Question

pls help

How did Americans disagree over the role of federal and state governments before and during the civil war?

7th grade level pls

Answer 1

Here’s a clear, 7th-grade level explanation of how Americans disagreed about the powers of the federal (national) and state governments before and during the Civil War.

Key idea
- The main argument was over who should have more power: the national government or individual states. This argument became tied to whether slavery would be allowed and where it could spread.

Simple definitions
- Federal government: the national government that runs the whole country (President, Congress).
- State governments: the governments that run each state.
- Secession: when a state leaves the United States to become its own country.
- Nullification: the idea that a state can ignore a federal law it thinks is unfair.

Main disagreements before the war
- Slavery and where it could be allowed: Many Northern people wanted to stop slavery from spreading into new states and territories. Southern states wanted the right to allow slavery everywhere they moved. This made the balance of power in Congress very important.
- States’ rights vs. national power: Southern leaders said states should decide their own laws (including slavery). Northern leaders and many in Congress said the national government had the authority to make some rules for the whole country.
- Examples of fights over power:
- The Missouri Compromise (1820) and Compromise of 1850 were attempts to keep peace by deciding where slavery could exist.
- The Nullification Crisis (1832–33) was when South Carolina tried to ignore a federal tariff. President Andrew Jackson insisted the federal law stood.
- The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) let territories vote on slavery, which caused violent fights in Kansas (“Bleeding Kansas”).
- The Dred Scott decision (1857) said Congress could not ban slavery in the territories, which angered many in the North.

What happened when war started
- Southern states seceded (left the United States) and formed the Confederate States of America. Their leaders said states had the right to leave and to keep slavery.
- The Confederacy declared its own national government, but it also argued that states were mostly independent.
- Abraham Lincoln and the Union (Northern states) believed the United States must stay together. Lincoln said the federal government had the power to preserve the Union, even if that meant using force.
- The war made both governments stronger in some ways: the Confederacy used central power to run the war, and the Union expanded federal power to finance and fight the war (drafts, taxes, controlling railroads).
- In 1863 Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, using federal power to free enslaved people in the rebelling states. This changed the war goals to include ending slavery, not just saving the Union.

Why it mattered
- The disagreement about state vs. federal power was a major cause of the Civil War. Southern states believed leaving the Union protected their rights (especially the right to keep slavery). Northerners and Lincoln believed the Union must remain whole and that the federal government could stop the spread of slavery.

Short summary
- Before and during the Civil War, Americans argued about whether states or the national government should make the most important decisions. This argument was closely linked to the issue of slavery. Those disagreements eventually led Southern states to secede and the nation to fight a war over who had the final say.

If you want, I can make a simple timeline or write 5 key facts you could use on a school poster. Which would help most?