The Davis Administration - Dissertation Example

The Davis Administration One of the biggest arguments in the founding of the United s and an argument, which pitted neighbor against neighbor was the attitudes and use of slavery. In the South, slavery was used to support the only economy that the South had: agriculture. Therefore, the South represented a more conservative culture, whereas the North where the industrial revolution had changed life was more progressive. The balance of power in the government relied on the balance of states that had slaves versus the states that prohibited slavery.

As a result of the Union winning the war against the Confederacy, the 13th amendment abolished slavery and freed all of the slaves. This had lasting implications that carried farther into history because even though they were no longer slaves, questions as to what they would do now were raised. One of the newer states to enter the Union that had slavery was that of Texas. Texas became a state after the Mexican-American War. Being in the South, it had a great deal of economic power in agriculture, therefore it used slaves to be the engine to drive this.

After the Civil War, this changed and required the redrafting of the Constitution. The first constitution proclaimed slavery legal and emphasized the rights of the state over those of the federal government. The Davis administration made it illegal for states to have slavery as well as for new states that were going to join the Union to have slaves. Therefore, the Texas constitution was rewritten in order to abolish slavery so that it could be readmitted into the Union. Even though slavery was abolished and blacks were now considered equal, there was still segregation between black and whites in education, work, public, etc.

Some would argue that even though they were free, the new slaves would find harder lives with this newfound freedom. As the Union continued to expand west and as new states were admitted, the issue of slavery soon became more distant and the ideas and actions of civil rights arose. With blacks now being equal to rights, there were still obstacles that would have to be overcome dealing with segregation, racism, etc.