The Constitution contributed to the failure of the union it created by lacking information on slavery and secession. Slavery was a major issue that the states could not agree on. When the issue of slavery came up, the North had a completely different opinion than the South. ...
