|
The Georgia Platform was a statement executed by a Georgia Convention in Milledgeville, Georgia on December 10, 1850 in response to the Compromise of 1850. Supported by Unionists, the document affirmed the acceptance of the Compromise as a final resolution of the sectional slavery issues while declaring that no further assaults on Southern rights by the North would be acceptable. The Platform had political significance throughout the South. In the short term it was an effective antidote to secession, but in the long run it contributed to sectional solidarity and the demise of the Second Party System in the South. == Background == Sectional tensions over the issue of the westward expansion of slavery, previously resolved by the Missouri Compromise, were reawakened with the debate over Texas Annexation and the Mexican War. Texas Annexation was the major issue in the national elections of 1844, but, despite some signs of a sectional split, the election was resolved along the established party lines. Opposition to the Mexican War and, especially, opposition to acquiring new territory, also split largely along party lines. It was only with the introduction of the Wilmot Proviso in August 1846 that the national debate began to split along sectional lines. During the "prolonged deadlock of 1846-50" the idea of secession as a possible solution to Northern threats against slavery began to take root among more and more Southerners. 〔 Potter p. 122. Potter claimed (page 123) that as late as 1846, Southerners generally associated disunion with treason.〕 In December 1849 Congressman Alexander Stephens, the future vice-president of the Confederacy, wrote to his brother, "I find the feeling among the Southern members for a dissolution of the Union – if the antislavery () should be pressed to extremity – is becoming more general than at first."〔Potter p. 124〕 In the United States Congress the issues dividing North and South were debated ferociously, leading to the Compromise of 1850 that was intended to address all outstanding issues relating to slavery. After an early failure to pass a single omnibus bill, in September 1850 President Millard Fillmore signed the five separate bills that made up the compromise. Around the same time, radicals within the South pursued their own solution, leading to the Nashville Convention in June 1850 that some hoped would become a secessionist convention. The convention denounced the proposed compromise, but rejected secession over any territorial restrictions on slavery in favor of extending the Missouri Compromise line to the west coast. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Georgia Platform」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|