The Cause Of American Civil War: A Constitutional Crisis

After Independence, the United States framed the first written constitution in the human history. But its ambiguous provisions on slavery and other issues has brought endless arguments for the new Government. After the founding of the United States, the controversy that aroused by the slavery of the Federal Territory along with the continuing territorial expansion has led to split the country. The Compromise that passed by the Federal Congress has delayed instead of resolving the crisis. After the mid-1850s, Secession has become the only solution when the Federal Government had no idea to solve all the problems on slavery. According to the causes and nature of the Civil War, I characterized it as a Constitutional Crisis.This paper is divided into four chapters. Chapter 1 briefly introduced the slavery provisions of the Constitution; Chapter 2 outlined the early constitutional issues of the slavery; Chapter 3 discussed a series of controversies and their nature that caused by the slavery of Federal Territory; The last chapter elaborated the Constitutional causes of the Secession and the Federal government's response.